Preview

Eudora Welty's A Worn Path

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
522 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Eudora Welty's A Worn Path
Worn path essay

In the short story “A worn path” written by Eudora Welty one interesting character is Phoenix.She is loving,daring and decisive.One technique used in the short story to show the reader why Phoenix is an important character is the third person narrative point of view.This short story is about the determination of a grandmother and how much she had sacrificed for the wellbeing of her grandchild.She has toface different kinds of terrain (hills,forests,fields) along with her already decrepit age.

Phoenix is loving.She is loving becase she beared many obstacles so her grandchilds throat could be cured.For example when she waked through swamps,hillls and jumgles just to go to the city for her grandchilds medecine.This is also shown
…show more content…
I think this technique helps to show readers how determined Phoenix is.It also shows that phoenix will face any challenge to pursue her goal.

One technique used by the author to show the importancte of Phoenix as character is when she shows Phoenix’s difficulties in depth.This tells us how perservering her character is.For example when Eudora wrote how Phoenix’s dress got caught on the tree and how long it took for Phoenix to take it off the tree.She also said “seem like there is chain about my feet, time I get this far”.This technique helps to show the readers allt he complications Phoenix had on her way.

In conclusion the short story “A worn path” by Eudora Welty is about a main character called Phoenix Jackson. She is loving,daring and decisisve.One technique used by the author is when she expalined why the title is “a worn path.”This is because Phoenix has used this route to go to the town that it has become “worn out” or used to much.I think that this shows the readers why the title is “a worn path” and gives the readers an insight to life in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    It was December, around Christmas time, in the 1940s. Children were running and playing in the snow. It was during the time at the end of the Civil War. After reading Eudora Welty’s, “A Worn Path,” and understanding the story we must consider an old Negro woman name Phoenix Jackson, a worn rough path in Natchez that she traveled, and the prejudices she had to endure to get medication for her sick grandson.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty is a short story about an elderly woman by the name of Phoenix Jackson. Eudora Welty has a way of cutting to the chase, but is also clear that she loves her characters. Phoenix is a memorable character because she is full of love. One can admire her perseverance and her willingness to sacrifice for someone she loves. Welty shows us, rather than telling us. As we read along, it is almost like we are walking with Phoenix down the path. In spite of being an elderly woman, Phoenix Jackson does not use loneliness and racism as an excuse.…

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Montag illustrates passion by thinking of all of the time invested by those who wrote all of the books he was told to burn. He states, "Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up." (Bradbury 24). Montag is empathetic, and realizes how much effort was invested in those books. This realization creates a fire burning passion which drives Montag throughout his mission. Phoenix shares this trait with Montag, and this quote summarizes her passion. She speaks of her grandson saying, "He suffer and it don't seem to put him back at all. He got a sweet look. He going to last. He wear a little patch-quilt and peep out, holding his mouth open like a little bird. I remembers so plain now. I not going to forget him again, no, the whole enduring time." (Welty 93). She thinks of her grandson and you can feel how passionate her love is for him. She will never forget him the whole enduring time. The pain she endures on her long trips through the wilderness is overcome and forgotten about because she is doing it for her grandson. While thinking of him, she says he will last, and this passion for him drives her to overcome any adversity…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eudora Welty's short story "A Worn Path" takes place on an early December morning which deals with a very elderly and frail black woman, Phoenix; and the hardships inherent in her life. Phoenix Jackson is the main character, she is characterized as a strong poor elderly woman because of her appearance, personality and determination. For example, the narrator states, that Phoenix wore “a dark striped dress reaching down to her shoe tops, and an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks, with a full pocket: all neat and tidy, but every time she took a step she might have fallen over her shoelaces, which dragged from her unlaced shoes " (475). The dark striped dress and long apron made of sugar sacks symbolizes poverty because of her hardships in life; this is the type of clothing most Negro women slaves wore back in the slavery days. The darkness of her dress represents her state of depression. The stripes on her dress symbolizes the prison bars showing she was held captive as a slave for some time.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Now you go on home, Granny.” In addition, the man laughed at Phoenix multiple times and even called her an old colored person, yet all those insults did not stop her. She was determined to travel to the city, so she did not let this man stop her. In addition to determination, Phoenix is very loving and caring. This is proven when the nurse talks to Phoenix and told her, “The doctor said as long as you cam to get it, you could have it, but it’s an obstinate case.” This shows the reader, that the reason Phoenix made her journey was to help her grandson who has a throat problem, for she had to come get the medicine because the doctor would not deliver it to her. This proves that Phoenix is a loving person due to the fact that she made a difficult journey, just to help try to heal her…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A phoenix is a mythical bird of great beauty fabled to live 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, to burn itself on a funeral pyre, and to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live through another cycle of years: often an emblem of immortality or of reborn idealism or hope; a person or thing of peerless beauty or excellence; a person or thing that has become renewed or restored after suffering calamity or apparent annihilation; A person or thing regarded as uniquely remarkable in some respect. Eudora Welty, in her character Phoenix Jackson, creates humanity's counterpart of the phoenix firebird from oriental tradition (Wampler 4 June 2013). Although Phoenix Jackson can not lay claim to the immortality manifested by consuming fiery rebirths (as does the mythological bird), she possesses a fiery spirit and is consumed by love for her grandchild (Wampler 4 June 2013). Phoenix Jackson is wise, confident, fearless, tenacious, courageous, and has a clear goal in mind, which is to get her grandson’s medicine despite any obstacle that she may face. Phoenix Jackson can be summed up in one word which is noble. All women should have the characteristics of Phoenix Jackson but some of those characteristics are being lost with the evolving society.…

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The third moment is when,”she was meditating, and not ready, and when a black dog came at her. She hit him a little with her cane, and over Phoenix went in a ditch”(Welty,1940). WHile she laid in the ditch, her senses drifted away and a dream visited her”(Welty,1940). This is when she noticed that,”the black dog was in the weeds to stall her off”(Welty,1940), from her intended mission, but he turned out to be friendly. Phoenix’s actions in this story is related to a phoenix bird.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One way that Phoenix’s journey corresponds to the hero’s journey are the helpers she encounters along the way. Campbell notes that a hero must encounter “Protective” figures during his journey (69). Welty begins by introducing the hunter as a helper towards Phoenix. In the story Phoenix falls into a ditch and the hunter “lifted her up, gave her a swing in the air, and set her down” (491). The hunter that helps Phoenix up correlates with the helpers in the hero’s journey. She also introduces the lady…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eudora Welty

    • 834 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Because she is alone, Phoenix must deal with her problems herself. That represents Phoenix's perseverance for her grandson, Welty focuses on the importance of facing racism. The grandson represents the younger generation, the generation worth sacrificing for. Welty recognizes that the path to equality…

    • 834 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Worn Path is a short story written by Eudora Welty. The story is about an elderly, Phoenix Jackson, who goes on a little trip to retrieve her grandsons medicine. A Worn Path was written when towns and cities were segregated. Segregation caused many obstacles for colored people. In this story, The Worn Path is like life back in the 1900’s for colored people, it was filled with struggles for African Americans like Phoenix Jackson.…

    • 367 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eudora Welty A Worn Path

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Determination, strength, hope, endurance, perseverance, and love are only a few words to describe the readers feelings while reading this story. The author, Eudora Welty, screams-silently through her gently placed words in story, “A Worn Path”. The inspiring and encouraging phrases spoken to someone, “never give up”, “keep fighting”, “never back down”, are the unspoken feeling through the characters perseverance, determination, and love. The tone in the story is displayed through life of a black, negro-woman, who faces daily obstacles, during a time when black Americans were treated unjustly and unfairly. The traveled path she is traveling parallels the obstacles that African Americans experienced while on their journey for racial equality.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this excerpt, from A White Heron, by Sarah Orne Jewett, a number of literary techniques were used. All of them contributing to the excerpt's excellent flow. This essay will focus on three literary techniques Jewett used "" imagery, tone, and symbolism.…

    • 586 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Worn Path Questions

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The primary theme of the story is that a good person (like Phoenix) will do her duty and fulfill her obligations no matter how hard it is to do so. She really has a hard time getting to town, but she will do it because her grandson needs her – she is all the family he has.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    a worn path "draft only"

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages

    From this story we learn how unconditional love and compassion can be an unstoppable force. Phoenix symbolizes strength, power and courage. And she's a perfect female example of a fighter. The story also represents a part of the African American life back then, where they faced racism and discrimination, and till out present day it continues to be a theme…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A Worn Path

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” is a story that emphasizes the natural symbolism of the surroundings. The main character in the story, Phoenix Jackson, is an old black woman who seeks out to find medicine for her sick nephew. This story contains a motif, which is the continuous walking of Phoenix Jackson throughout her journey. She lives in the pinewoods and faces the challenging experience of walking through the snowy, frozen earth to get to the hospital in the city of Natchez. Phoenix Jackson is a very caring person, and is in love with life. Although she is very old, it seems that she has many years ahead of her. Eudora Welty brings realism into the story describing the realities of being old.…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays