A Worn Path
The complexity of Eudora Welty’s plot in “A Worn Path” is not clear. The main character is Phoenix Jackson, an old, frail woman walking through the town of Natchez in December. It consists of the brave attempts of a courageous, valiant woman to carry on against overwhelming forces. Her determination despite the great odds against her gives the story its impact. The powers ranged against her are old age, poverty, environment, and illness.
Old age, a silent but overpowering antagonist is shown in signs of Phoenix’s increasingly senility. Copper is her scent and the umbrella is her Cain. Her eyes are now blue with age. The blue represents her cataracts. As she walks you see the old woman moving slowly, back and forth as if she is a pendulum in a grandfather clock. Her old age shows with the little time she had left explaining how her walking patterns is like a grandfather clock. While she walks through town she takes the offer of a nice woman to tie her shoes. Doing so, her age has hit her and has caused her to be unable of bending over to tie her own shoe lace from her arthritis. The pain of bending over would have taken her forever to get back up and quite the pain.
“At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke.”—Paragraph 87. With age as her only barrier, she struggles. As she ages more and more each second of the day, she doesn’t have all the time left in the world. If she forgets her reasoning for being in the situations she puts herself in she could harm herself. Welty suggests that she shouldn’t be here, as feeble as she is, walking through town all alone. But yet there she is walking all by herself on the cold icy ground throughout the town.
An equally crushing opponent is her poverty. She wore a dark stripped dress that reached down to her shoe tips. She wore her long apron which was equal in length and neat and tidy. Her pride was still up and she didn’t worry about looking perfect. Although, she was trying
Old age, a silent but overpowering antagonist is shown in signs of Phoenix’s increasingly senility. Copper is her scent and the umbrella is her Cain. Her eyes are now blue with age. The blue represents her cataracts. As she walks you see the old woman moving slowly, back and forth as if she is a pendulum in a grandfather clock. Her old age shows with the little time she had left explaining how her walking patterns is like a grandfather clock. While she walks through town she takes the offer of a nice woman to tie her shoes. Doing so, her age has hit her and has caused her to be unable of bending over to tie her own shoe lace from her arthritis. The pain of bending over would have taken her forever to get back up and quite the pain.
“At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke.”—Paragraph 87. With age as her only barrier, she struggles. As she ages more and more each second of the day, she doesn’t have all the time left in the world. If she forgets her reasoning for being in the situations she puts herself in she could harm herself. Welty suggests that she shouldn’t be here, as feeble as she is, walking through town all alone. But yet there she is walking all by herself on the cold icy ground throughout the town.
An equally crushing opponent is her poverty. She wore a dark stripped dress that reached down to her shoe tips. She wore her long apron which was equal in length and neat and tidy. Her pride was still up and she didn’t worry about looking perfect. Although, she was trying