Eudora Welty’s A Worn Path is a story that tells the journey of an old, poor, and sick woman going into town to get medicine for her grandson. A Worn Path takes place in December when the main character, Phoenix Jackson, still has a lot of strength despite her age and bad health. A Worn Path is a short story that takes place in the South and involves a black protagonist. A Worn Path shows how Phoenix Jackson perseveres against all odds to get her grandson medicine.
A worn path is an important symbol for this story as it helps represent Phoenix Jackson’s hardships from leaving home, getting lost, and crossing streams. A Worn Path is a short story about Phoenix Jackson going through many struggles on her way to town to pick up some medicine for her sick grandson. A Worn Path starts off with a description of a winter day in Mississippi with cold weather and barren trees. The main character, Phoenix Jackson, is traveling back home after being gone all night at the doctors office trying to get help for her grandson who is sick.
The main character, Phoenix Jackson, is very old and has set on this journey to town many times before on the short two mile walk. A Worn Path tells of all of the hardships that Phoenix faced on her way to town to pick up medicine for her grandson. A Worn Path starts off with a strong description of a cold winter day in Mississippi. A worn path represents all the struggles that she faces throughout A Worn Path as it helps prove how much determination Phoenix had to make it through all those hardships to get medicine.
“A Worn Path” is a short story written by Eudora Welty that was published in 1942. It takes place in rural Mississippi and tells the tale of Phoenix Jackson, a very old African American woman who makes a long journey to a town on the other side of a forest so she can get some medicine for her sick grandson. Phoenix Jackson As she walks through the woods on her way to town, Phoenix struggles with many obstacles including thorny bushes and barbed wire fences along her path.
She recites poetry to help herself get past these rough spots on the trail before finally arriving at her destination where she encounters an obstacle that turns out to be even more difficult than all the rest combined: A man working at the drugstore tells her that the money she has is no good in his store and he does not accept it. Upon arriving at town, Phoenix Jackson struggles to cross a busy street with cars speeding by everywhere when an older white gentleman offers to help her across it.
He then offers to take her all the way to the drugstore and pay for the medicine himself, but she declines and tells him she can make it there on her own. She gets distracted for a moment before crossing the street and almost gets hit by a car which forces her to go back home without getting what she needed from the drugstore, but despite this setback Phoenix is still determined to get some of that medicine for Phoenix Jr. , who will be coming home from school soon with sores all over his back.
When she finally arrives at the house, her grandson’s sores are gone and he doesn’t go to school anymore because he is living in a hospital where they can take better care of him. A nurse tells Phoenix that it was the medicine she got for him which healed him up so quickly. When asked by the nurse why she went through all this trouble for her grandson when it took nearly half a day for her to get there, she simply responds with “Lawd knows. ” A Worn Path” is one of Welty’s most famous short stories with an important topic—racism—that speaks to readers today just as much as when it was written during WWII.
She is an elderly woman who has been walking this path to the hospital for many years, and she also digs up a plant on her way that she believes has healing powers. A contrast in the story is the attitudes of the town people versus Phoenix Jackson’s attitude towards life. The point of view in “A Worn Path” being told from a third-person omniscient narrator. This story takes place during a certain time of year when it would be cold and snowy, so it can give off or represent feelings such as discomfort, fear or even protection depending on what kind of character one may be.
A relationship that could possibly exist between this short story and another short story such as A River Journey by Paul Clayton (1933), or A&P by John Updike (1962) would be the comparison of characters such as the town people and how they treat Phoenix Jackson versus Pheobe Winter, a young girl who helps Johnny Taylor in A River Journey. A theme that could be determined from this short story is to not prejudge any character based on their looks or race.
The narrative states that the old woman stops at a store and has coffee and talks with the owner about her journey before she continues on her way. At one point, she sees something shiny in the store window and enters to look at it. She does not buy anything, even though she has money; instead, she leaves without saying goodbye to anyone. Later, when questioned by the police about why she does not say goodbye, she replies that she must hurry on her way or else “he” will be lost.
A little girl who is out shopping with her mother runs into the old woman and topples her to the ground. After apologizing profusely for being so clumsy, Phoenix Jackson forgives the child, picks herself up and continues walking down the street. A racist white man tries to trip her as he walks by but she evades him nimbly. A hunter aims his gun at an animal but Phoenix Jackson steps between them and he refrains from shooting it. A police officer questions if it is a harmless pet rabbit, but Phoenix Jackson reassures him that it means no harm and disappears off into the woods.
A hunter aims his gun at an animal but Phoenix Jackson steps between them and he refrains from shooting it A police officer tries to get her to answer some questions but she doesn’t respond, simply replying “Don’t bother me” when he insists. A hunter aims his gun at an animal but Phoenix Jackson steps between them and he refrains from shooting it A passerby offers a ride in a car but Phoenix Jackson declines the offer. Phoenix continues until she comes across a spring where she washes out a wound on her leg that has been bleeding for some time.
When she arrives at the hospital, the staff take her into an operating theater to treat the wound. A nurse who is preparing hot water drops in a pill and Phoenix Jackson swallows it without offering an explanation. A nurse who is preparing hot water drops in a pill and Phoenix Jackson swallows it A doctor discovers that the old woman has been walking such a long distance because she was looking for the plant called silver-bells which can apparently cure her grandson, who fell from his horse while he was trying to jump over a fence.