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By Eudora Welty (1909-2002) A Study Guide | ||||||||||||||
Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings...© 2011 Type of Work and Publication Year ......."A Worn Path" is a short story about a very old black woman who perseveres heroically in difficult circumstances. The Atlantic Monthly first published the story in February 1941. .......The action takes place in December, circa 1940, in southwestern Mississippi. The scene begins in the the wilderness and then shifts to the city of Natchez. Characters Phoenix Jackson: Very
old black woman with poor eyesight who walks a long distance through wilderness
and fields to obtain medicine for her grandchild. She is the main character.
.......Eudora Welty presents the story in third-person point of view. She reveals the thoughts of the main character, Phoenix Jackson, in dialogue in which Phoenix talks to herself. The author also sometimes reveals the activity of Phoenix's mind in the narration, as in the following passage: "Down there, her senses drifted away. A dream visited her, and she reached her hand up, but nothing reached down and gave her a pull." ..............Source Welty, Eudora. "A Worn Path." Literature and the Writing Process. 5th ed. McMahan, Elizabeth; Susan X Day, and Robert Fund, eds. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: ..........Prentice Hall, 1999. Pages 363-368........Early on a cold December morning, an old Negro woman taps along with her cane on a path through a pine forest. Phoenix Jackson is her name. Around her head is a red rag. Her dress—partly covered by a long apron—reaches down to the tops of her unlaced shoes. .......When there is movement in the underbrush, she says, “Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, beetles, jack rabbits, coons and wild animals! ... Keep out from under these feet, little bob-whites ... Keep the big wild hogs out of my path." .......After she reaches the top of a hill, she looks around to see where she has been and says, “Up through the pines. Now down through the oaks". On the way down the hill, a bush with thorns catches her dress. ......."Thorns, you doing your appointed work," she says. “Never want to let folks pass—no, sir. Old eyes thought you was a pretty little green bush." .......After struggling a moment, she frees her dress and moves on. At the bottom of the hill, she gingerly walks across a log over a creek. Upon reaching the other side, she says, “I wasn't as old as I thought." Even so, she has to sit on a bank to rest. When a little boy appears before her with some cake on a plate, she reaches for the delectable, but there is nothing there. .......When she resumes her journey, she must get down on her hands and knees and crawl under a barbed-wire fence, taking great care not to tear her dress. Moreover,  the
narrator says, “she could not pay for having her arm or her leg sawed off
if she got caught fast where she was.".......After reaching the other side, she resumes her journey across a cornfield with dead stalks. She sees a buzzard. .......“Who you watching?" she say. .......She's happy that no bulls are around and that “the good Lord made his snakes to curl up and sleep in the winter." .......She then enters a cotton field with dead stalks and passes a scarecrow. Finally, she arrives at a wagon track, where it is easy to walk. In a ravine, she stops at a spring to take a drink, then resumes her journey. While crossing, a swampy patch, she says, “Sleep on, alligators, and blow your bubbles." After walking past oaks in a dark stretch of road, she encounters a large black dog. He comes at her. When she hits him lightly with her cane, she falls into a ditch. A young hunter, a white man, happens upon her with a dog on a chain. He lifts her out of the ditch and asks whether she is all right. She says yes; the dead weeds broke her fall. He also asks where she is going. When she replies that she is going to town, he says, “Why, that's too far! That's as far as I walk when I come out myself." .......But she says she has to get to town. He laughs and says, “I know you old colored people! Wouldn't miss going to town to see Santa Claus!" .......While she is talking with him, she notices a nickel fall to the ground from his pocket. The two dogs begin to fight. While he is busy getting rid of the black dog, Phoenix stoops down, picks up the nickel, and puts it in her apron pocket. The black dog runs off, and the man turns back to Phoenix and, remarking that she must be a hundred years old, advises her to stay home and out of harm's way. But she says she “is bound to go on my way." They then part company. .......Soon she sees steeples and cabins and many black children. Natchez lies ahead. When she enters the city, decorated with strings of electric lights, she stops a woman carrying wrapped packages and asks her to tie her shoes so that she will look right in the city. The woman accommodates her. She thanks the lady, then walks up the street and enters a building. She climbs many stairs and finally enters a door. Inside, a woman behind a desk says, “A charity case, I suppose." .......The woman tells Phoenix she must give her name and history. .......“What seems to be the trouble with you?" she says. .......Phoenix does not respond. .......“Are you deaf?" the attendant says. .......A nurse comes in who knows Phoenix. The nurse informs the attendant that Phoenix visits the office on behalf of her grandson, not herself. After Phoenix sits down, the nurse asks about the condition of boy, who had swallowed lye several years before. Phoenix does not reply. The nurse asks whether the child's throat improved after Phoenix gave him the medicine from the doctor. When Phoenix remains silent, the nurse says, “You mustn't take up our time this way." .......Finally, Phoenix explains that she had momentarily lost her memory. As to the condition of the boy, she says his throat closes up every now and then, making it difficult for him to swallow. Consequently, she says, she needs more medicine from the doctor. The boy is now alone in the house waiting for it. The nurse brings her a bottle of the medicine. .......“Charity," she says, checking a space in a book. .......The attendant gives her a nickel from her pocketbook as a Christmas gift. After Phoenix accepts it, she takes the other nickel from her apron pocket and holds both of them in her hand, saying she is going to buy a paper windmill for her grandson. Then she goes out the door and down the stairs. . 
Climax .......The climax occurs when Phoenix recovers from a memory lapse and discusses her grandson's condition with the nurse. At this time, the reader understands the purpose of her journey to Natchez and that she regularly makes this journey out of love for the child. Love .......Though quite old and suffering from infirmities, Phoenix Jackson regularly walks a long distance to obtain medicine for her grandchild. Even in cold weather, when the frozen earth is slippery, she makes the trip. Her journey—the worn path she follows—demonstrates her love for the child. Perseverance .......Phoenix Jackson's walk to Natchez demonstrates her will to persevere in a sometimes hostile world. On her way to Natchez, she must endure the cold, keep her footing on frozen ground, crawl under a barbed-wire fence, walk through the maze of a cornfield, and watch out for dangerous animals such as wild hogs. An unfriendly dog threatens her and she falls into a ditch. But her occasional journey to Natchez is only a small part of her story. Every day, she must deal with poverty and the pains of old age, care for a child with a scarred throat, and confront the evil of racial prejudice—a fact of life in Mississippi and elsewhere in the U.S. Racial Prejudice .......Phoenix Jackson must endure racial prejudice as part of her everyday life. The story does not explicitly focus on this theme, but it does include it. Consider that the white hunter refers to her condescendingly as Granny. The narrator does not reveal the race of the shopper, the attendant, and the nurse. However, they are likely white, for they also treat her condescendingly. The shopper calls her Grandma, and the nurse calls her Aunt Phoenix. It is interesting to note, though, that the people she encounters do treat her with a modicum of respect and kindness—a sign perhaps that America is making gradual progress in race relations. But not until the civil-rights movement of the fifties, sixties, and seventies did blacks gain all their rights under the law. Redemption .......Phoenix Jackson is a Christlike figure, providing opportunities for others to do good deeds that will help to redeem their souls. For example, after attempting to drive off the black dog, Phoenix falls into a ditch. Along comes a white hunter. He helps her out of the ditch, just as Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus to stay on his feet under the weight of the cross. In Natchez, Phoenix asks a woman carrying wrapped Christmas presents to tie her shoes. The woman puts the packages down and complies. In the doctor's office, the attendant treats Phoenix rudely but ends up giving her a nickel as a Christmas present. (A nickel could buy much more in 1940 than it can today.) .......Phoenix Jackson's humorous remarks to herself, animals, and nature help keep the story moving briskly. The following passage contains examples: .......At last she was safe through the fence and risen up out in the clearing. Big dead trees, like black men with one arm, were standing in the purple stalks of the withered cotton field. There sat a buzzard.Figures of Speech .......Following are examples of figures of speech in the story. For definitions of figures of speech, see Literary Terms. Alliteration where the wind rockedMetaphor A bird flew by. Her lips moved. "God watching me the whole time. I come to stealing."Simile This (tapping of the cane) made a grave and persistent noise in the still air that seemed meditative, like the chirping of a solitary little bird.Terms and Symbols Big dead trees: Perhaps
a symbol of black men from the slavery era. Phoenix encounters these trees
after crawling under a barbed-wire fence. The narrator says of the scene,
"Big dead trees, like black men with one arm, were standing in the purple
stalks of the withered cotton field."
Study Questions and Writing Topics
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