EssayFrog

Phoenix's Journey Illustrated in Welty's Story, A Worn Path

Edora Welty’s story “A Worn Path” is a short story that tells bout another trip of an "old

Negro Woman" to the nearest town.(DiYanni 91). She is making her way through the woods to the

nearest town to get some medicine for her sick grandson. During her journey she runs into a lot of

different obstacles. Even with the path she is traveling being cold, long and hard she keeps her

determination. Welty uses very detailed characterization to describe the main character of the story,

as well as changing the plot several times throughout the story.

The story describes the main character, Phoenix Jackson, as a small “Negro woman,” whose

“eyes were blue with age” (DiYanni 91). As for her clothes, Phoenix is dresses in "a dark striped dress

reaching down to her shoe tops" (DiYanni 91). Over her dress she is wearing "an equally long apron

of bleached sugar sacs, with a full pocket" "(DiYanni 91). With the shoes Phoenix is wearing "she

might of fallen over her shoelaces, which dragged from her unlaced shoes" (DiYanni 91). "She walked

slowly…" during her journey "… moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced

heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock" (DiYanni 91).

During Phoenix’s journey through the woods she has several encounters with . . . read more.