character analysis essay a worn path

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“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty: Analysis

“A Worn Path” Eudora Welty, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1941, gained popularity for its powerful portrayal of an elderly African American woman’s journey.

Introduction: “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

Table of Contents

“A Worn Path” Eudora Welty, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1941, gained popularity for its powerful portrayal of an elderly African American woman’s journey through the rural South to a town where she intends to obtain medicine for her grandson. Over the years, the story has continued to resonate with readers and has been widely anthologized, becoming one of Welty’s most famous and enduring works. Its themes of perseverance, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit have made it a timeless classic of American literature.

Main Events in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

• An Elderly Woman’s Mission: Phoenix Jackson, an elderly Black woman, sets out on a long, familiar journey through the December countryside. Her strength and determination are evident despite her age and the challenges she will face.
• Obstacles Along the Path: Phoenix encounters various obstacles symbolizing life’s hardships: a thorny bush that snags her dress, a creek crossing on a log, and a barbed-wire fence that she must crawl under. She perseveres, speaking aloud to keep her spirits up.
• Facing the Past and Present: In a field, Phoenix comes across a scarecrow that she momentarily mistakes for a ghost. This encounter could represent the lingering shadows of the past and its hardships.
• An Unpleasant Encounter: A young white hunter disrupts Phoenix’s journey, condescendingly laughing at her and belittling her mission. He unknowingly drops a nickel, which Phoenix cleverly retrieves, hinting at her quiet resilience in the face of prejudice.
• Arrival in Town: Phoenix finally reaches Natchez, the bustling town decorated for Christmas. The stark contrast between the rural, natural world and the city environment can be seen as symbolic. She humbly asks a kind woman to tie her shoe, restoring some dignity for her entrance to the town.
• Seeking Help at the Clinic: Phoenix enters a medical clinic where she seeks the crucial medicine for her grandson. Initially dismissed by the attendant, she is recognized by a nurse who knows the reason for her recurring trips.
• A Moment of Forgetfulness: Phoenix briefly forgets her grandson and the medicine’s purpose. This temporary lapse of memory highlights her age and the difficult burden her journey represents.
• Medicine and Hope: Reminded by the nurse, Phoenix shares the ongoing struggle of her grandson, who suffers from the effects of accidentally swallowing lye. She receives the medicine and money from the attendant. Her purchase of a windmill with the money represents an enduring symbol of hope and love amidst hardship.
• Homeward Bound: Phoenix begins her long journey back, carrying both the physical medicine and the windmill – a small but joyous gift for the one she loves.

Literary Devices in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

• Allegory : The entire story functions as an allegory for the resilience of the human spirit, particularly in marginalized communities like the rural Black South during the Jim Crow era. Phoenix’s repeated journey represents overcoming ongoing struggles and maintaining hope amid hardship.
• Alliteration : The use of repeated consonant sounds creates a musical effect: “Seem like there is chains about my feet…”
• Dialect : Welty uses a distinct dialect to represent Phoenix’s speech, grounding her character in a specific time and region: “…I the oldest people I ever know.”
• Foreshadowing : The scarecrow Phoenix mistakes for a ghost hints at a potential danger or death that she bravely faces.
• Imagery: Vivid sensory details bring the setting and Phoenix’s experience to life: “The sun made the pine needles almost too bright to look at…”
• Juxtaposition: The natural world’s beauty and harshness are contrasted with the bustle and potential indifference of the town, highlighting Phoenix’s journey across two worlds.
• Metaphor: Comparisons without using “like” or “as” enhance the story’s meaning: “Her eyes were blue with age.”
• Motif: The recurring image of the path symbolizes Phoenix’s continued determination and the cyclical nature of her journey and struggles.
• Personification: Giving non-human things human qualities, making the world seem alive and interactive for Phoenix: “Keep the big wild hogs out of my path. Don’t let none of those come running my direction.”
• Point of View: The third-person limited point of view takes us directly into Phoenix’s mind, revealing her internal thoughts and perceptions of the world.
• Repetition: Phoenix repeats phrases throughout, mirroring the cyclical nature of her journey and her determination: “…I got a long way.”
• Simile: Comparisons using “like” or “as” create vivid descriptions: “…a little tree stood in the middle of her forehead.”
• Symbolism: Various objects gain deeper meaning:
• The path: The journey of life, and specifically Phoenix’s ongoing struggles
• The windmill: Hope and love that endures
• The scarecrow: Potential dangers, remnants of the past
• Theme: Central ideas explored in the work:
• Perseverance: Phoenix’s journey embodies an enduring spirit despite hardship.
• Love: Her selfless love for her grandson motivates her.
• Overcoming Prejudice: Subtle hints at the racial prejudice Phoenix faces.
• Tone: The story’s overall emotional quality is one of both hardship and quiet determination, reflecting Phoenix’s perspective.

Characterization in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

Major character.

• Physical Description: An elderly Black woman, small and frail, with age evident in her blue eyes and wrinkled skin. Her clothing is worn but neat.
• Personality: Determined, resilient, resourceful, and deeply loving. She talks to herself and to nature to maintain her strength. Her brief memory lapse reveals her age and the burden of her regular journey.
• Symbolic Role: Phoenix represents the enduring strength of marginalized communities, particularly Black women in the rural South, and the unwavering power of love to overcome hardship.

Minor Characters

• Physical Description: Young, white male carrying a gun and a dog.
• Personality: Condescending, dismissive, casually racist. His interaction with Phoenix highlights prejudice in the era.
• Role: Represents an obstacle and underscores the social realities Phoenix faces.
• Role: Initially disregards Phoenix, focused on procedure.
• Development: A subtle shift occurs after the nurse’s intervention, leading the attendant to offer a condescending act of “charity”.
• Role: Recognizes Phoenix and understands her reason for coming. Shows a degree of kindness and familiarity.
• Motivation: He is never seen, but his suffering from the effects of lye is the driving force behind Phoenix’s journey, representing the selfless love motivating her.

Major Themes in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

Writing style in “a worn path” by eudora welty.

Dialect and Voice:

• Welty uses a distinct Southern dialect for Phoenix’s dialogue and internal thoughts. This adds authenticity, reflects the specific region and era, and brings the reader into Phoenix’s perspective.
• ·  Example: “Seem like there is chains about my feet, time I get this far…”

Imagery and Sensory Details:

• Vivid descriptions engage the reader’s senses.
• Emphasis on natural imagery: the path, trees, animals, creating a rich atmosphere.
• Example: “The sun made the pine needles almost too bright to look at…”
• Objects and events carry deeper significance beyond their literal meaning.
• The path: Represents life’s journey and ongoing struggles.
• The scarecrow: Potential dangers or the looming presence of death.
• The windmill: A symbol of hope and love for her grandson.

Point of View:

• Third-person limited perspective puts us directly in Phoenix’s mind.
• This allows insight into her thoughts, perceptions, and motivations, building empathy.

Stream-of-Consciousness Moments:

• Phoenix’s internal monologues reveal her determination, struggles, and relationship with nature.
• Example: “Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, beetles, jack rabbits, coons, and wild animals!…”

Juxtaposition:

• Contrasting elements are placed side-by-side to highlight differences and create depth.
• The natural world vs. the town.
• Phoenix’s inner strength vs. her physical frailty.

Literary Theories and Interpretation of “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

Questions and thesis statements about “a worn path” by eudora welty.

1. Topic: Symbolism and Meaning

• Question: How does Eudora Welty use symbolism to create deeper meaning in “A Worn Path”? Choose two key symbols and analyze their significance.
• Thesis Statement: In “A Worn Path,” Welty employs the symbols of the path and the scarecrow to represent the ongoing challenges of life and Phoenix Jackson’s relentless determination to overcome them.

2. Topic: Perseverance and the Human Spirit

• Question: In what ways is Phoenix Jackson a symbol of perseverance? How does her journey reflect broader themes of the enduring human spirit?
• Thesis Statement: Phoenix Jackson embodies perseverance through her unwavering determination in the face of physical frailty, social obstacles, and a harsh environment, signifying the broader human capacity to overcome adversity.

3. Topic: Love and Sacrifice

• Question: How does the power of love motivate Phoenix Jackson’s repeated journey? Analyze the connection between her selfless actions and her grandson’s wellbeing.
• Thesis Statement: Phoenix’s unwavering love for her grandson motivates her arduous journey, demonstrating the immense sacrifices individuals make for those they love and the enduring power of love as a force for resilience.

4. Topic: Social Commentary and Race

• Question: How does “A Worn Path” subtly address issues of race and social inequality in the Jim Crow South?
• Thesis Statement: While not explicitly focused on racial conflict, “A Worn Path” offers nuanced commentary on the social dynamics of the Jim Crow era, highlighting Phoenix’s quiet resilience in the face of subtle discrimination and systemic barriers.

Short Question-Answer about “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

Literary works similar to “a worn path” by eudora welty.

• Focus on an elderly woman reflecting on her life and facing mortality.
• Stream-of-consciousness style for internal thoughts.
• Exploration of family relationships, tradition, and heritage within African American families in the rural South.
• Themes of generational differences and the preservation of cultural identity.
• Explores hardship, suffering, and the search for meaning in marginalized communities.
• Themes of family, redemption, and the power of art in coping with struggle.
• Southern Gothic atmosphere with themes of isolation, the past’s influence, and a solitary protagonist.
• Explores the complexities of the human psyche and unexpected depths.
• Southern settings with explorations of morality, faith, and often-grotesque characters.
• Themes of grace, redemption, and unexpected twists.

Key Similarities (unchanged):

• Focus on marginalized characters: Often center on elderly protagonists, women, and/or African American characters.
• Exploration of Southern life and culture: Examine unique challenges and resilience within the American South.
• Themes of resilience, struggle, and the enduring human spirit: Characters face hardships with varying degrees of success.
• Rich language and complex symbolism: Employ literary devices with depth and symbolism

Suggested Readings: “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

• Bloom, Harold, ed. Eudora Welty (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views) . Chelsea House Publications, 2007.
• Gretlund, Jan Nordby. Eudora Welty’s Aesthetics of Place . University of Delaware Press, 1994.
• Vande Kieft, Ruth M. Eudora Welty . Twayne Publishers, 1987.
• Fordham, Michael. “Phoenix of the Fable: Narrative and Meaning in Eudora Welty’s ‘A Worn Path.'” Studies in Short Fiction , vol. 46, no. 4, 2009, pp. 563-572.
• Gillman, Susan. “The Habit of Being: Letters, Art, and the Performance of Self in Eudora Welty.” Critical Inquiry , vol. 31, no. 2, 2005, pp. 369-398.
• Weston, Ruth D. “The Way It Is With Some People’: Voice in Eudora Welty’s Short Fiction.” Modern Fiction Studies , vol. 13, no. 3, 1967, pp. 382-387.
• Contains scholarly articles, bibliographies, and resources for studying Welty’s work.
• Offers an overview of the story with historical and cultural context.

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A Worn Path

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Summary and Study Guide

Summary: “a worn path”.

Eudora Welty’s short story “A Worn Path” is considered one of the author’s finest works and a classic in the repertory of American Southern literature. First published in 1941 as a stand-alone piece in The Atlantic Monthly , it was also included in her first short story collection, A Curtain of Green and Other Stories , published that same year. The story established Welty as a notable new voice in American literature. In addition to short stories, she wrote several novels, including The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Welty was a native of Jackson, Mississippi, and her observations and deep familiarity with the land informed her writing style and the characters she portrayed. This guide cites the 1980 edition of The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty published by Harcourt Brace, which includes a preface by the author.

“A Worn Path” begins on an early December morning near Christmas, likely in the 1930s. Phoenix Jackson , an elderly Black woman of uncertain age, makes her way through the rural woods outside of Natchez, Mississippi. She is small and frail and has failing eyesight. She walks slowly across the frozen ground, supported by a small cane constructed from an umbrella, which she uses to guide her way.

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Despite her advanced age and wrinkled appearance, Phoenix retains a youthful fire. She announces that all the animals should keep clear because she “got a long way” to go (142). As she travels, she talks to herself “in the voice of argument old people keep to use with themselves” (143). Upon encountering a hill, she laments, “Seem like there is chains about my feet, time I get this far” (143). She preservers and crests the hilltop. On the descent, her skirt gets caught in a thorny bush. Though it’s a struggle, she frees herself and continues onward.

At the bottom of the hill, she encounters a creek with a log in it. She closes her eyes and marches across the log, arriving safely on the other side. She reflects that perhaps she isn’t as old as she thought but takes a moment to rest regardless. As she sits on the bank, a boy with a slice of marble cake appears before her. When she moves to accept the cake, “there was just her own hand in the air” (143).

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Phoenix continues her journey, crawling under a barbed-wire fence and passing massive dead trees, “like black men with one arm, […] standing in the purple stalks of the withered cotton field” (144). She walks through the cotton field and then a cornfield, which she calls a “maze.” Among the stalks, she encounters a mysterious figure that she imagines is a dancing man. On closer inspection, Phoenix realizes it is only a scarecrow. She laughs at herself, saying, “My senses is gone. I too old. I the oldest people I ever know. Dance, old scarecrow, […] while I dancing with you” (144).

Continuing, Phoenix soon exits the cornfield. She passes by weathered and boarded cabins before coming upon a ravine. Drinking from the spring there, she reflects, “Nobody know who made this well, for it was here when I was born” (144).

After trekking across a mossy swamp, she meets a big black dog. Startled, she falls over into a nearby ditch, where she drifts, imagining that a dream visits her. Again, she reaches out her hand, only to find that nothing is there. Eventually, a white man—a hunter accompanied by his chained dog—comes upon the scene. He laughs at her predicament but pulls Phoenix to her feet.

The white man questions her, asking where she lives and where she’s going. When Phoenix explains that she’s going to town, he remarks, “Why, that’s too far! […] Now you go on home, Granny!” (145). When Phoenix remains true to her purpose, he laughs, saying, “I know you old colored people! Wouldn’t miss going to town to see Santa Claus!” (145).

Suddenly, Phoenix sees something fall from his pocket: a nickel. Quickly, she redirects the man’s attention to the stray black dog, then claims the nickel for herself. After scaring off the stray, the white man returns, pointing a gun at Phoenix, who stands steadfast and unafraid. The man says, “you must be a hundred years old, and scared of nothing. I’d give you a dime if I had any money with me. But you take my advice and stay home, and nothing will happen to you” (146). They go their separate ways.

Phoenix arrives in Natchez. First she passes cabins, then paved streets decorated for Christmas. She doesn’t worry about getting lost, confident that her feet will carry her safely to her destination. Eventually, she stands before a large building. After summoning her strength to climb the stairs, she recognizes her intended destination by the gold-colored document hanging above the doorway, which recalls something she once saw in a dream. Upon entering the room, her memory fails her. She stands there blankly, unable to recall why she traveled all this way.

The desk attendant grows impatient with Phoenix’s trancelike state, but a nurse recognizes her and asks if her grandson’s throat is any better. Phoenix remains silent until the nurse asks if her grandson has died. This snaps Phoenix from her trance, and she speaks. The exchange between Phoenix and the nurse reveals that Phoenix’s grandson swallowed lye two to three years ago and periodically suffers from a constricted throat that makes it difficult to breathe.

Phoenix apologizes for her lapse in memory, explaining, “I was too old at the Surrender […]. I’m an old woman without an education” (148). Her memory may fail, but her grandson remains unchanged. Unprompted, Phoenix details their situation: “We is the only two left in the world” (148). Though her grandson suffers, it never seems to dampen his spirits. She insists that “[h]e going to last” and that she won’t forget him again because she “could tell him from all the others in creation” (148).

The nurse hushes Phoenix and hands over the medicine, marking it down as charity. The attendant gives her a nickel out of sympathy, and Phoenix claims that she will use the two nickels she now has to buy a paper windmill for her grandson, who will “find it hard to believe there such a thing in the world” (149). Medicine and nickels in hand, she leaves the clinic and descends back down the stairs.

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A Worn Path: Analysis

Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” written in 1940, is one of the author’s most frequently anthologized stories, but this by no means indicates that it is her easiest. There is a depth of ambiguity in it. Twentieth-century critics have chosen, for the most part, to examine the role race plays in the story and through that to either condemn Welty or exalt her for her views. But race is certainly not the story’s only concern. Questions of age, service, dedication, and myth also inform the story. 

However, it is with race that any discussion of Welly’s story must begin. Welty comes from Mississippi, in many ways the most notoriously troubled of Southern states. Born there in 1909 (to Northern parents), she grew up and has spent most of her life in Jackson. She grew up in an era where the Civil War and Reconstruction were still remembered by many of her neighbors, and she herself has lived through the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and the Southern renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s. However, politics very rarely enters her work directly. Her stories deal with race relations on a personal level. 

Welty has discussed the genesis of “A Worn Path” in numerous interviews. The inspiration for Phoenix Jackson was an ancient black woman whom Welty saw walking across the countryside as Welty was sitting under a tree near the Natchez Trace with a painter friend.”I watched her cross that landscape in the half-distance,” she explains,”and when I got home I wrote that story that she had made me think of.” In another interview, she added that “I knew she was going somewhere. I knew she was bent on an errand, even at that distance. It was not anything casual. It was a purposeful, measured journey she was making—you wouldn’t go on an errand like that—unless it were for someone else, you know. Unless it were an emergency.” 

“A Worn Path” traces the journey of an ancient black woman who walks to Natchez, Mississippi, in order to obtain medicine for her grandson, who permanently injured himself by swallowing lye. On this, most of her critics agree, but that is as far as they go. One group holds that Welly’s portrayal of the black race through her main character, Phoenix Jackson, is eminently sympathetic; another feels that Welty shares with many other Southern writers a tendency to portray blacks as long-suffering and enduring, and in doing so robs them of their true complexity as human beings. 

Crucial to any assessment of this question is whether Phoenix Jackson is intended to stand as a representative of her race. Certainly, she plays into one stereotypical Southern image of blacks: the ancient, plodding, superstitious grandmother who talks to herself. Welty seems to undercut this image by introducing the hunter, who treats Jackson as precisely that kind of a stereotype.”I know you old colored people!” he tells her. “Wouldn’t miss going to town to see Santa Claus!” He seems like a buffoon here, but when he drops his nickel and she picks it up, critics see the action as either indicative of another pejorative stereotype of blacks (craftiness and dishonesty) or as illustrative of her superiority over him. Similarly, critics disagree on the significance of the white woman in Natchez tying Jackson’s shoe. Is this an indication, as one critic holds, of “courtesy warranted by virtue of her age and her ‘fealty’ to the white race,” or is it a comical representation of black helplessness? 

The position that Welty’s characterization of Jackson relies heavily on stereotypes is quite convincing. There is a long tradition of white Southern writers exalting the primitiveness of blacks: a move that, while not racist in intent (their primitiveness is used to teach more “sophisticated” whites about the virtues of simplicity), is somewhat demeaning in effect. If Jackson is meant to represent blacks as a whole, what are we to make of her “naivete and helplessness”? If her great age is in one respect an asset, does it not also suggest that blacks are changeless and eternal? The final words in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, “They endure,” is his summary assessment of the state of blacks in the South. Certainly, he has respect for their “endurance,” but is it not also patronizing to confer only this compliment upon an entire race of people? Welty’s critics still wrestle over whether she grants blacks sufficient human diversity, or whether, like her fellow Mississippian Faulkner, she treats them too much as simple symbols of endurance. 

Welty herself, in 1965, anticipated this conflict, and argued that it was off the mark. In her essay “Must the Novelist Crusade?” she shifts the question, saying that the relationship between the races cannot be separated from other relationships between people.”There are relationships of blood, of the passions and affections, of thought and spirit and deed. This is the relationship between the races. How can one kind of relationship be set apart from the others? Like a great root system of an old and long-established growing plant, they are all tangled up together; to separate them you would have to cleave the plant itself from top to bottom.” The very nature of her metaphor of the “long-established plant,” though, seems to many critics to subtly defend a slow pace of change in the South: this situation is very old, she seems to be saying, and we cannot rush things. 

The other primary approach to this story has been to examine its mythological underpinnings. Phoenix Jackson’s name is a reference to the mythological “phoenix”—a mythical bird that lives in the desert for 500-600 years and then sets itself on fire, only to rise again from its own ashes, and is a popular symbol for immortality. Certainly, age plays a significant part in the story. If we accept that the story is set in Welty’s present, i.e. at the time when she wrote the story, then the “present” is 1940. Jackson tells the scarecrow: “My senses is gone. I too old. I the oldest people I ever know.” When the hunter asks her how old she is, she replies,”There is no telling, mister.” However, if what she tells the nurse is true—that she was too old to go to school when Lee surrendered in 1865—then she must be nearly a hundred years old. Yet, like the phoenix, she rises to makes periodic trips to Natchez to get medicine for her grandson. 

The season in which the story takes place— Christmas time—reinforces the theme of rebirth. If we see the story as a Christian allegory, then the marble cake that Jackson dreams of suggests the Communion wafers and her crossing of the cornfield suggests the parting of the Red Sea. Also, the soothing medicine which she gives to her permanently sick grandson can be seen as God’s grace, and Jackson herself as a Christ figure. In addition, the difficulties which Jackson endures on her way to Natchez can either represent the temptations of Christ in the desert or the stations of the cross. 

A number of critics have questioned whether or not Jackson’s grandson is even alive. The story is especially affecting if we know that he is already dead, Roland Bartel proposes, and Jackson’s apparent bout of forgetfulness and senility in the doctor’s office could be her nagging realization that her grandson is, in fact, dead. Welty responded personally to this question in a 1974 essay, acknowledging the possibility that Jackson’s grandson is no longer alive, but insisting that she “must assume that the boy is alive” and admonishing readers that”it is the journey—that is the story.” Given that, we must return to the story’s mythological resonances. In addition to the aforementioned Christian parallels, the story also suggests Dante, the Italian author of the epic Divine Comedy. The dog, the hunter, and even the descent down the stairs at the end of the story parallel incidents in Dante’s Inferno. 

“A Worn Path” is finally a simple story, though. Welly’s short tale of an old woman’s journey to get medicine for her grandson is valuable simply as that, and the starkness of its simplicity is too often undervalued. That very simplicity gives it the ability to support so many political and mythological interpretations. Welty even suggests another, far more personal analogy for Phoenix’s journey: her own journey towards the creation of “great fiction.” “Like Phoenix, you work all your life to find your way, through all the obstructions and the false appearances and the upsets you may have brought on yourself, to reach a meaning—And finally too, like Phoenix, you have to assume that what your are working in aid of is life, not death.” 

Source Credits:

Short Stories for Students, Volume 2, Eudora Welty, Edited by Kathleen Wilson, Published by Gale Research, New York, 1997.

Greg Barnhisel, for Short Stories for Students, Gale Research, 1997. 

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• A Worn Path: Summary
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A Worn Path

Eudora welty, everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Eudora Welty's A Worn Path . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

A Worn Path: Introduction

A worn path: plot summary, a worn path: detailed summary & analysis, a worn path: themes, a worn path: quotes, a worn path: characters, a worn path: symbols, a worn path: theme wheel, brief biography of eudora welty.

Historical Context of A Worn Path

Other books related to a worn path.

• Full Title: A Worn Path
• When Written: 1940
• Where Written: Mississippi
• When Published: February 1941
• Literary Period: Realism/Southern Gothic
• Genre: Short Story
• Setting: From Old Natchez Trace to Natchez, Mississippi
• Climax: Phoenix raises her “free hand”
• Antagonist: White society
• Point of View: Third person limited (Phoenix Jackson)

Extra Credit for A Worn Path

Odd Jobs. Immediately after college, Welty worked at WJDX radio station, wrote society columns for a local newspaper, and was a publicity agent from the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.

Photographer. Before writing fiction, Welty was a photographer who was even exhibited in New York. However, it was not until 1971 that her first book of photographs was published.

A Worn Path

by Eudora Welty

A worn path character list, phoenix jackson.

Named after both the mythological bird that rises renewed from the ashes of a fire, and the city in which author Eudora Welty was born and died, the elderly black grandmother using a cane made from umbrella to maintain her balance while walking in unlaced shoes may seem far removed from the heroes of legend. Yet while Phoenix Jackson may move slowly, she proves that she is a force to be reckoned with due to her dogged perseverance along the path to her grandson's medicine.

The White Hunter

A young man with a gun and a dog who encounters Phoenix in the woods. He is mostly friendly, helping her up and suggesting she not try to make the long walk to Natchez, but at one point he also points his gun at her and asks if she is scared; this is a subtly aggressive action that reflects the racial tensions between blacks and whites in the South.

The Attendant

The attendant is rude to Phoenix, speaking sharply and impatiently to her. She seems both a little racist and ageist, but she does eventually modify her attitude by asking Phoenix if she'd like a few pennies because it is Christmas time.

The nurse knows Phoenix and her annual errand, and tends to be kinder and more accommodating to her than the attendant is. She gives off an air of efficiency, and seeks to get information from Phoenix so she can move on with her job.

The Grandson

Phoenix Jackson’s grandson does not actually make an appearance in the narrative progression of her journey, but his presence lingers in the penumbras of the story. He is a young boy who swallowed lye on accident two or three years ago, and has had throat damage ever since. Phoenix journeys to get him medicine once a year because she is apparently his caregiver now, though we do not know why. Some scholars have suggested the grandson is actually dead, but this is speculation.

Phoenix asks this woman, who wears heavy perfume and carries wrapped Christmas presents, to tie her shoe for her. The woman kindly acquiesces.

A Worn Path Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for A Worn Path is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Phoenix is old; she has trouble with mobility and vision. Phoenix must face many obstacles on the worn path on the way to town. She has trouble seeing a scarecrow, she thinks it might be a ghost, and she doesn't see a black dog approach her.

How is the name of the central character significant in the narrative?

The phoenix is an immortal bird associated with Greek mythology that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. The central character demonstrates this by repeating an arduous journey.

Who did the hunter think Phoenix was going to town to see?

During her journey, Phoenix has an altercation with a dog that comes after her. She hits the dog wih her cane, but falls over in turn. At this point, a white man—a hunter—helps her from the spill she took into the ditch. He starts out nicely by...

Study Guide for A Worn Path

A Worn Path study guide contains a biography of Eudora Welty, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About A Worn Path
• A Worn Path Summary
• Character List

Essays for A Worn Path

A Worn Path essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of A Worn Path by Eudora Welty.

• Inspiration Through Storytelling: Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path"
• Symbolism in "A Worn Path"

Wikipedia Entries for A Worn Path

• Introduction