"A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty is
an interesting story, chock-full of symbolism and several themes. First and
most obvious, one can't help but note the symbolism of the main character's
name, Phoenix, also the name of the mythological bird that rises from the ashes.
Phoenix Jackson
is an old, old woman. We don't know exactly how old, but we know that she is
small and frail -- when a black dog comes out of the bushes and rushes her, she
isn't ready for it and she "only hit him a little with her cane" but
this is enough to topple her over, into a ditch, where she is unable to get up
without help. She can barely negotiate the path, the hills: "Seem like
there is chains about my feet, time I get this far." (Also a symbol for
the recent memory of slavery.) Typical of elderly, she talks to herself along
the way, and to the animals and even the plants she encounters, seen and
unseen. Also, we know that she is old because she is on a quest that she
briefly forgets the purpose of, by the time she gets there.
Her journey is along a "worn path," thus we are
led to believe this is a trip she has made numerous times. I think that this
worn path is also symbolic for the pilgrimages made by all pilgrims who are on
a quest, religious or otherwise, in all of history; the worn path is full of
challenges and hardships along the way.
During the course of her journey, Phoenix is visited several
times by dreams. One time, a boy comes to her offering a piece of marble cake;
later, flat on her back and stuck in a ditch, another dream visits her. Both
times, when she reaches her hand out, there is nothing there. There is no
marble cake for her, and there is no one there to grab her hand and pull her
out of the ditch. The marble cake seems to be symbolic of the blacks and whites
trying to get along together -- to blend -- in the south in the 1930s and
1940s. Phoenix reaches her hand out twice, first to accept the cake and then to
receive help getting up, and both times, nothing is there -- the dream of
racial harmony is not yet realized, yet Phoenix keeps reaching for it.
When she is "found" by a white hunter, he is
patronizing, and although he helps her out of the ditch, he then trivializes
her quest: "Why that's too far!" he says, "That's as far as I
walk when I come out myself, and I get something for my trouble." As if an
old black woman has no purpose for walking to town. "Now you go on home,
Granny!" he says. Later, laughing, "I know you old colored people!
Wouldn't miss going to town to see Santa Claus!" The hunter also taunts
her with his gun, pointing it straight at her. It's almost as if he is
reminding her of her place in a white world, and getting humor by such a
threatening gesture.
The main themes here are, of course, racism, but more than
that there is a message of hope and perseverance, and strength in the face of
hardship. Old frail Phoenix is tougher than she appears, and she doesn't scare
easily, either. She has seen it all in her day, and still holds out hope that
the world will become a better place, if not in her lifetime, then for her
grandson's generation.
There is also a religious/moral theme here, as in when Phoenix
sees the shiny nickel fall from the hunter's pocket. She distracts him by
having him chase away the black dog, and while he isn't looking (she thinks)
she bends over to pick up the nickel and puts it in her pocket. She immediately
feels remorse, noting a bird that flew by, and senses that this bird was God
watching her. Also, this is when the hunter threatens her with his gun, and
when he asks if the gun doesn't scare her, she replies, "No, sir, I seen
plenty go off closer by, in my day, and for less than what I done." She is
not sure if he saw her, but she knows that God saw her.
When she reaches her destination, we finally learn the
purpose of her quest. She has come to a doctor's office for medicine for her
grandson. Here, again, she is subjected to racism, when the attendant takes in
her arrival, and says, "A charity case, I suppose." But the story
ends with hope, as the attendant warms up as she is leaving, and offers her a Christmas
gift of sorts, pennies from her purse. Phoenix gets the idea to go to the store
and buy her grandson a gift with her two nickels: "'He going to find it
hard to believe there such a thing in the world. I'll march myself back where
he waiting, holding it straight up in this hand.' She lifted her free hand,
gave a little nod, turned around, and walked out of the doctor's office. Then
her slow step began on the stairs, going down." -- Perseverance, and hope.
