Welty a worn path sparknotes

Step One: Read James Roberts Saunders' Article

Title: 'A Worn Path': The Eternal Quest of Welty's Phoenix Jackson

Author(s): James Robert Saunders

Publication Details: The Southern Literary Journal 25.1 (Fall 1992): p62-73.

Source: Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Vol. 27. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. From Literature Resource Center.

Document Type: Critical essay

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1998 Gale Research, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning

Full Text:

[In the following essay, Saunders surveys various critical interpretations of “A Worn Path,” emphasizing the story's ambiguous meaning and exploring its thematic affinities with other works of fiction.]

Of all the ingenious stories written by Eudora Welty over the past half century, it is perhaps “A Worn Path” that is most intriguing in terms of its ability to defy simple explanation. In a relatively early essay entitled “Life for Phoenix” [Sewanee Review, Vol. 71, 1963], Neil Isaacs manages to conclude that “the whole story is suggestive of a religious pilgrimage, while the conclusion implies that the return trip will be like the journey of the Magi, with Phoenix following a star (the marvelous windmill) to bring a gift to the child (medicine, also windmill).” Indeed the tale is in some sense, to use Isaacs' word, “suggestive” of a religious quest. The story begins conspicuously on a cold December morning, and just as quickly we are made aware that there is an old black woman “coming along a path through the pinewoods.” We observe her as she negotiates a series of obstacles in that wilderness on her way to Natchez, Mississippi, presumably to pick up some medicine for her grandson who, according to the nurse's calculation near the story's end, had swallowed a certain amount of lye two or three years earlier. Elaborating further on the biblical analysis, Isaacs interprets:

there are references to the Eden story (the ordering of the species, the snake in summer to be avoided), to the parting of the Red Sea (Phoenix walking through the field of corn), to a sequence of temptations, to the River Jordan and the City of Heaven (when Phoenix gets to the river, sees the city shining, and hears the bells ringing; then there is the angel who waits on her, tying her shoes), to the Christ-child in the manger (Phoenix describing her grandson as 'all wrapped up' in 'a little patch quilt ... like a little bird' with 'a sweet look').

All things considered, Isaacs' analogies are quite astute and provide us with the basis for a most interesting perspective: Phoenix Jackson is involved in that crucial search for meaning in life that is founded on basic Christian principles and designed, upon completion, to provide her with life-giving sustenance. Even if she is, due both to her advancing years and the nature of her difficult mission, about to die by the story's end, it is only so that life might be affirmed through acquisition of the medicine her grandson needs.