EUDORA WELTY

A WORN PATH'

Wei 1. Byrne, Mary EUen. "Welty's 'A Worn Path' and Walker's
'Everyday Use': Companion Pieces." Teaching English in the TwoYear College 16 (1989): 129-33.
Although "A Worn Path" and "Everyday Use" share similarities in
theme, setting, and character, variances result from differences in the
races of the authors (129). Both portray main characters who are elderly
black women, both focus on family values, and both involve journeys
(129). The journey in "A Worn Path," as Welty herself has pointed out,
is fundamental to the story, introduces an allegorical level, and is done
out of love (129). The journey in Walker's story, however, is undertaken
by the daughter Dee for the selfish motive of acquiring family heirlooms (130). Both protagonists are associated with home. However, in
"A Worn Path" the references to Phoenix as "Granny" and "Grandma"
by white characters derogate her, but the frequent mention of her name
by the narrator restores her status (130). Other similarities include the
following: both protagonists recognize the value of an education although they did not receive one (130), both are marginalized by the
white culture (131), and both stories have rural settings (131). However,
in "A Worn Path" Phoenix is part of nature, whereas in "Everyday Use"
the mother must exact a living from nature (131). Although the similarities are many, the foremost difference lies in the choice of the narrator
(132). In Walker's story, the narrator is the mother, whose uneducated
voice limits the perspective of the story (132). But in "A Worn Path," the
story is related by a third-person narrator who is able to understand
more than Phoenix, providing a distance that establishes a universal,
mythical quality to the story (132). Through her choice of a third person
narrator, Welty herself understands her own distance from black experience (133). FORM, MULTI
Wei 2. Donlan, Don. '"A Worn Path': Immortality of Stereotype."

English Journal 62 (1973): 549-50.

Although Phoenix Jackson has been viewed by some readers as a
stereotype, she can instead be seen as a symbol of immortalityan interpretation supported by many allusions to death within the story

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(549). Phoenix undertakes her journey in winter, the season traditionally

associated with death, and encounters dead birds and trees. Although
she is surrounded by death. Phoenix is alive (549). In addition, frequent
mention of her old age again suggests immortality (549). Finally,
Phoenix's name recalls the mythical bird that renevv^s itself (549).
Additional allusions to the myth are present: the colors of gold and red
mentioned in an early description of Phoenix, her manner of u^alking,
her retrieval of the hunter's nickel as though it were an egg, and the
frequent references to birds (550). Being aw^are of the symbolic level
adds richness to an already effective story about human experience
(550). THEM, FORM

Wei 3. Gardner, Joseph H. "Errands of Love: A Study in Black and

White." The Kentucky Review 12 (Autunm 1993): 69-78.
Phoenix's blackness, a conscious choice by Welty, is essential to the
narrative (69). Welty makes several assumptions concerning her protagonist, most related to her identification of Phoenix with the universal
and mythic (70). Because her journey is described as "an errand of
love," Phoenix illustrates the culture's assumption concerning the
strong maternal love of black women (71). She also exemplifies the belief that blacks are closer to nature than whites, a belief that suggests the
myth of Rousseau's Noble Savage (71). The assumed primitiveness of
blacks allows for the justification of their exploitation, but it also can
lead to the view that blacks are unsullied by civilization (71). Phoenix's
lack of education is seen as positive, for it allows her to remain knowledgeable in folk wisdom and untarnished "by the rationalism of the European (i.e., white) Enlightenment" (73). Even though she desires
medicine, a product of technology, she herself is part of "an animistic,
magic realm" (73). As she journeys to town, she moves from the mythic
and universal into an inferior domain where materialism and Santa
Claus rule (73). When compared with Alice Walker's "Strong Horse
Tea," Welty's story seems based on racial stereotypes. The differences
between the landscapes and weather, the names of the protagonists,
their relationship to animals, their physical appearance, their treatment
by whites, and the different outcomes of their journeys, all point to Welty's acceptance of cultural assumptions about blacks (74-77). Walker,
being black, has a more realistic view of black experience whereas
Welty substitutes "mythic grandeur" for reality (78). HIST, MULTI,
ARCH

Wei 4. Lewis, Thomas N. "Textual Variants in 'A Worn Path.'" Eudora Welty Newsletter 16 (1992): 11-13.
Although Welty made sixty-four changes between the story's first
publication in The Atlantic Monthly and its inclusior\ in her short story
collection A Curtain of Green, their effects are "slight" (12). HIST

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267

Wei 5. Orr, Elaine. '''Unsettling Every Definition of Otherness':

Another Reading of Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path.'" South Atlantic Review 57 (1992): 57-72.
Although few critics have discussed the white attendant's labeling of
Phoenix as a "charity case" at the conclusion of the story, the silence it
engenders in Phoenix is crucial to understanding the story (57). The
story is more than an account of Phoenix's journey; it is also "a complex
analogy of fabulationof invention, discovery, and subjective expansion" (57). The reader must solve the puzzle that is posed by Phoenix's
character, discarding assumptions and entering into a new awareness
(57). Some passages suggest an alternative reading of Phoenix, one that
undercuts the stereotypes. The incident with the white hunter, for example, shows how Phoenix takes the man's assumptions and uses them
to write her own version, redirecting his own assumptions against him
and, in the process, acquiring what she wants, a nickel (58). Not accepting his version of herselfone that implies that she is simple-minded
she creates her own selfhood, her own subjectivity (58). The claim that
Phoenix's acquisition of the medicine for her grandson signals closure
for the story, or that the story is an example of love and selfishness, is a
misreading and one that is mired in stereotypical assumptions about
race and gender (59). Moreover the story itself does not support such a
reading (59). Instead, the incident with the hunter helps explain the
events of the conclusion (60). Phoenix, through her actions, challenges
the assumptions of the attendant and nurse and of the reader as well
(60). Indications that the story is not as straightforward as it appears lie
in the selection of the name Phoenix for the protagonist and in the many
contradictions that occur within the story (61). For example, although
she is described as almost blind, she spots the nickel and identifies it as
such (61). The title refers not to Phoenix's journey but to the reader's
who, in reading the story, encounters obstacles to maintaining past beliefs (62). The first challenge comes in understanding the hunter, who,
as tradition would have it, is the typical hero (62). But Phoenix undercuts his stature: her journey is more important than his (62). Another
challenge comes with Phoenix's language, which is more sophisticated
than critics and readers have assumed. She engages in word play and in
a type of language called "doubletalk" in which the real meaning is
hidden beneath the actual speech, a type of speech that marginalized
groups, such as blacks and women, often employ with the dominant
group (63). The inattentive reader can be likened to the hunter, one who
misses the meaning because he or she is unwilling to discard past assumptions (64). Phoenix's encounter with the nurse in town is similar to
her encounter with the hunter; both view Phoenix in terms of their own
assumptions, marginalizing Phoenix (65). The hunter is blinded by his
racism and sexism, and the nurse by her racism and classism (66). The
nurse and the attendant expect Phoenix to behave humbly like "a char-

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ity case" and maternally like a grandmother (66). They attempt to define her, but through her silence, she resists their definition (67). When
Phoenix does answer, she parodies their expectations, acting the role of
the humble black woman (68). And the reader who has accepted the acquisition of the medicine as the reason for her journey is also being parodied (68). Emphasizing her control over her own selfhood. Phoenix
manipulates the woman into giving her a nickel (69). Phoenix, like the
mythic bird, creates herself (68). She questions the dominant culture's
beliefs about women and blacks (69). Welty, in her story, undercuts the
assumptions that keep marginal groups subordinate (70). THEM,
MULTI, READ-R

Wei 6. Phillips, Robert L., Jr. "A Structural Approach to Myth in

the Fiction of Eudora Welty." In Eudora Welty: Critical Essays. Ed.
Peggy Whitman Prenshaw. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1979. Pp. 56-67.
Although other critics argue that Welty begins with the myth and
then grafts it on to a Mississippi setting, Welty starts with Mississippi
and sees in it a mythic dimension (56). Welty discovers in her characters
from Mississippi a universal quality (57) that has its roots in fantasy and
myth (58). Welty typically uses myth in three different ways (58). In the
first way, references and allusions are made to myths, but the characters
themselves are unaware of the added dimension (59). "A Worn Path"
falls into this category (60). The story began not with the Phoenix myth
but with Welty's sighting one wintry day an old woman walking in the
distance (60). To that image Welty added a narrative line and references
to myths and legends (60). Allusions to Phoenix, the bird that renews itself, abound, but also, as other critics have pointed out, there are echoes
of the myths of Aeneas, Persephone, Demeter, and Adonis among others (60). The protagonist. Phoenix, is not aware of the parallels, but the
reader is, and this awareness adds another dimension to the story (60).
Welty also utilizes myth so that reality itself seems to be questioned
(61). In this second way, myths and legends figure predomir\antly in a
story (61) which is set in "a symbolic, even allegorical, landscape full of
mythical men and strange beasts" (63). Still, however, the characters are
unaware of the added mythic dimension (64). But in the third way that
Welty uses myth, the characters understand their part in the mythic
tradition (64), recognizing their place in the history of myth (67). The
reader, in order to understand Welty's fiction to the fullest, must be
cognizant of the mythic level (67). ARCH
Wei 7. Porter, Katherine Anne. "Introduction." A Curtain of Green
and Other Stories by Eudora Welty. 1941. New York: Harcourt,
Brace and World, 1970. Pp. xi-xxiii.

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269

Reminiscences about meeting the young Eudora Welty (xi) precede

discussion of Welty's family and education and her beginnings as a
writer (xii-xiv). Welty did not study creative writing in college but
came by it naturally (xv). Welty shows a lack of interest in political systems (which often negate the individualistic impulse) and she also adheres to a strong moral code (xvi). Some of the stories contained in the
volume "offer an extraordinary range of mood, pace, tone, and variety
of material" (xix). "A Worn Path" contains a mixture of dream and reality (xxi). Even though Welty's writing style is straightforward, her
themes are complex (xxiii). HIST, FORM, THEM
Wei 8. Robinson, David. "A Nickel and Dime Matter: Teaching
Eudora Welty's 'A Worn P a t h / " Notes on Mississippi Writers 19
(1987): 23-27.
The passage in which Phoenix encounters the white hunter, sees him
drop a nickel, and distracts him in order that she might pick up the
nickel is open to several interpretations (24). For example, either the
hunter knows he dropped the nickel, or he realizes it only when he sees
her pick it up, or he never knows (25). The most plausible reading is the
last. The hunter stereotypes Phoenix and patronizes her, never realizing
that his attitude enables Phoenix to profit (26). But because of the
hunter's attitude, the reader excuses Phoenix's theft of the nickel. Welty
is providing a comment on racism (26). THEM
Wei 9. Saunders, James Robert. "'A Worn Path': The Eternal Quest

of Welty's Phoenix Jackson." The Southern Literary Journal 25

(1992): 62-73.
"A Worn Path" has occasioned various interpretations, having been
seen, for instance, as a religious quest or as an examination of the deterioration of the protagonist Phoenix as she wrests with senility and oncoming death (62-63). Phoenix, however, shares a universal quality
with Dilsey of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (65) and with Vyry in
Margaret Walker's Jubilee (66). Contributing to her universality are several traits. The first is her oneness with nature, which is implied by the
fact that the elements assist her in her journey: the thorny bush does
"not harm the garments of an essential sister," and the dead trees salute
her (67). Second is her overwhelming love: she "is the designated protector of another worthy innocent" (69). The third is her perseverance
(71). THEM
Wei 10. Walter, James. "Love's Habit of Vision in Welty's Phoenix

Jackson." Journal of the Short Story in English 7 (1986): 77-85.

Phoenix's love supplies the center of the story {77). Her love, based in
Christianity, carries her forward as she patiently and persistently over-

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comes the obstacles she encounters along her journey (79-80). Her silence at the conclusion is a result of the attendant's questions, which
force her to consider her own troubles; consequently she "withdraws
into self-preoccupation" (82). But moments later she recovers and vows
never to forget her grandson again (82). The reader is made to confront
his or her own assumptions. Faced with a Phoenix who seems stereotypical, the reader misreads the story until the conclusion forces a reevaluation (83). THEM, READ-R

Wei 11. Welty, Eudora. "Is Phoenix Jackson's Grandson Really

Dead?" The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays and Reviews. New
York: Vintage Books, 1979. Pp. 159-62.
Eudora Welty discusses "A Worn Path" and specifically responds to
the question she is most often asked: Is the grandson alive? Answering
affirmatively, she points out that the narrative line and the story's aesthetics suggest his continuing existence (159-60). Welty continues her
discussion of the story, pointing out that Phoenix's journey and her love
for her grandson are the essential elements of the story (160) and identifying the catalyst as being her once viewing an old woman walking in
the distance on a wintry day (161). She concludes by suggesting that the
task of writing is similar to Phoenix's journey. In other words, writing is
a struggle to arrive at meaning, a journey accomplished with the aid of
"imagination ... dreams and bits of good luck" (162). HIST, THEM
B.W.