Introduction
A Worn Path is a skillfully controlled story of the unconscious heroism of an old Negro woman called Phoenix Jackson. The woman makes a long courageous journey to get medicine for her grandson who has been suffering from an obstinate (never cure) throat problem caused by swallowed lye.
Main Summary of A Worn Path
In the story A Worn Path She begins her journey from home in the early December morning. On the way she faces so many obstacles which she tackles one by one without losing her hope, courage, confidence and her strong determination. She climbs pinewood hill, feeling great fear of wild animals. She taps the bush with her cane and warns the wild animals and birds not to come on her way. Then she goes down the hill through oak trees. Her dress is caught by thorny bushes. It takes her a long time to be free from them.
At the bottom of the hill, there is a log laid over a stream. She gets success to cross it with her balance body, courage and cane. Now she reaches in a barbed-wire fence. She keeps her body and dress safe and crawls like a baby to come on another side of the fence. She walked into the cotton field. Moreover, she feels a bit happy because it is winter and she couldn't see the bulls and two-headed snakes. Further, in the cornfield, she sees a human-like figure like a ghost. When she touches the sleeves of it, she finds it cold like ice and realizes it is a scarecrow. She laughs at herself. After that, she walks along the wagon track.
She drinks water flowing through a hollow log. Finally, she comes to the road. A black dog comes out of weeds by the ditch. She hits the dog with her cane but she herself falls into the ditch. She waits there losing her sense until a white hunter comes there and lifts her up. The white hunter asks her where she is going. She says that she is going to the town. The hunter advises her to go back because the town is far away. The woman is strongly determined to go to the town. The hunter also points the gun at her but she is not frightened.
Finally, she reaches the town. As it is Christmas, the town is decorated with different colours of lights. She comes to the hospital but she forgets the purpose of her arrival. Although the attendant asks about her grandson, she remains silent for a long time. Ultimately when the nurse asks her whether her grandson is alive or dead then only she comes to consciousness. She gets medicine free of cost and becomes ready to turn back to her house. The attendant gives her a coin. She takes out the coin from her pocket, that the hunter had dropped and she had picked up. She makes a plan to buy a paper made windmill for her grandson as a Christmas gift.
Important Questions of the Story A Worn Path
1. Explain Phoenix Jackson and the journey she makes to the town of Natchez.
Ans: Phoenix Jackson is an old lady. She makes her journey to get medicine for her grandson. It was cold early December morning. She had a cane to walk. She has a wrinkled face and unlaced shoes. Once she was caught in the thorny bush and freed herself. Then she comes across a small river and barbed wire fence. She found herself in the cotton field and saw a scarecrow. After this, she comes across a dog, which barks at her. She hits the dog with her cane and she herself falls in the ditch.
A Whiteman comes and helps her by lifting and she ran after the dog. Then she found a shining nickel and put it into her pocket. The Whiteman returned and wanted to give her a dime but he hadn’t she saw a church and talked with a lady there. Finally, she reached a stone building and climbed the stairs. The receptionist asked her a lot of questions. Then comes a nurse and asks questions to Phoenix. Phoenix replied that her grandson had a throat problem. The doctor asked the nurse to give Phoenix medicine freely. The receptionist gave her a nickel and she said that she would buy a paper windmill for her grandson.
2. What was the purpose of Phoenix Jackson’s trip to town? What obstacles did she face in her way?
Ans: The old lady Phoenix Jackson’s purpose of her trip to the town was to get some medicine for her grandson who is suffering from throat pain. Her grandson had swallowed lye and his throat stops working. She faced many obstacles on the way to the town. She was caught in the thorny bush and freed herself. Later on, she came across a dog. She hits the dog but she fell down herself into the ditch. The Whiteman helps her. She walks through the jungle.
3. What does Phoenix keep talking to herself? What do her monologues add to the total portrait of her?
Ans: Phoenix often talks herself on the way to the town. Mentally she is disturbed because of her grandson’s throat problem. When she was on the bank of the river, she saw a boy coming towards her with cake in her imagination. When she found Whiteman’s nickel, she realized herself as if she was doing something bad. From her monologues, we know about her poor condition of old age, greed for money, love for grandson, courage, etc.
4. `A worn path' is a story of the unconscious heroism of Phoenix Jackson.
Ans: Phoenix Jackson went to town for medicine for her grandson who had swallowed lye. Her grandson’s throat was not working. Nobody is there except Phoenix Jackson and her sick grandson. On the way to town, she speaks to herself on the way. She faces problems one after another. Once she was caught in the thorny bush. She freed herself. Then she kicked the dog in spite of her old age when she kicked the dog, she fell into the ditch. She comes across a log and goes ahead. Finally, she brings medicine and returns back home. So this story is a story of unconscious heroism. Her monologues make this factor clear.
5. Describe two obstacles old Phoenix comes up against on her way to the hospital and how she deals with them.
Ans: Phoenix Jackson is an old lady. She makes her journey to get medicine for her grandson. It was cold early December morning. She had a cane to walk. She has a wrinkled face and unlaced shoes. Once she was caught in the thorny bush and freed herself. Then she comes across a small river and barbed wire fence. She found herself in the cotton field and saw a scarecrow. After this, she comes across a dog that barks at her. She hits the dog with her cane and she herself falls in the ditch.
A Whiteman comes and helps her by lifting and she ran after the dog. Then she found a shining nickel fallen out of the man’s pocket. The Whiteman returned and wanted to give her a dime but he hadn’t. She saw a church and talked with a lady there. Finally, she reached a stone building and climbed the stairs. The receptionist asked her a lot of questions. Then comes a nurse and asks questions to Phoenix. Phoenix replied that her grandson had a throat problem. The doctor asked the nurse to give Phoenix medicine freely. The receptionist gave her a nickel and she said that she would buy a paper windmill for her grandson.
Analysis of the Story A Worn Path
“A Worn Path” is one of Welty’s most famous short stories. Much of its appeal lies in that it appears to be a simple story—an elderly woman travels through the forest to a city where she can get medicine for her ailing grandson—but that simplicity is belied by deeper themes of race, myth, religion, and life and death. There have been many critical interpretations of the story in the eighty or so years since its publication, and we will consider some of those here.
First, it offers a masterful lesson in the art of literary point of view. Not just any literary point of view, either, but the one that probably is the most difficult for readers to identify. That perspective is technically known as limited omniscience. Welty takes the reader into the mind of her powerfully conceived central figure, Phoenix, in a way that allows the reader to fully inhabit the mind of this person at a certain time and place, but what is real and what is only imagined commingle. The fusing of fantasy and reality is absolutely essential for the story because Welty wants to endow a quotidian event —a walk by an old woman to see a doctor—with far more mythic properties. Phoenix’s name is key here, for the phoenix is an Egyptian mythological creature—a bird who lived for an immensely long time, burst into flame, and was reborn from its ashes. It is thus an ancient symbol of rebirth, of perseverance.
Welty could simply have had Phoenix tell her story using a first-person perspective, of course, but that would present two obstacles. First, a story in which a person is relating the strange and unusual encounters such as Phoenix experiences would likely be viewed as less mythic than mentally disturbed. Secondly, were Phoenix narrating the events in her own voice, imagery such as “With her hands on her knees, the old woman waited, silent, erect and motionless, just as if she were in armour” would have had to be jettisoned. Phoenix would certainly not talk using such lofty language and it is equally doubtful she would write that way. Therefore, Welty had to find a way both to take the reader inside the mind of a person significantly less educated than herself while not limiting her own ability to write about that person in a way reflective of that intelligence.
To conclude, critic Roland Bartel propounds a theory that fascinated many readers and other critics: that the grandson is actually dead. He states that Phoenix’s journey is a “psychological necessity,” and “her only way of coping with her loss and her isolation.” Her journey is a “ritual that symbolically brings her grandson back to life.” Bartel’s evidence for this comes from several places in the story: the vision of the young boy offering her cake may indicate her vanished grandson; her blaming of her lapse of memory in the doctor’s office on her illiteracy is unconvincing, and it would make more sense if she had trouble articulating.
Why she was there if her grandson was dead; her comment about not forgetting her grandson (“I not going to forget him again, no, the whole enduring time”); the going down the stairway at the end of the story suggests a Dantean descent into hell, and the ascent and descent “[strengthen] the thematic unity and symmetry of the story by beginning and ending with references to death.” Bartel says Phoenix ultimately invents this fiction of her grandson still being alive to “make the last portion of her life bearable.”
Welty was asked about the grandson being dead numerous times, and responded somewhat elliptically, “the grandson’s plight was real and it made the truth of the story, which is the story of an errand of love carried out. If the child no longer lived, the truth would persist in the wornness of the path. But his being dead can’t increase the truth of the story, can’t affect it one way or the other. I think I signal this because the end of the story has been reached before old Phoenix gets home again: she simply starts back. To the question ‘Is the grandson really dead?’ I could reply that it doesn’t make any difference. I could also say that I did not make him in in order to let him play a trick on Phoenix. But my best answer would be: ‘Phoenix is alive.’
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