A Worn Path

A worn path

By Eudora Welty

“A worn path” is a story of unconscious heroism in which Phoenix Jackson is the protagonist. She is an old and poor African Negro woman. She wears a red rag in her hair and long apron made of sugar sacks. She makes a long trip to the town every year in order to fetch medicine for her grandson.

The story opens on a chilly December morning with panoramic sights. Phoenix is making her way to town slowly but surely, through pinewoods and oak trees tapping her umbrella came on the way. She moves on talking to animals, birds and trees in the course of her journey.

While coming down the hills, due to her poor eyesight, she catches her skirt in a thorny bush and very patiently, she frees her clothes from the bush. After that, she crosses the stream by walking a narrow log. As she advances her way, she crawls like a baby. In the purple stalks of the withered cotton field, she talks to a buzzard (big bird).

Her journey continuous as she walks through the old cotton and dead maize field where her poor eyesight mistakes a scarecrow as a ghost.

As she is walking on the wagon track, she encounters with a wild dog where she losses her balance and falls into a ditch. Soon a white hunter rescues her. She picks up a nickel fallen from the hunter’s pocket.

When she reaches her destination, she sees the town neat, clean, and well decorated with lights. When she forgets the purpose of her journey, the nurse recognizes her and gives medicine marking as a charity case. The attendant gives her a nickel as a Christmas gift.

In the end of the story, she makes up her mind to buy a paper toy (windmill) for her grandson and makes her back journey.

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