| Title | : | A Worn Path |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0886824710 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780886824716 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 32 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 1941 |
The Atlantic Monthly first published the story in February 1941.
A Worn Path Reviews
-
This short story by Eudora Welty was both vivid and very moving. An old woman named Phoenix Jackson makes a journey that, from the title alone, we sense is one she has made many times before. The reason for her journey is not immediately evident, but Welty’s lovely prose made me feel as if I was on this quest with her. "Deep, deep the road went down between the high green-colored banks. Overhead the live-oaks met, and it was as dark as a cave." A Worn Path also reflects the racism and poverty of Mississippi during those times (the story was written in 1941). An affecting piece of literature and one that I recommend to anyone wanting to sample classic, American southern literature. I would love to immerse myself more fully in one of Welty’s full length novels sometime soon.
-
The worn path is a trail that old Aunt Phoenix has taken since she was a young girl, from her place back off the Old Natchez Trace into the town of Natchez. How old is she? "There's no telling", she says. But she must be close to 100. "I never did go to school, I was too old at the Surrender", she says. Her trip this time is to get medicine for her grandson. The trip, the people she meets, the things she sees, are so beautifully and vividly described by Welty that it's like watching the movie. The ending seemed unfinished to me which kept me from giving it five stars.
-
A free online link to the short story is found here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
In this story an elderly black woman, Phoenix, takes an arduous trip by foot into Natchez, a town in southern Mississippi. It is most probably the early 1900s; the Civil War is spoken of as having occurred, but long ago.
A person can read this story in two ways. One can take what is told as being true or one can question the validity of what we are told. A nurse at the medical dispensary to which Phoenix has walked tells us that Phoenix is seeking medicine for her grandson. Several years ago, he swallowed lye. His throat has never properly healed; it gradually swells up and suffocates him. They are willing to give Phoenix medicine if she comes and fetches it herself. Note, as she takes the long and difficult journey to the hospital, she never tells us this, and she talks as she walks--to herself, to the animals along the way and to the people she meets, some kind, some mean and one very dangerous. Skeptic that I am, I couldn’t stop wondering if what we have been told is actually true! There is not enough in the story to decide. The story needs more meat and the end feels incomplete.
The prose is wonderfully descriptive and vivid. Atmospheric and alive. Phoenix is elderly, very elderly, and she is traveling alone. The walk, what she sees and experiences through her senses, rather than what happens, is the best of the story.
The short story captures the poverty and racial inequality that persisted after the Civil War.
Is there no one other than me that questions what we are told? I wish I could ask
Eudora Welty what she wanted to say with the story. Could the journey portray the ups and downs, the good luck and the bad and the struggle of life? -
Powerful and heart breaking.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/ew_p... -
Just my take on this but **SPOILERS ** maybe if you've not read it.
*****************************************
Even as I started reading this very short story I had the feeling that it was about the last journey we all have to make.
Phoenix an ancient black lady sets out on a very long walk with a 'cane made from an umbrella'.She has walked this path up hills through the pine trees and down hill through the Oaks many times, indeed her feet know their own way.
She is on a mission to get medicine for a beloved grandson.
On her journey she encounters hardship, and danger as well as good fortune and kindness. A lot like life really.
There is for me a lot to reflect on in this story.
I wonder how old Eudora Welty was when she wrote this... Was she looking back on her own life through the eyes of Phoenix?
As well as reading this story I also listened to it voiced by Eudora herself which I think made the 'feelings' even more poignant. -
Welty takes us on a journey with Phoenix, an elderly Southern black lady, as she treks a path she knows well from her home to the doctor's office in town. Along the way, we learn a great deal about both Phoenix and the environment in which she lives. Welty packs a great deal into a very short story.
-
A Negro woman, poor and ancient, travels on foot in the woods, with a stick, trying to conquer the great distance from her humble abode to the nearest town.
Her language is coarse and illiterate. She talks to herself, to imagined and real persons and animals she meet. She remembers, forgets, suffers and sins.
In most of our real lives, like those dirty beggars who knock on your car window as you try to drive through the rush hour traffic each day, this old woman is not someone whom you would cast your merest attention to. To their kind, you'd often avert your gaze, convinced of the uselessness of looking at an irremediable suffering you feel no responsibility for or reason to be guilty of.
Eudora Welty makes alive such a non-entity here, and exhibits a powerful, sympathetic insight into the mind of an inconsequential life. -
This is really a short story but in a lovely volume which I found in our library shop. Although not usually a fan of short stories, this one I really enjoyed. It's a tale of an elderly black woman in Mississippi making a long trek into town on foot. Having lived in Mississippi as a child, this little story held great interest for me and Eudora Welty is one of my favorite Mississippi authors.
-
3.75 :)
-
Eudora Welty was an American short story writer and novelist who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
A Worn Path is about Old Phoenix (a mythological bird...does that have meaning?) Jackson (they also elude she is around 100 yrs old) and her journey from her quiet rural life to town in order to get the medicine for her beloved grandson is a ritual of caring she must do.
Some might think the story is very simple. It is not exciting, no highs and no lows, but what it does tell is the quaint rural quiet life that Phoenix has. A Worn Path eludes to the many times she has overcome the obstacles along the way to achieve her goal.
The story tells of the poor life (apron made of sugar sacks) Phoenix has, but she is full of love, persistence and gumption. Nothing deters her on her way to get what she needs for her Grandson. Her body is so used to making this trip she even forgets the why, when she reaches her destination. When she gets to the clinic, they do not take any payment written off as "charity".
For years people have walked the course of life, overcoming obstacles along the way and grasping onto hope and love to help strengthen their steps along the path. This is such a tale. -
The best thing about this story for me was the description. The out-dated short film based off of it kind of ruined it for me. It was all right.
-
read for school.
-
A Worn Path is a deeply symbolic short story about an elderly African American woman who makes a difficult journey through the countryside. It's a unique take on the "hero's journey" story template.
A quick, easy read that gives you plenty to ponder. -
I read this story in a much darker tone than someone else might read it, and it's left open to decide the truth for yourself. Phoenix is an old woman, who must be around a hundred, since it seems like the story takes place in the very late 1930s or very early 1940s, and she says she was "too old [for schooling] at the Surrender," which means the end of the Civil War, 1865. Too old for education would've had to have been late teens at the earliest, mostly likely meaning 20 or older, so she probably would have been at least 20 in 1865, so at least 95 in 1940.
This may contain some spoilers if you haven't read the story, or it may help you see the story in a different light if you find it coming up short: Phoenix is black in the racially divided South and makes a trip she has taken many times, from her home far from the city center through some tedious obstacles to a doctor's office. Along the way, she talks to animals, can't see objects clearly, imagines things that are not there, talks to herself, has her shoes untied despite them tripping her, and is generally not "with it," though she's plenty capable of making the tough journey, regardless of her age.
When she gets to the doctor's, we find out that she is collecting medicine for her young grandson who has swallowed lye at least three years ago, and whose throat has never been the same since, swelling occasionally so that he cannot swallow. But anyone who knows the dangers of lye (hi, historian here!) knows that it is rather unlikely that a child would have survived it at all, especially if this journey Phoenix takes is how long it would have taken to get treatment. Lye causes severe chemical burns and corrosion, eating right through the esophagus. Stomach acids can neutralize it in the stomach, but the mouth and throat are powerless, and if it doesn't kill you, it will at the very least dissolve so much of your lips, tongue, and throat that you'll have to eat with a tube for the rest of your life. Colonists who made lye soap would regularly die from just the chemical poisoning involved in inhaling the fumes (which is why lye soap was never made inside the house, always outside, even in the cold of winter).
So. One wonders if the child survived at all, or if this is just one more of Phoenix's delusions, such as reaching for a proffered piece of cake by the river that is just a figment of her imagination. The dispensary clerks are skeptical, as well, shedding light on the possibility that Phoenix may simply not be dealing with the grief and guilt of losing the grandchild, the rest of the backstory of the situation being murky at best.
My theory is that she once took this path, three years ago, to try to save her grandson, who had ingested lye. As we take this long, arduous path with her, seeing all the obstacles it entails (barbed-wire fences, thorns, rickety bridges, dangerous white men with guns who clearly own the property she's traversing, no roads), we see how long it must have taken her the first time she had to make this journey, a journey too long to have made and to have still had the child survive without immediate treatment. We see that this is her guilt-ridden penance walk, her cross to bear, and in this we also see the disparities of those who "have" and those who "have not." It demonstrates the class divide, the wealth divide, the education divide, the race divide; and for all these divides, she had to pay the dearest price, which was the loss of her grandson because she couldn't get to treatment fast enough. In this, we also get echoes of today's healthcare atmosphere between the haves and have nots, those who still cannot afford to receive medical treatment or who can't get to it fast enough, and those who can.
This story actually only gets three stars for my enjoyment of it, but I gave it one more star for the aftereffects of reading more into it than what was on the page and of seeing some deeper irony and symbolism, though it loses one star for its rather ambiguous ending that feels chopped off and unfinished. -
Based on her encounter with two elderlu women while out painting. She caught a glimpse of one crossing a field "obviously on a mission for someone else, so intently she was walking." The second woman she talked to giving her the line Aunt Phoenix says, "My memory failed me. I was too old at the surrender to get an education." She said these two women merged into one in this story.
Phoenix is an apporpriate name for the region as well as symbolic of her life-giving mission.
Welty wrote an essay saying she never intended to suggest the grandson was dead. -
I had to read this for my Women's Literature class in college. I had read this before also, for another English class at some point. I like it. I feel bad for the old woman making the long trek, but I admire her determination and love she has for her grandson.
-
The story of the journey of the grandmother to the store turns into an insightful allegory for all of our journies.
-
Great writing, but why would I want to read something so boring? No offense.
-
“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
A Genius Story!
Any writer should want to write a similar gem in his or her writing career! It has an allusion to the legend of the phoenix, which is the name of the main character: Phoenix Jackson. It may take a couple of reads to see all the similarities, but they are woven through the whole plot. And you do not need to read the critics to see it. The protagonist is on a mission to get medicine for her grandson encountering challenges through the woods, fueled by her old age and gaps in her memory. Similar to the phoenix bird, she is the oldest person around, she has similar colors of orange, brown, gold around her face, she takes regular trips to the town as the bird travels to the Sun City too. When she arrives at the clinic, she sees the diploma of the doctor with the Golden Seal. When the nurse inquires her who she is, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t say her name or why she had come until the nurse mentions her grandson, which triggers: “ a flicker, a flame of comprehension”: and she comes back to her senses. She had experienced a symbolic death and resurrection like the phoenix bird! How much greater it can be! This story could be read and re-read multiple times, and each time, you will discover another magnificent detail! This story DEFINES brilliant storytelling! -
The story “A Worn Path” by American writer Eudora Welty tells about an old African American woman walking through the woods into town. She encounters many obstacles on her way - a ditch, barbed-wire fence, a thorny bush, etc.
Through many difficulties, she goes to get medicine for her grandson, who accidentally swallowed lye several years ago. Her love for him is so strong and deep that, despite her old age, she starts this difficult journey on the eve of each Christmas.
The concept of "path" is universal. The way people go - reflects their lives.
Here is the link to the text of the story:
https://surry.haikulearning.com/c/483... -
The use of nature, colour and decay to offset sinister Gothic undertones give this story a cinematic quality that makes it a truly captivating read. At the same time, I felt uneasy. Racism, sexism and ageism necessarily make up the bulk of the tacit authorial commentary, with the Gothic conventions playing against this to highlight what couldn't be said directly. It also comes across in the violent treatment/objectification of animals within the story, as well as the lack of empathy by most characters toward others.
NB It's a downer, but recommended and easy to find online. -
Descriptive and evocative, the writing does walk you along old Phoenix leaning side to side with her prodding cane. The monologue, the single-mindedness of the journey towards an unknown destination keeps us guessing. When she does reach, we have arrived to our understanding of her abject situation. And we thought she did make that journey for the Santa Claus,.....her lightness of spirit and her resolute steps mislead us to that notion.
A quaint little picture of words that leaves us with a heavy heart... -
The topic of the Homo Viator, the topic of the purpose that moves us forward and a lovely story of sacrifice and love all in one. It also tackles issues such as racism and the way people treat the aged and elderly. Very enjoyable and admitting various levels of reading. Also mentioned by the author herself in the "Is Phoenix Jackson's Grandson Really Dead?" essay in her book On Writing.
