Rise Of A Phoenix In Eudora Welty's A Worn Path

Rise of a Phoenix The Phoenix is a magical bird in folklore that represents eternal life and knowledge in certain cultures. In Eudora Welty’s short story, ‘A Worn Path’, she gives her main character the name Phoenix Jackson as a way to honor the well know mythical bird. The story opens up to our main character walking through a frozen December morning as she heads into town. Throughout the story we read many occurrences of how she relates to the bird. Phoenix Jackson and this bird share similar traits and the three main traits that they share are: their appearance, actions and protective nature. In folklore the Phoenix was told to have represented the sun by having beautiful golden wings with red and blue accents. When the Phoenix neared …show more content…
The most iconic action a phoenix is known for is rising up when it is struck down. A scene in the story de-picks Phoenix coming across a large black dog who then crashes into the frail older woman and sends her into a ditch. A young white man comes across her and helps her up from the ditch. Just like a phoenix bird our Phoenix rises from the ditch like a bird from ash. Another action she does is when she uses her wits to pick up a nickel the young man has dropped by distracting the man with the task of getting rid of the other dog. “The yellow palm of her hand came out from the fold of her apron. Her fingers slid down and along the ground under the piece of money with the grace and care they would have in lifting an egg from under a setting hen. Then she slowly straightened up, she stood erect, and the nickel was in her apron pocket,” (4). Her actions portrayed in the quote shows her movements have slow down with her old age as she slowly got back up into a normal position just like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Talking more about Phoenix’s is they are quite protective and caring of things in their …show more content…
Although she has to leave him alone while she makes this trip, she does it every time because that little boy is all she has left and she would spend her last days doing anything for him. ‘A Worn Path,’ is not just a story about an older woman wondering the woods to head to town, the story’s deeper meaning is that if one puts their mind to something than they can accomplish anything. Phoenix Jackson shares similar traits to the mythical phoenix bird through her appearance, actions and protective nature. From her dull, blue eyes and golden under tone of her skin to the actions she takes to distract the hunter and how she is protective of the only family she has left shows us as readers just how strong a character this old woman is. The main idea of the story from my point of view is that everyone thinks she is a silly old woman for making this trip but they should not under estimate the will power of someone who has something important to take care of and in Phoenix Jacksons case this important subject happens to be her

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Rise Of A Phoenix In Eudora Welty's A Worn Path

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