“A WORN PATH”

“A WORN PATH”

              “A Worn Path” is the story about an old Negro woman, Phoenix Jackson who undertakes a long hazardous journey from her country area up to city. She does it to fetch medicine for her grandson suffering from chronic throat trouble. It is written by An American novelist, Eudora Welty. She takes the readers into old phoenix’s mind with great delicacy and discloses her firm dignity. The story is filled with such minute details about various obstacles overcome by Jackson that it gives the impression of a story of heroism. During a Christmas time Phoenix Jackson leaves the country for the city with dreadful cold around. Being rather old and small, she walks along a path slowly through the pinewoods. She comes across various obstacles till she reaches the hospital for medicine. The first obstacle that old woman of about hundred years old encounters is the frozen earth in front of her. While tapping it with a thin small care, she moves ahead. Because of her shoe-laces trailing along from her unlaced shoes. She is about the stumble down at one place.

              Since, it is a journey through pinewood. She should be quite careful so as the avoid snakes and wild animals on the path. So switching at the brush with her cane, she manages to keep out of the obstacles one after another. The path leads her up hill. No sooner does she pass this obstacle, she is caught by a thorny bush. Once she stands free of it, she finds another one ahead of her. This time it is log across the creek and she has to walk on it with balanced steps. At this juncture she speaks to herself that she is not as old as she thinks. This reminds the readers of an Egyptian myth of bird phoenix that consumers itself by fire after every five hundred years and rises renewed from its own ashes. Likewise phoenix Jackson by undertaking the painful and hazardous journey rejuvenates herself every now and then.

Thus obstacles continue to appear all along her path. At one place, she has to move through a barbed wire fence. Then she passes through a failed of dead corn, a maze. In one place, she mistakes a scarecrow for a ghost. A dog also knocks her down. On the way she meets a white man and diverts his attention to a dog so that she can pick up a nickel that has fallen off his pocket. Finally she reaches the hospital, takes medicine for the grandson and comes out with a nickel given by an attendant. She decides to buy a windmill for the grandson. Now her steps begin on the stairs, going down. The story may have allegorical and symbolical reference for the movement of the black against the violation of their rights.