![eudora welty on writing eudora welty on writing](https://blog.pshares.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/White-Fragility-and-Playing-in-the-Dark-685x275.jpg)
“’Up through the pines,’ she said at length. Phoenix herself seems to realize the analogy between the pine forest and her youth as she reaches the top of the hill. While that was a difficult struggle in itself, it wasn’t the last hurdle to be overcome in their pursuit of equality. The upward slope of the pine forest symbolizes Phoenix’s maturing out of childhood as much as it can be seen to be the struggle of the black race out of slavery. We are reminded that she is no longer so vulnerable as she proves herself capable of defending herself against any rustle she hears in the thicket, “Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, beetles, jack rabbits, coons and wild animals!’ … Under her small black-freckled hand her cane, limber as a buggy whip, would switch at the brush as if to rouse up any hiding things” (p. However, pine wood is also very easy to damage with its softer skin, and Phoenix herself was also vulnerable to these dangers.
#Eudora welty on writing full
In youth, she was still full of bright hopes and dreams that were often “almost too bright to look at” (p. She was able to bend with the changing times and easily reshaped herself to achieve new actions. This is an example of what Phoenix was like as a young girl. Pine wood is a soft wood which means it’s easier to bend it and shape it to new purposes. In this story, the pine trees symbolize the springiness and sunshine of youth. This forest is described as being full of springy needles and bright sun. We join Phoenix at a point on her path where she is in an evergreen forest. However, as Phoenix makes her way through the country, she is proved to be anything but frail. 142) indicating both difficulty seeing through cataracts and a sense of frailty in the small, old, poor and bent frame. “Her eyes were blue with age” and she is “very old and small” (p. As the physical description continues, we begin to feel like this is a woman who should have someone home watching out for her and making sure she doesn’t wander too far. With the untied shoes, she is again not viewed as a long-distance walker. 142), and the untied shoes both suggest a woman who is both poor and either old or unintelligent, possibly both. Although there is nothing mentioned about her dress, “a dark striped dress reaching down to her shoe tops” (142), that indicates it is a poor woman’s dress, the apron she wears over it, “an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks” (p. In this, she seems like a very unlikely long-distance walker. Reading this kind of imagery, one gets the picture of a penguin, moving forward more by accident because of their vigorous rocking instead of because they’re actually walking. Her movements are not graceful as she moves “a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum” and “she carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella” (p. She is described as “an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag” (p. When she is first seen, Phoenix Jackson does not seem to be a very important or very imposing character. Through symbolic imagery and careful organization, Welty is able to present Phoenix Jackson in loving detail as a fully fledged human being rather than simply as a character. By the end of the story, the character Phoenix Jackson is seen as a fully developed human being despite the short space of time in which she is introduced. The idea that he is always sick is made clear in Phoenix’s intimate knowledge of the path she walks while the idea that she makes this trip for love is shown in her thoughts of him. Not until the end does Welty tell us that Phoenix is making this difficult trip in order to get the medicine her chronically-ill grandson needs in order to breathe. All of this is understood to have contributed to the character of the woman who shuffles her way to town. Introduced as simply an old woman, bent over, using a walking stick and wearing funny clothes, Phoenix’s character is brought out in intimate detail through the imagery of her journey since many of the physical things she passes are symbolic of the journey she’s taken through life and the journey her race has taken through its history in America. Eudora Welty provides a beautiful portrayal of love and sacrifice as she tells the story of Phoenix Jackson and the long walk she takes in “A Worn Path.” The entire action of the story is this old black woman’s walk through mostly empty country to arrive at a small town decorated for Christmas.