Life is a journey - an interpretation of Eudora Welty´s "A Worn Path"

Abstract or Introduction

“A Worn Path” written by Eudora Welty was first published within her volume of
short stories “A Curtain of Green” in 1941.1 It is a story about life in its purest
naturalism.
Welty´s main character is the old Negro woman Phoenix Jackson. With her tremendous
self-sacrifice and the love for her little grandson she frequently goes on an adventurous
journey from the old Natchez Trace into town to get some medicine for her grandchild
who swallowed lye some years ago and is frequently suffering from sore throat.
But more than one could think of the story is a metaphor for the way of life that
everyone of us has to go. The story´s path expresses the hard journey of life – the
journey, even Eudora Welty speaks about when being asked about the unsolved fate of
the grandson: “But it is the journey, the going of the errand, that is the story, and the
question is not whether the grandchild is in reality alive or dead.”2 This can be easily
compared to the path of life and to the fact that it´s result is less important than the path
itself.

1 Kreyling, Michael. Understanding Eudora Welty. Columbia: University of Southern Carolina
Press, 1999. 6.
2 Welty, Eudora. “Is Phoenix Jackson´s Grandson Really Dead?” The Story and Its Writer – An Introduction to
Short Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Shorter 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin´s Press, 1990. 750.