Although they written during roughly the same time period and are both based on Southern culture, William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” are very different in many ways, from the tone of the stories to the narrative style used. One of the best ways to look at these differences is by comparing the principal characters in the stories. Miss Emily and Phoenix Jackson are both, in different ways, tragic figures. However, a careful examination of these two women reveals that, while the tragedy of Miss Emily is built on despair, that of Phoenix Jackson has a measure of hope.
When the character of Miss Emily is introduced by Faulkner to the reader in the first section of the story, it is immediately after her death. The narrative voice of the townspeople then describes Emily and her eccentric ways. Emily was seen by the town as a venerable and respected member of the community based on her family’s long history and prominence in the town. However, her family’s fortunes have fallen to such an extent that the town, in the person of Colonel Sartorius, had to set up a face saving way for her not to pay taxes (Faulkner 120).
As the story proceeds, Faulkner moves the reader back and forth in the timeline of Miss Emily’s life. The tragedy of that life, in which Emily’s father prevents her from having a full life with a husband and children, is revealed more by the musings and gossip of the townspeople than by Emily herself. When Emily’s father dies, she seems for a moment to have hope for the future when she meets Homer Barron. However, this hope is quickly crushed, both by the prejudices of the townspeople and the disclosure that Homer is most likely homosexual (Faulkner 126). Even with the shocking revelation at the end, Emily seems a broken, damaged figure throughout the story.
In large part, the damaged Emily seems to be a product of the strict conventions and expectations of Southern society for upper-class white women. Emily’s father thwarts her attempts at finding a husband because none of the suitors is good enough for the family. Later, the townspeople also view Homer Barron as being beneath Emily’s station in life.
In “A Worn Path”, Phoenix Jackson appears as a very old black woman who has set out on a long walk to town. In this story, we have a single narrative voice throughout. In a way, this makes it easier to examine the character of the main protagonist, Phoenix Jackson. However, as with Miss Emily, there is more going on with the character than is obvious at first.
As with the “A Rose for Emily”, there is a mystery involved in “A Worn Path.” This secret is the reason for Phoenix Jackson’s journey into town. The title seems to imply that this is a journey the old woman has made many times before. As Phoenix Jackson travels to the town, she is reveals a strength and determination that Miss Emily was entirely lacking. She encounters various obstacles along the way and overcomes them all. Like Emily, Jackson is hemmed in by cultural expectations. In her case, these expectations are based on racial prejudice and stereotypes.
The interactions of Phoenix Jackson and Emily with those around them also stand out as a major difference between the two characters. For the most part, Emily is aloof. Emily rarely speaks to others directly in her story, and when she does, it is to dismiss the concerns of the people speaking to her. One example of this can be seen when Emily refuses to answer the clerk’s question about what she wants the rat poison for (Faulkner 124). Another example is when Emily has her black servant show out the tax collectors, telling then to speak to the long dead Colonel Sartorius about the matter (Faulkner 120). In fact, as her story progresses, Emily becomes even more removed from the town and its residents. Still, the townspeople, at least when they are speaking directly to her, are very respectful to Emily.
Phoenix Jackson’s interactions with the people she meets are very different. Some of these interactions are very unpleasant, while others are less so. Much of the journey revolves around the obstacles in her way, such as the high hill she has to climb with her cane or the creek she has to cross. Even though the reader has no idea until the end why Jackson is walking to town, you begin to admire her dogged determination to get there.
At one point in her journey, a hunter jokingly (or is it a joke?) threatens Jackson with his gun and tells she to give up on her plan to walk to town. Both with his disdainful words and with the gun, the hunter seems to be reminding Jackson of her position in the scheme of things by suggesting she has no reason to go to town (Welty 153).
An interesting point in “A Worn Path” is when Jackson, after crossing the creek, rests for a time under some mistletoe. Here, she seems to have either a dream or a delusion about a boy who hands her some cake. When she reaches for the cake it is gone. This fascinating aspect of the story seems to play on the Christmas theme in “A Worn Path.” Jackson herself can be seen as a metaphor for the suffering Christ as she travels her road, and the cake is symbolic of (as yet) unrealized hopes for the future (Piwinski 40).
Pride is a common factor in these two characters, but the pride manifests itself in entirely different ways for the Emily and Phoenix Jackson. In Emily, the pride is based on a position and social standing that is rooted in the past. Even though the reality of her situation, with her dilapidated house and lack of money, makes this pride seem silly, she clings to it. The terrible thing she does when she murders Homer is as much based on this pride as it is on her loneliness (Getty 231).
Phoenix Jackson’s pride is based not on the past in which she was apparently a slave, or on the present in which she is treated as a second-class citizen, but instead in the future. The linear path she walks into town, and the obstacles she overcomes, represent this hope for the future. In the relation about her grandson, the reader also sees hope and optimism.
The physical descriptions of Emily and Phoenix Jackson on the surface seem to have some similarities. In those parts of the story that show Emily in later life, she is a tired looking older woman, and is described as grey and ghostly. She seems as worn and deathlike as the house she lives in.
Jackson is also very old in “A Worn Path.” She walks with a cane, and her face is lined and wrinkled. As she walks, she gives every indication that her life in winding down, such as when she can barely make it up the hill or when she thinks that alls the obstacles are telling her to stop (Welty, 151).
However, the age of Jackson as portrayed in “A Worn Part” is different from Emily’s. While Emily seems to be barely alive as she moves through the town, Jackson seems to radiant life and energy despite her physical limitations. From this perceptive, Jackson’s age is merely physical, while Emily’s age also involves an aged and tired spirit.
Even though the location and time period for “A Worn Path” and “A Rose for Emily” or roughly the same and both stories relate tragic circumstances, the reader comes away from them with very different feelings. In “A Rose for Emily,” the character of Emily is completely tragic and illustrates the insanity to which despair and loneliness can drive a person. In many ways, the tragedy and pain in “A Worn Path” is even greater, but the character of Phoenix Jackson transforms this tragedy into something noble and hopeful.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Collected Stories of William Faulkner. New York: Random House, 1950. 119-130.
Getty, Laura J. “Faulkner's A Rose for Emily.” The Explicator 63. 4 (Summer 2005): 230-234.
Piwinski, David J. “Mistletoe in Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path”” ANQ 16. 1 (Winter 2003): 40-42.
Welty, Eudora. “A Worn Path.” Literature: An Introduction to Writing. Roberts, Edgar V. and Jacobs, Henry E. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 150-155.
