Experience 1: This story reveals love as the most impressionable characteristic of Phoenix. She exhibits deep-ingrained habit of love for her grandson. Love becomes the motivation for Phoenix’s trip through pines and oaks (Jae & Julien 2). Love finds its way out of difficulty and remembers the its way in moments of uncertainty. Phoenix exhibits natural and unconscious love and becomes her primary motive in the quest of charity. This characteristic is similar to Antonio in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, who is willing to give out a pound of his flesh to protect his best friend, Bassanio.
Experience 2: A Worn Path symbolizes the rarity of Phoenix’s journey. In the present world, it is unusual to find someone go to such lengths in the seeking care for another person. Phoenix journey through slopes and valleys in order to heal her grandson reflects her legendary character throughout the story (Jae & Julien 7). Another element of symbolism is the birds. Birds have consistently appeared in the story. Phoenix and the grandson have been linked to birds. The noise that the cane makes is equated to song of the phoenix. Phoenix is protective of her grandson in the same was as a mother bird over her young ones.
Experience 3: The story is taking place during the depression era in the south of America. An old woman is overcoming obstacle in her determination to acquire medicine that could heal her grandson.
Experience 4: The theme of endurance features significantly in the life of the protagonist, Phoenix. She recognizes that for the well-being of her grandson, she must be in town for him. Phoenix encounters demeaning treatment. But she registers stoical endurance to get to town amid difficulties.
Experience 5: The major conflict in the story is the conflict of the individual versus the society. Phoenix is at conflict with her old age when she dares a long distance to heal her grandson. She confronts her old age, racial prejudice, poverty, her declining health and the need to find cure for her grandson.
Experience 6: The major element of irony occurs in the office when Phoenix seeks soothing medicine to cure her grandson in this office.
Experience 7: The hunter exhibited racial attitude during his conversation with Phoenix. He puts Phoenix in the category of old colored people who won’t miss an opportunity to see Santa Claus (Welty 3).
Works Cited
Welty, Eudora. "A worn path." Critical Inquiry 1.1 (1974): 222-228.
Jaén, Isabel, and Julien Jacques Simon, eds. Cognitive literary studies: Current themes and
new directions. University of Texas, 2013.
