Thesis
Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ and Eudora Welty’s ‘A Worn Path’ are contrastingly different yet similar in some ways. While one is a poem, the other is a short story; however, they both seem to reveal a similar sentiment and expression of the protagonists. In ‘The Road Not Taken,’ the narrator, while waking on a road reaches a point where the road splits in two different directions. He stops to ponder which road to take and opts for the road less travelled. He was far from the madding crowd and close to nature. In ‘A Worn Path,’ the story revolves around Phoenix, an old Afro-American woman, who in her effort to purchase medicines for her grandson, has to walk through treacherous pinewoods to reach the town on her own. She too was far from the madding crowd, close to nature. Visualizing these two distinctly different characters trudging all alone, I remembered Phil Collin’s song, ‘Take Me Home.’ On a philosophical note though, it seems that the narrator’s journey in ‘The Road Not Taken’ is his intent to move from the cliché to the unknown, which could be risky, but could also bring greatness. For Phoenix, the journey is a contradiction of her physical condition; she believes that despite her physical limitations as an old Afro-American lady living in a white dominated society, she could challenge the adversities and succeed in her mission. Their mission was to change or correct the fallacies of society.
Keywords: will, nature, racism, challenge, adversity, cliché, limitations, self-belief
ROBERT FROST vs. EUDORA WELTY
When juxtaposing the works of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ and Eudora Welty’s ‘A Worn Path,’ a lot of sparks can erupt as one travels through the philosophical and visual dynamics of the human mind. True, one is a poem and the other is a short story, but what makes it interesting is the world of opportunities it offers to make our interpretations on what it could or could not be. A lot has been written about Frost’s ‘A Road Not Taken,’ and Welty’s ‘A Worn Path,’ and so, to deviate or challenge their theories would be harboring idiosyncrasy. George (1991), writing on Frost’s The Road Not Taken,’ writes that there are many poetry texts with comments and notes that seem to imply mistaken interpretations. For example, Laurence Perrine, including the poem in his Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, states that ‘the general meaning of the poem isan expression of regret that the possibilities of life experience are so sharply limited (p.230). Similarly, Sykes analogizes the character of the blind prophet Tiresias in T.S.Eliot’s epic poem ‘the Waste Land,’ to Phoenix, the protagonist of Welty’s ‘A Worn Road.’ Sykes writes that as in much of his epic poem, ‘The Waste Land,’ T. S. Eliot said that the blind prophet Tiresias was the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.”
In ‘The Road Not Taken,’ the narrator is seen walking aimlessly on a road. He walks for a length of time before he reaches a point where the road splits in two different directions. He ponders for a while before deciding that he would take the road that was less travelled on. This is quite natural for a person who has no purpose or any responsibility; to act on his instincts. Therefore, it could be implied that the narrator was either jobless or was fed up of his mundane everyday life, or had no purpose in living anymore and was walking with no specific destination in mind. Savoie (2004), in analyzing Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken,’ writes that, “Typical of Frost's symbolic lyrics, ‘The Road Not Taken’ evinces a “disturbing dislocation between the descriptive surface, which is frequently lovely, and the ultimate meaning, which is usually sentimental and unacceptable.” For a person who wanders aimlessly, there is neither time crunch nor a specific destination. He would wonder till his body and mind supported it before stopping out of exhaustion. However, given Frost’s dalliance with nature as an escape from reality, the narrator’s decision to take the less travelled road could be interpreted as reflecting the need for change. When a person tires of working or doing things for a long period of time, he/she would obviously lack the willpower or motivation to perform as they did in the beginning. They would either resign themselves to the inevitable or look for a change. The branching of the road could symbolize that. Most people would follow the most travelled road which is to resign to the inevitable while those who dare to make a change would take the road less travelled.
Frost, through this poem caricatures civility. People, when faced with a situation for change, would in all probability, choose a path that has been tried and tested before. In other words, imagine Frost was working a 9-5 job. He finds his life going through a monotonous an unsatisfactory phase and wants to do something different. He talks to his friends who give him a lot of suggestions. Unsure what he should do, he begins a long walk in the countryside, far from any disturbance. While walking, he narrows done on what he would do.
He chooses to do something that has not been attempted by many as he feels invigorated by the thought of doing something different. Finger (1978), traces a letter that was sent to Frost by a student by the name of Crystine Yates. In that letter, she asks Frost whether the ‘sigh’ in the last stanza of the poem meant that he regretted having chosen to be a poet. In reply, Frost wrote back to Yates saying, “No wonder you were a little puzzled over the end of ‘The Road Not Taken.’ It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might ‘think’ I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life. I suppose I was gently teasing them. I’m not really a very regretful person, but for your solicitousness on my behalf I’m.”
Sykes (1998), in his article, ‘Welty’s A Worn Path,’ reflects on the characterization of Welty’s Phoenix as the epicenter of the story and who through her characterization, links past and future occurrences. Phoenix had seen the worst of racism during her younger days and with age and time, sees a bright future for her race in the U.S. Sykes analogizes the character of the blind prophet Tiresias in T.S.Eliot’s epic poem ‘the Waste Land,’ to Phoenix. Sykes writes that, “In the notes that accompanied his epic poem ‘The Waste Land,’ T. S. Eliot said that, although blind and a mere spectator, the blind prophet Tiresias was yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.” Just the way as Eliot sees Tiresias in his poem, Sykes sees Phoenix as the medium through which characters transform themselves. Both, the narrator of Frost and Phoenix of Welty, were created to be Messiahs. While one made readers and critics interpret to understand the narration and character, the other wanted readers to visualize the transformation of characters through her ordeals.
In ‘A Worn Path,’ Phoenix is astute in all she does, and has a clear mind about her intent, answers and actions. On her way to town, when a black dog comes to bite her, she hits it without any hesitation. When a white man tries unsuccessfully to stop her from going to town, she is adamant and continues on her journey. She showed immense presence of mind and could tackle any situation calmly. The way she walked, and talked, as to those who were passing by or in her way, is quite difficult to apprehend. Was this the author’s way to will Phoenix to successfully complete her challenging mission in the midst of the many adversaries? The portrayal of Phoenix; “a woman of one hundred years, nearly blind, and with a cane, struggling onward up the ‘worn path,’ toward the city to obtain medicine for her grandson, has commonalities with the plight of the Southern blacks after the Civil War” says Sykes (1998). Sykes goes on to say that the Thirteenth Amendment liberated the blacks from bonded labor, but their position in society was still questionable. When Welty portrays Phoenix as “quivering in the thicket or when she cried out “Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, beetles, jack rabbits, coons and wild animals! Keep out from under these feet, little bob-whites Keep the big wild hogs out of my path. Don't let none of those come running my direction, or when she says, “I got a long way, as she brandished her cane, limber as a buggy whip, to switch at the brush as if to rouse up any hiding things,” there is an analogy between her struggle and the struggle of the blacks, who were considered three-fifths of a person.
On careful observation, Welty’s story has certain qualities that lean toward the subject of racism. Moberly (2005) in, ‘Toward the North Star: Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path" and the Slave Narrative Tradition,’ says that “if there is a common thread that runs through the early critical readings of Eudora Welty's ‘A Worn Path,’ it was the conspicuous absence of any discussion on the race of the story’s protagonist, Phoenix Jackson.” Moberly continues by saying that “Neil Isaacs went to the extraordinary length to account for Welty’s use of hue and color, but does not address the fact that the text contains as many references to black as it does red, gold, green and silver. Similarly, Saralyn Daly’s careful paraphrase of Phoenix's first-paragraph description omits the word ‘Negro.’”
Right at the start of the book, Welty, in introducing her protagonist, writes, “It was December - a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods.”
‘Negro’ had a very negative connotation and was considered to be an insult to the blacks. In ‘a Worn Road,’ Welty has used her story to depict imagery in the manner the writer has given the various descriptions of the characters, the scene and actions. While the tone is sympathetic, Welty’s use of self-pittance inordinately shows the suppressive nature of the time. Expressions and phrases like, “Lying on my back like a June-bug waiting to be fumed over, mister,” “No sir, them old dead weeds is springy enough,” contradict the mental toughness portrayed of her. Again, when she says t herself that, “Glad this not the season for bulls,” and “the good Lord made his snakes to curl up and sleep in the winter. A pleasure I don't see no two-headed snake coming around that tree, where it come once. It took a while to get by him, back in the summer.”
Conclusion
Frost and Welty, through their individual styles of writing, shared similar sentiments; educate society through their distinctly admirable ways. ‘The Road Not Taken’ is one such poem that defies logic in many ways. While you can interpret what you may and has been done so by many others, there is always the question of “is that so/” rebounding each time a view is expressed. In many ways, Frost was using the narrator to make people understand that by treading the normal path of existence, man would not be able to challenge him/herself, and that they needed to tread the less travelled road to understand the true value of life. For Welty, Phoenix was her Messiah, the person who could stand up and face adversity in the face, or so we thought. However, on reading her short story, her struggles reflect the struggle of the Afro-Americans before Thirteenth Amendment liberated them.
Reference
George, W, (1991), Frost’s The Road Not Taken, The Explicator, Taylor & Francis Inc, 49(4), ISSN 00144940, 230
Finger, L, L, (1978), Frost’s The Road Not Taken: A 1925 Letter come to light, American Literature, Duke University Press, 50(3), 478-479
Ferris, W, (2013), A map of minds and imagination, The Virginia Quarterly Review, University of Virginia, 89(4), 222-238, ISSN 0042675X, doi1445010000
Moberly, K, (2005), Toward the North Star: Eudora Welty's ‘A Worn Path’ and the Slave Narrative Tradition, The Mississippi Quarterly, ISSN 0026637X, 59(1/2), 213523414
Savoie, J, (2004), A Poet’s Quarrel: Jamesian Pragmatism and Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken,’ The New England Quarterly, ISSN 00284866, 5-24
Sykes, D, J, (1998), Welty’s The Worn Path, Heldref Publications, Taylor & Francis Inc, 56(3), ISSN 00144940, 151-153
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Phoenix’s characterization in Eudora Welty’s short story ‘The Worn Path’ symbolizes in many ways the transformation or liberation of the Afro-Americans to that of Tiresias witnessing the transformation of the merchant into the Phoenician sailor. Even though Welty wrote ‘A Worn Road’ as a short story, the style of her writing resembled a poem. Whenever Phoenix spoke, she spoke with a rhythmic content.
