Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path"

Paper Summary:

This paper studies the Eudora Welty story "A Worn Path," examining the symbol of the mythical Phoenix bird. The paper focuses on the author's use of motif and imagery to portray the main character, Phoenix Jackson, as representative of the mythical bird. The paper shows how the author made this metaphoric connection and then analyzes the significance of it for the Jackson's characterization.

From the Paper:

"To understand how Phoenix epitomizes the bird, you must know more about the myth. Different regions have different stories. Greek mythology places the phoenix in Arabia, where it lives close to a cool well. Every morning at dawn it bathes in the water and sings a beautiful song. So beautiful is the song that the sun god would stop his chariot to listen. There only exists one phoenix at a time. When the phoenix feel sits death approaching (every 500 or 1461 years) it builds a nest, sets it on fire, and is consumed by the flames. A new phoenix springs forth from the pyre. It then embalms the ashes of its predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flies with it to the City of the Sun. There the egg is deposited on the altar of the sun god."

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