Jacqueline Alden
ENG 210
TU & TH
16 March 2015
Life’s Journey
A “Worn Path” is a short story about a journey an old black woman, Phoenix Jackson,
takes around Christmas time. She’s on an important mission, one she’s been on several times to
get medicine for her grandson, and she cannot allow the treacherous path to overtake her. Over
the course of her journey, Jackson faces a great many obstacles that should deter her from the
goal at hand, but the persevering grandma insists she is “bound to go to town” (Welty 55).
Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” may seem like just another simple short story, but through
her use of character, theme and symbolism, Welty allegorically refers to life itself as the
