A Worn Path

In the story “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty is an allegory, a story that has two parallel and consistent levels of meaning, one literal and one figurative. There are different symbols that are by the characters.

The character Phoenix Jackson is used to symbolize all the black people who were once slaves and still go through the hard racism. Oh her walk to town she knew exactly where she was by the same path. Also when she gets to town for her grandson’s medicine she gets treated badly by the one and gets treated nicely by the actual nurse. Means she goes back for the same thing every time and so they give it to her this time. “Phoenix spoke unasked how. ‘No, missy, he not dead, he just the same. Every little while his throat begin to close up again, and he not able to swallow. He not get his breath. He not able to help himself. So the time come around, and I go on another trip for the soothing medicine’”(Welty 454). So she is a symbol for the people who had just gotten out of slavery.

The other character, the women, is just like the whites that hated the blacks right after slavery was stopped. “’Speak up, Grandma,’ the women said. ‘What’s your name? We must have our history, you know. Have you been here before? What seems to be the trouble with you’”(Welty 453). She seems to get really snotty with Phoenix who just went to get medicine.

I believe it shows the relationship between the whites and slaves after the civil war.