Address the following: <\/b><\/p>\n
Select one of the stories assigned by your instructor. Post a response of at least 150 words.<\/p>\n
Guidelines<\/b>Point of view refers to the perspective from which the story is narrated. Various points of view can be present in literature. Points of view include: <\/p>\n Point of view has an impact on how we understand the story. First-person narrators are often unreliable as they are telling the story from their own subjective perspective. In fact, a first-person narrator may fail to notice things that a careful reader will identify. Similarly, a third-person omniscient narrator gives the illusion of complete knowledge or understanding, suggesting to the reader that the story is a realistic account of life. Remember that claims in all parts of the assignment should be substantiated by excerpts from appropriate sources. Use APA rules of style for quotations, paraphrases, and summaries as well as in-text citations and references. Quoted material should not exceed 25% of your response. <\/p>\n This is the short story:<\/p>\n Eudora Welty: <\/b>A WORN PATH<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n 1941<\/b><\/p>\n It was December\u2014a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods. Her name was Phoenix Jackson. She was very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella, and with this she kept tapping the frozen earth in front of her. This made a grave and persistent noise in the still air, that seemed meditative like the chirping of a solitary little bird.<\/p>\n Eudora Welty<\/p>\n She wore a dark striped dress reaching down to her shoe tops, and an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks, with a full pocket: all neat and tidy, but every time she took a step she might have fallen over her shoelaces, which dragged from her unlaced shoes. She looked straight ahead. Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead, but a golden color ran underneath, and the two knobs of her cheeks were illumined by a yellow burning under the dark. Under the red rag her hair came down on her neck in the frailest of ringlets, still black, and with an odor like copper.<\/p>\n Now and then there was a quivering in the thicket. Old Phoenix said, \u201cOut 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\u2019t let none of those come running my direction. I got a long way.\u201d Under her small black-freckled hand her cane, limber as a buggy whip, would switch at the brush as if to rouse up any hiding things.<\/p>\n On she went. The woods were deep and still. The sun made the pine needles almost too bright to look at, up where the wind rocked. The cones dropped as light as feathers. Down in the hollow was the mourning dove\u2014it was not too late for him.<\/p>\n The path ran up a hill. \u201cSeem like there is chains about my feet, time I get this far,\u201d she said, in the voice of argument old people keep to use with themselves. \u201cSomething always take a hold of me on this hill\u2014pleads I should stay.\u201d 5<\/p>\n After she got to the top she turned and gave a full, severe look behind her where she had come. \u201cUp through pines,\u201d she said at length. \u201cNow down through oaks.\u201d<\/p>\n Her eyes opened their widest, and she started down gently. But before she got to the bottom of the hill a bush caught her dress.<\/p>\n Her fingers were busy and intent, but her skirts were full and long, so that before she could pull them free in one place they were caught in another. It was not possible to allow the dress to tear. \u201cI in the thorny bush,\u201d she said. \u201cThorns, you doing your appointed work. Never want to let folks pass, no sir. Old eyes thought you was a pretty little green bush.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, trembling all over, she stood free, and after a moment dared to stoop for her cane.<\/p>\n \u201cSun so high!\u201d she cried, leaning back and looking, while the thick tears went over her eyes. \u201cThe time getting all gone here.\u201d 10<\/p>\n At the foot of this hill was a place where a log was laid across the creek.<\/p>\n \u201cNow comes the trial,\u201d said Phoenix.<\/p>\n Putting her right foot out, she mounted the log and shut her eyes. Lifting her skirt, leveling her cane fiercely before her, like a festival figure in some parade, she began to march across. Then she opened her eyes and she was safe on the other side.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t as old as I thought,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But she sat down to rest. She spread her skirts on the bank around her and folded her hands over her knees. Up above her was a tree in a pearly cloud of mistletoe. She did not dare to close her eyes, and when a little boy brought her a plate with a slice of marble-cake on it she spoke to him. \u201cThat would be acceptable,\u201d she said. But when she went to take it there was just her own hand in the air. 15<\/p>\n So she left that tree, and had to go through a barbed-wire fence. There she had to creep and crawl, spreading her knees and stretching her fingers like a baby trying to climb the steps. But she talked loudly to herself: she could not let her dress be torn now, so late in the day, and she could not pay for having her arm or her leg sawed off if she got caught fast where she was.<\/p>\n At last she was safe through the fence and risen up out in the clearing. Big dead trees, like black men with one arm, were standing in the purple stalks of the withered cotton field. There sat a buzzard.<\/p>\n \u201cWho you watching?\u201d<\/p>\n In the furrow she made her way along.<\/p>\n \u201cGlad this not the season for bulls,\u201d she said, looking sideways, \u201cand the good Lord made his snakes to curl up and sleep in the winter. A pleasure I don\u2019t 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.\u201d 20<\/p>\n She passed through the old cotton and went into a field of dead corn. It whispered and shook and was taller than her head. \u201cThrough the maze now,\u201d she said, for there was no path.<\/p>\n Then there was something tall, black, and skinny there, moving before her.<\/p>\n At first she took it for a man. It could have been a man dancing in the field. But she stood still and listened, and it did not make a sound. It was as silent as a ghost.<\/p>\n \u201cGhost,\u201d she said sharply, \u201cwho be you the ghost of? For I have heard of nary death close by.\u201d<\/p>\n But there was no answer\u2014only the ragged dancing in the wind. 25<\/p>\n She shut her eyes, reached out her hand, and touched a sleeve. She found a coat and inside that an emptiness, cold as ice.<\/p>\n \u201cYou scarecrow,\u201d she said. Her face lighted. \u201cI ought to be shut up for good,\u201d she said with laughter. \u201cMy senses is gone. I too old. I the oldest people I ever know. Dance, old scarecrow,\u201d she said, \u201cwhile I dancing with you.\u201d<\/p>\n She kicked her foot over the furrow, and with mouth drawn down, shook her head once or twice in a little strutting way. Some husks blew down and whirled in streamers about her skirts.<\/p>\n Then she went on, parting her way from side to side with the cane, through the whispering field. At last she came to the end, to a wagon track where the silver grass blew between the red ruts. The quail were walking around like pullets, seeming all dainty and unseen.<\/p>\n \u201cWalk pretty,\u201d she said. \u201cThis the easy place. This the easy going.\u201d 30<\/p>\n She followed the track, swaying through the quiet bare fields, through the little strings of trees silver in their dead leaves, past cabins silver from weather, with the doors and windows boarded shut, all like old women under a spell sitting there. \u201cI walking in their sleep,\u201d she said, nodding her head vigorously.<\/p>\n In a ravine she went where a spring was silently flowing through a hollow log. Old Phoenix bent and drank. \u201cSweet-gum makes the water sweet,\u201d she said, and drank more. \u201cNobody know who made this well, for it was here when I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n The track crossed a swampy part where the moss hung as white as lace from every limb. \u201cSleep on, alligators, and blow your bubbles.\u201d Then the track went into the road.<\/p>\n Deep, deep the road went down between the high green-colored banks. Overhead the live-oaks met, and it was as dark as a cave.<\/p>\n A black dog with a lolling tongue came up out of the weeds by the ditch. She was meditating, and not ready, and when he came at her she only hit him a little with her cane. Over she went in the ditch, like a little puff of milkweed.<\/p>\n Down there, her senses drifted away. A dream visited her, and she reached her hand up, but nothing reached down and gave her a pull. So she lay there and presently went to talking. \u201cOld woman,\u201d she said to herself, \u201cthat black dog come up out of the weeds to stall you off, and now there he sitting on his fine tail, smiling at you.\u201d<\/p>\n A white man finally came along and found her\u2014a hunter, a young man, with his dog on a chain.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, Granny!\u201d he laughed. \u201cWhat are you doing there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLying on my back like a June-bug waiting to be turned over, mister,\u201d she said, reaching up her hand.<\/p>\n He lifted her up, gave her a swing in the air, and set her down. \u201cAnything broken, Granny?\u201d 40<\/p>\n \u201cNo sir, them old dead weeds is springy enough,\u201d said Phoenix, when she had got her breath. \u201cI thank you for your trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere do you live, Granny?\u201d he asked, while the two dogs were growling at each other.<\/p>\n \u201cAway back yonder, sir, behind the ridge. You can\u2019t even see it from here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn your way home?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo sir, I going to town.\u201d 45<\/p>\n \u201cWhy, that\u2019s too far! That\u2019s as far as I walk when I come out myself, and I get something for my trouble.\u201d He patted the stuffed bag he carried, and there hung down a little closed claw. It was one of the bob-whites, with its beak hooked bitterly to show it was dead. \u201cNow you go on home, Granny!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI bound to go to town, mister,\u201d said Phoenix. \u201cThe time come around.\u201d<\/p>\n He gave another laugh, filling the whole landscape. \u201cI know you old colored people! Wouldn\u2019t miss going to town to see Santa Claus!\u201d<\/p>\n But something held old Phoenix very still. The deep lines in her face went into a fierce and different radiation. Without warning, she had seen with her own eyes a flashing nickel fall out of the man\u2019s pocket onto the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cHow old are you, Granny?\u201d he was saying. 50<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no telling, mister,\u201d she said, \u201cno telling.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she gave a little cry and clapped her hands and said, \u201cGit on away from here, dog! Look! Look at that dog!\u201d She laughed as if in admiration. \u201cHe ain\u2019t scared of nobody. He a big black dog.\u201d She whispered, \u201cSic him!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWatch me get rid of that cur,\u201d said the man. \u201cSic him, Pete! Sic him!\u201d<\/p>\n Phoenix heard the dogs fighting, and heard the man running and throwing sticks. She even heard a gunshot. But she was slowly bending forward by that time, further and further forward, the lids stretched down over her eyes, as if she were doing this in her sleep. Her chin was lowered almost to her knees. The yellow palm of her hand came out from the fold of her apron. Her fingers slid down and along the ground under the piece of money with the grace and care they would have in lifting an egg from under a setting hen. Then she slowly straightened up, she stood erect, and the nickel was in her apron pocket. A bird flew by. Her lips moved. \u201cGod watching me the whole time. I come to stealing.\u201d<\/p>\n The man came back, and his own dog panted about them. \u201cWell, I scared him off that time,\u201d he said, and then he laughed and lifted his gun and pointed it at Phoenix. 55<\/p>\n She stood straight and faced him.<\/p>\n \u201cDoesn\u2019t the gun scare you?\u201d he said, still pointing it.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, sir, I seen plenty go off closer by, in my day, and for less than what I done,\u201d she said, holding utterly still.<\/p>\n He smiled, and shouldered the gun. \u201cWell, Granny,\u201d he said, \u201cyou must be a hundred years old, and scared of nothing. I\u2019d give you a dime if I had any money with me. But you take my advice and stay home, and nothing will happen to you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI bound to go on my way, mister,\u201d said Phoenix. She inclined her head in the red rag. Then they went in different directions, but she could hear the gun shooting again and again over the hill. 60<\/p>\n She walked on. The shadows hung from the oak trees to the road like curtains. Then she smelled wood-smoke, and smelled the river, and she saw a steeple and the cabins on their steep steps. Dozens of little black children whirled around her. There ahead was Natchez shining. Bells were ringing. She walked on.<\/p>\n In the paved city it was Christmas time. There were red and green electric lights strung and crisscrossed everywhere, and all turned on in the daytime. Old Phoenix would have been lost if she had not distrusted her eyesight and depended on her feet to know where to take her.<\/p>\n She paused quietly on the sidewalk where people were passing by. A lady came along in the crowd, carrying an armful of red-, green- and silver-wrapped presents; she gave off perfume like the red roses in hot summer, and Phoenix stopped her.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease, missy, will you lace up my shoe?\u201d She held up her foot.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you want, Grandma?\u201d 65<\/p>\n \u201cSee my shoe,\u201d said Phoenix. \u201cDo all right for out in the country, but wouldn\u2019t look right to go in a big building.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStand still then, Grandma,\u201d said the lady. She put her packages down on the sidewalk beside her and laced and tied both shoes tightly.<\/p>\n \u201cCan\u2019t lace \u2019em with a cane,\u201d said Phoenix, \u201cThank you, missy. I doesn\u2019t mind asking a nice lady to tie up my shoe, when I gets out on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n Moving slowly and from side to side, she went into the big building, and into a tower of steps, where she walked up and around and around until her feet knew to stop.<\/p>\n She entered a door, and there she saw nailed up on the wall the document that had been stamped with the gold seal and framed in the gold frame, which matched the dream that was hung up in her head. 70<\/p>\n \u201cHere I be,\u201d she said. There was a fixed and ceremonial stiffness over her body.<\/p>\n \u201cA charity case, I suppose,\u201d said an attendant who sat at the desk before her.<\/p>\n But Phoenix only looked above her head. There was sweat on her face, the wrinkles in her skin shone like a bright net.<\/p>\n \u201cSpeak up, Grandma,\u201d the woman said. \u201cWhat\u2019s your name? We must have your history, you know. Have you been here before? What seems to be the trouble with you?\u201d<\/p>\n Old Phoenix only gave a twitch to her face as if a fly were bothering her. 75<\/p>\n \u201cAre you deaf?\u201d cried the attendant.<\/p>\n But then the nurse came in.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, that\u2019s just old Aunt Phoenix,\u201d she said. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t come for herself\u2014she has a little grandson. She makes these trips just as regular as clockwork. She lives away back off the Old Natchez Trace.\u201d She bent down. \u201cWell, Aunt Phoenix, why don\u2019t you just take a seat? We won\u2019t keep you standing after your long trip.\u201d She pointed.<\/p>\n The old woman sat down, bolt upright in the chair.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, how is the boy?\u201d asked the nurse. 80<\/p>\n Old Phoenix did not speak.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, how is the boy?\u201d<\/p>\n But Phoenix only waited and stared straight ahead, her face very solemn and withdrawn into rigidity.<\/p>\n \u201cIs his throat any better?\u201d asked the nurse. \u201cAunt Phoenix, don\u2019t you hear me? Is your grandson\u2019s throat any better since the last time you came for the medicine?\u201d<\/p>\n With her hands on her knees, the old woman waited, silent, erect and motionless, just as if she were in armor. 85<\/p>\n \u201cYou mustn\u2019t take up our time this way, Aunt Phoenix,\u201d the nurse said. \u201cTell us quickly about your grandson, and get it over. He isn\u2019t dead, is he?\u201d<\/p>\n At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandson. It was my memory had left me. There I sat and forgot why I made my long trip.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cForgot?\u201d The nurse frowned. \u201cAfter you came so far?\u201d<\/p>\n Then Phoenix was like an old woman begging a dignified forgiveness for waking up frightened in the night. \u201cI never did go to school, I was too old at the Surrender,\u201d she said in a soft voice. \u201cI\u2019m an old woman without an education. It was my memory fail me. My little grandson, he is just the same, and I forgot it in the coming.\u201d 90<\/p>\n \u201cThroat never heals, does it?\u201d said the nurse, speaking in a loud, sure voice to old Phoenix. By now she had a card with something written on it, a little list. \u201cYes. Swallowed lye. When was it?\u2014January\u2014two-three years ago\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n Phoenix spoke unasked now. \u201cNo, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right. The doctor said as long as you came to get it, you could have it,\u201d said the nurse. \u201cBut it\u2019s an obstinate case.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy little grandson, he sit up there in the house all wrapped up, waiting by himself,\u201d Phoenix went on. \u201cWe is the only two left in the world. He suffer and it don\u2019t seem to put him back at all. He got a sweet look. He going to last. He wear a little patch quilt and peep out holding his mouth open like a little bird. I remembers so plain now. I not going to forget him again, no, the whole enduring time. I could tell him from all the others in creation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right.\u201d The nurse was trying to hush her now. She brought her a bottle of medicine. \u201cCharity,\u201d she said, making a check mark in a book. 95<\/p>\n Old Phoenix held the bottle close to her eyes, and then carefully put it into her pocket.<\/p>\n \u201cI thank you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Christmas time, Grandma,\u201d said the attendant. \u201cCould I give you a few pennies out of my purse?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFive pennies is a nickel,\u201d said Phoenix stiffly.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s a nickel,\u201d said the attendant. 100<\/p>\n Phoenix rose carefully and held out her hand. She received the nickel and then fished the other nickel out of her pocket and laid it beside the new one. She stared at her palm closely, with her head on one side.<\/p>\n Then she gave a tap with her cane on the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what come to me to do,\u201d she said. \u201cI going to the store and buy my child a little windmill they sells, made out of paper. He going to find it hard to believe there such a thing in the world. I\u2019ll march myself back where he waiting, holding it straight up in this hand.\u201d<\/p>\n She lifted her free hand, gave a little nod, turned around, and walked out of the doctor\u2019s office. Then her slow step began on the stairs, going down.<\/p>\n Eudora Welty: \u201cA Worn Path\u201d from A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, copyright 1941 and renewed 1969 by Eudora Welty, reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Address the following: Select one of the stories assigned by your instructor. Post a response of at least 150 words. Identify the point of view used in the narration. Discuss how this point of view affects your reading and interpretation of Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n