Family Unit Blog 1

A Worn Path by Eudora Welty

6. In answer to a student who wrote to ask her "Is the grandson really dead?" Welty responded, "My best answer would be: Phoenix is alive." What might have led the student to ask that question? How can the author's remark be seen as an answer?

 The main question of this short story, to me, is whether or not the grandson is really dead. I believe he is actually dead. A student might have been led to ask this question because of the characterization of Phoenix Jackson. She seems to be a little off. She's never really always there in the head. I think her mental state is out of whack because she lives all alone in the middle of no where and has to walk all day to get to where any kind of civilization is. Her mental state is called in to question many times during the story. One of which is when she is a little ways into her journey and she sits down to rest. She hallucinates and when a "little boy brought her a plate with a slice of marble-cake on it she spoke to him. 'That would be acceptable,' she said. But when she went to take it there was just her own hand in the air" (Welty 224). She is imagining her grandson being with her. This was the first time I wondered about him being dead. Then there was the time in the doctor's office when she forgot why she was there and told the nurse that her grandson had been sick for 2 or 3 years and hasn't gotten any better. It seems to me that he almost has to be dead if he hasn't gotten any better.

 The other part of the question is that the author answers without actually answering. She says that Phoenix is alive. I think that this is one of the only thing that keeps Phoenix going. She has something to look forward to. It doesn't matter whether the grandson is alive or not. The love that Phoenix has for her grandson is so great and will never end regardless of whether or not he died.