A Worn Path

In Eudora Welty’s short story “ A Worn Path ”, the author uses visual imagery and apostrophe to characterize Phoenix Jackson as a poverty stricken elderly woman. Phoenix Jackson is portrayed as a very poor elderly woman by the way Welty describes her apparel. Her clothes weren’t made from traditional cloth, “ She wore a dark striped dress reaching down to her shoe tops, and an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks”. That piece of her wardrobe is usually kept as a kitchen accessory and usually made from cloth and not sacks. It was clear of the reason of her clothing was due to a money issue. “ She could not let her dress be torn now, so late in the day, and she could not pay for having her arm or leg sawed off ”. She was clearly in no condition to spend money if she could prevent it. The author focused on Phoenix’s physical appearance to describe her age clearly through visual imagery. As it would typically come with age, she had wrinkly skin, “ Her skin had a pattern all it’s own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole tree stood in the middle of her fore head”. Her wrinkles are visually compared to a tree having numberless wrinkles to create a metaphor. With her age, she also appeared to have physical difficulties that affected appearance, “ Her eyes were blue with age”. Her eye color was affected by cataracts, she was blinding with age. Her walking was also affected, “ Under her small black-freckled had her cane, limber as a baggy”. Usually over years of being elderly there can be trouble walking and forces one to use a walking aid such as Phoenix and her cane. Phoenix Jackson is characterized as poor and elderly by Eudora Welty with visual imagery and apostrophe in “A Worn Path”. Her appearance and health is what makes up her generalization.