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Phoenix Jackson in A Worn Path by Eudora Welty: Courageous or Crazy?

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Crazy or Courageous?

The power and determination of women to go to every end of the earth for kids is put into a different perspective in this essay. Women from almost any time period would go and do anything for kids, even if the kids were disrespectful and unloving in return. A perfect example of this is Phoenix Jackson, an old woman making a journey for her grandson in the short storyA Worn Path” by Eudora Welty. She runs into many obstacles along the way, but is it enough to take care of her grandson. Another perfect example is Ms. Moore, a woman who moves back to ghetto where she grew up, to help out a gang of uneducated kids in the short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara. These women are portrayed by their respected authors and narrators as crazy, but they are only crazy about helping others. Phoenix Jackson is the first to be shown in a different perspective.

Phoenix Jackson is an older black woman, making a journey to the town of Natchez, Mississippi. The author portrays her as a woman having imaginations and seeing things that do not exist. Eudora Welty writes, “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 57). The author is swaying the reader into believing that Phoenix Jackson is envisioning that makes it look, as if she is crazy. Phoenix Jackson was in reality, envisioning her grandson who

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