A Worn Path by Eudora Welty.
This short story I had particular trouble understanding until I reread it and applied the questions to the story. Specifically question six cleared up a lot of confusion that I had. It made me reassess how I was reading the story. I was so caught up in how the story was about the grandson that I lost sight of what it was really about. This story is about unconditional love for family, dead or alive. When the author was questioned about whether the grandson was really dead or alive, the author responded that Phoenix was alive and that was all that mattered. That was my "ah-ha" moment. I realized how this story connected with the idea of family. Family is supposed to involve unconditional love, in death and life, in sadness and happiness, in health and sickness.
Maybe when Phoenix said "'My grandson. It was my memory had left me'" (Welty, 229) the reader could point that Phoenix's mind was going. However, even if Phoenix's grandson was not alive, her memory was enough to justify her action of love. I think that Phoenix forgetting that she had gone on a long journey for grandson foreshadows that he is in fact dead, but not in the mind of those who love him.
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