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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Ferocity of Love

Throughout most of the story, it’s not clear why Phoenix is making her arduous journey. She faces natural obstacles, risking her body in the cold and scrambling over uncertain terrain with failing eyesight. As a Black woman in a racist world, she’s taking a risk just by stepping outside her front door, never mind traveling a long way on her own. Something keeps her moving forward in spite of the risks, even when her own exhaustion tempts her to turn around. 

At the end of the story, when Phoenix arrives at the hospital, she forgets the purpose of her journey. For a moment, she is left with only the exhausting fact of it, the way it has affected her body and her mind. This moment of forgetting gives insight into what this journey costs Phoenix. It then gives way to the why: Phoenix makes this journey regularly out of love for her sick grandson. Phoenix speaks passionately about what drives her—that her grandson is home alone, that he is sick and isn’t getting better, and that she again and again makes this journey to keep him alive. But not only does she risk her health and safety out of love for her grandson, she also risks her life to get the nickel the hunter dropped as well as her dignity to get a nickel from the attendant. She spends this money to give her grandson something more than just his health. The paper windmill she wants to buy for him will teach him about the wonder in the world, and it will give him hope. 

Personal Power versus Social Status

The fundamental tension between Phoenix’s tremendous personal strength and her social disempowerment drives much of the story. On the one hand, Phoenix’s perseverance is profound. She draws fortitude from the necessity of her task and from her love of her grandson. She also speaks throughout the story of how much she has seen in her life, having been born into slavery and lived for many years in the South. Phoenix’s life experience also gives her personal power, and though her journey is a difficult one, she doesn’t let anything or anyone stop her from achieving her goal.

At the same time, whenever Phoenix encounters white people, the equal and opposite powerlessness of her social position is thrown into sharp relief. After Phoenix crawls on her hands and knees through barbed wire, she finds herself at the mercy of the capricious impulses of the young white hunter. The hunter admits that the journey would be hard even for him, suggesting that in many ways Phoenix has more personal strength than he does. However, he also casually points a gun at her, emphasizing that he could, without fear of consequences, murder her simply because he wants to. As a result, Phoenix is both a powerful character, emblematic of personal strength, and in some ways a vulnerable one, forced to rely on the mercy and charity of white people who consider themselves superior to her.

Versions of Reality

“A Worn Path” explores different versions of reality, complicating a simple reading of the story. On her journey, Phoenix drops into a different version of reality twice. Once, by the creek, she sees a boy handing her a slice of marble-cake, but when she reaches for it, there’s nothing there. Similarly, she reaches for a hand to help her out of the ditch and finds no one there. These aren’t mere fantasies,  though. Eventually, the hunter does appear, giving her a helping hand, and there’s a sense that she envisioned it happening and then waited patiently until her vision became a reality. Similarly, when Phoenix arrives at the hospital, she sees the gold-stamped document on the wall, conferring a sense of authority. The document in its gold frame is described as matching “the dream that was hung up in her head.” These moments create a sense of permeability between Phoenix’s dream reality and established reality.

There are also different versions of reality based on race. Phoenix lives in a world where her existence is constantly threatened, and where she is reliant on the whims and charity of white strangers. Her reality, based on a lifetime of experience growing up as a Black woman in the Deep South, is vastly different from that of the white characters. Their reality doesn’t contain the same risks, and their reality lacks the perspective of someone who’s seen and experienced the things Phoenix has.

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