Tuesday, December 18, 2012

What is the foreshadowing in "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty?




In Eudora Welty's "A Worn path" the foreshadowing that is most obvious is inthe first paragraph. See below:



"It was December—a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods. Her name was Phoenix Jackson. She was very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grand-father clock. She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella, and with this she kept tapping the frozen earth in front of her. This made a grave and persistent noise in the still air, that seemed meditative like the chirping of a solitary little bird."



Notice how Welty describes her as moving a little from side to side like a pendulum. This part symbolizes time. It foreshadows death. The next sentence "This made a grave...that seemed meditative.." This is also foreshadowing of death.


This story is so beautiful and has many illusions to time and how time is spent and death. We, as the readers, don't know about her dying grandson until later in the story.


Later in the story, Welty writes:



"Ghost," she said sharply, "who be you the ghost of? For I have heard of nary death close by."



This is a direct foreshadowing of death close by.

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