Running head: DRAFT 1
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Literary Analysis Draft
Theresa Duarte
ENG 125 Introductions to Literature
Jill Mountain
January 08, 2015
Literary Analysis Draft
In Literature, conflict can be the main issue that help makes the plot and if the story does not have a conflict within it, it then becomes boring and can lose the reader’s interests. The conflicts that the character can struggle with can be either an internal conflict that is within oneself or external which a character can struggle with another force that maybe can be something physical. Phoenix is the main character on this journey in the short story. What conflicts she has in The Worn Path has to do with her age, health, her grandson’s health and her color and poverty. “The Road Not Taken is also about a journey, which road to pick and is about making choices in life. The road is described as a yellow wood and so gives the reader a visualization of him being in his mid life where he might have to make a final choice on what path he takes will destine his final fate. Both short story and poem will be compared and contrasted on their similarities and differences.
Phoenix is an elderly lady whose is on a journey, out of selfless love to obtain medicine for her sick grandson. This has many conflicts such as individual vs. self. Being that Phoenix is an old lady makes it hard for her to walk a long distance. She was also partially blind and had other physical ailments that could have been hard for her to take a long journey. Phoenix also faces in her journey a bridge, some trees, and a dog that she came across during her journal. She also faced the other characters such as the hunter and the nurses. This elderly woman takes a long journey far from her home called Natchez to an uptown clinic, where she gets her grandson’s medicine after he had swallowed some lye. Frost’s poem tells about a journey using
Literary Analysis Draft
Two crossroads are the paths not actually seen, but about choices and decisions made in one’s life journey. This gives the readers a picture of two crossroads and a man standing there as he thinks to himself, which path would be easier to take a one that makes his life a little easier or one that could give him a challenge. So whichever he took will be his final choice and determines his fate.
Three literary devices are used in “The Worn Path is that Phoenix is the main character and her name is the same as a mystical bird that rises in the air and bursts in flames. Once this mystical bird burst into flames a new phoenix comes out and resembles a new birth somewhat like a spiritual rebirth. Phoenix is an old lady who is determined to walk the distance and through many hardships in order to get her sickly grandson the medicine he needs. Metaphor is used throughout this short story as well. “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 grandfather clock.” This is to help the readers see a visual picture of her age and weariness that despite her age and health that this old lady still wanted to take this journey out of a selfless act. A simile was also used in comparing Phoenix to a baby. “There she had to creep and crawl, spreading her knees and stretching her fingers like a baby trying to climb the steps.” This was used to describe how she came through this obstacle in order to get to her destination and how determined she was and no matter what it took to get there.
Literary Analysis Draft
The theme of “The Road Not Taken has many strong elements that Frost uses in his poems in which are: Symbolism, rhyme, and diction as well as others to give it a more realistic effect on its readers. He tells us that he couldn’t take both paths so he stood in deciding which path to take, the easy way or the path that would be a little more challenging for him. Frost symbolizes two crossroads as one’s journey of life. The theme is that the decisions we make can affect our future. The author also uses rhymes in his short poem for we see every other sentence rhyme with the one before.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both
and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth
This poem is described in detail and is about making a choice between two roads. The relationship between the two is that both are about going undergoing a change and about taking a journey in one’s life. Eudora Welty (1941) poem is about an elderly woman who has happened to make this journey many times and she remembers it like a dream. She talks to imaginary people and to herself a lot. The Road Not Taken is about a journey also but is more about choices and decisions made by the narrator. The short story allows more literary because it lets the plot unravel. As on the other hand a poem generally takes less space to bring forth its ideas and points of view. The difference between the characters is their ages and that the elderly lady has already experienced this journey many times, while the other is fixing to experience his journey for the first time.
Literary Analysis Draft
In conclusion, we see that both short stories have some similarities and differences. Both Authors express the journey each character goes through in order to complete them. These two stories also show changes in one’s life and how they are structurally different but yet the settings and the main messages are similar.
Clugston, R. W. (2014). Journey into literature (2nd Ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
The Worn Path (Welty 1941) Journey into literature (2nd Ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/The Road Not Taken (Frost 1916) Journey into literature (2nd ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/