week 5 paper

Annotated Bibliography

Welty, E. (1941). A worn path. Creative Education.

Welty wrote a short story about an elderly African-American woman living in the south with her grandson. The elderly woman goes through different kinds of terrains such as swamps, forests, hills, and fields to test the endurance and strength of her old body. During her journey, the woman met people and animals. Some of the things she encountered are imaginary, memories, daydreams and tricks of the eye while others are real. Phoenix’s journey is an indication of courage and how she overcomes the obstacles on her journey. She takes risks and the long trip to the city to seek medication for her sick grandson due to lye poison. The author uses the convention of the heroic journey of a woman who is not aware of her heroism. This is evident in the short story since the author uses analogy and photographic details to convey her messages. The book supports my working thesis by providing a critical analysis on the character development and goal .

Orr, E. (1992). Unsettling Every Definition of Otherness": Another Reading of Eudora Welty's" A Worn Path. South Atlantic Review, 57(2), 57-72.

This article provides a critical review on “A worn path” by Welty. The author acknowledges that Welty’s work is a complex analogy of fabulation that demonstrates discovery, invention and subjective expansion. It focuses on the writing process that brings out the development of the character Phoenix in the story rather than the character sketch. The article indicates that many readers and critics have underread the story since they cannot understand the complex and contradictory signs in the book. Orr purports that the book is all about the process instead of the end goal of the main character. This critical review and depiction on the work of Welty help readers to understand the contradictory writing depicted in the primary source. This article supports my thesis by provided detailed information about Welty’s work.

Pollack, H. (1997). Photographic Convention and Story Composition: Eudora Welty's Uses of Detail, Plot, Genre, and Expectation from" A Worn Path" through" The Bride of the Innisfallen". South Central Review, 14(2), 15-34.

In this article, the author analyzes Welty’s work based on the use of detail, genre, plot and expectation. It is evident that the short story “A worn path” can be deemed as plotless yet the story is illuminating and creates a fictional exposure of the world. Welty uses details by linking her work with photography since the use of photography depicts a notion and framing of chance details. Pollack notes that the author uses the photographic approach as an augmentative tool in her work. Additionally, the article explains that Welty uses plot and detail to hold surprises for her readers. The generous use of detail in the story emphases on the character development and the readers should use two reading strategies. The first is detailed reading to understand the symbols in the story while the second strategy is expecting a surprise and dramatic shift. This detailed analysis builds my theses statement since it outlines character development and story plot.