A Worn Path

Welty uses the vernacular, or everyday language of the Deep South, to bring her story and characters to life. Though Welty was a white woman, she appropriates the African American dialect of the region she lived and wrote about as she heard it during her lifetime. She notes in the preface that her main goal in writing any story is

to try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not myself. Whether this happens to be a man or a woman, old or young, with skin black or white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer’s imagination that I set most high (xi).

A crucial part of entering into another individual’s experience is reconstructing their unique manner of speech. This authorial choice may be problematic, given Welty’s background, but the intent is to render a character more believable. Giving Phoenix a distinct voice also separates her from the narrative description about her.

The specific setting of “A Worn Path” serves two functions. First, the story takes place in rural Mississippi, a land layered with meaning and memory in any work of Southern literature.