SOURCE: "'A Worn Path' Retrod," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 1, No. 2, Winter, 1964, pp. 133-39.

In the following essay, Daly responds to interpretations of Phoenix Jackson's character offered by critics Neil D. Isaacs and William M. Jones. "Phoenix encounters not mere difficulty on her path, but evil," argues Daly.

Neither Neil D. Isaacs nor William M. Jones in their recent articles [Isaacs, "Life for Phoenix," Sewanee Review, Vol. LXXI, Jan.-Mar. 1963; Jones, Explicator, Vol. XV, June 1957] has succeeded in completely explicating Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path." Both comment on the associations brought to mind by the first name of Phoenix Jackson and, between them, deal with most of the suggestive details of the story—the incidents of the journey, the hunter and his dog, the woman who laced Phoenix's shoes, the two nickels, the grandson, the Christmas imagery, and the journey motif itself. Both reach somewhat the same...