SOURCE: "Life Out of Death: Ancient Myth and Ritual in Welty's 'A Worn Path'," in Notes on Mississippi Writers, Vol. IX, No. 1, 1976, pp. 1-9.

In the following essay, Ardolino attempts "to demonstrate that along with the Christian motifs of rebirth, the cycles of natural imagery presented create the theme of life emerging from death [in 'A Worn Path'."]

Although most critics of "A Worn Path" noting the story's careful blending of pagan myth, Christian allusion and folk story motifs have praised Eudora Welty's allusive technique of reinforcing meanings on the story's several levels of perception, they have nevertheless been divided in their assessment of its overall mood and theme. While some emphasize the patterns of Christian rebirth, others insist upon the darker existential meanings of carrying out the journey of life in a wasteland, with no hope of regeneration. In this paper I will attempt to demonstrate that...