Research Guides: Welty, Eudora: Critical Articles

Why I Live At The Worn P. O.

The Struggle for Agency in Eudora Welty's 'Why I Live at the P.O.'
Analyzes the struggle for agency between two sisters in the short story 'Why I Live at the P.O.,' by Eudora Welty. Spinster sister's dire need for attention; Attempts to discredit other family members; Gaining of feelings of importance in job at the post office.
Ties that bind: the poetics of anger in “Why I live at the P.O.” by Eudora Welty
An analysis of the poetics of anger in Eudora Welty's story “Why I Live at the P.O.” This text would fit in quite well in an anthology of literary anger. It is a wonderful example of family fury, which stages a whole range of belligerent emotions. In a convulsive atmosphere, brickbats, threats, and insults are copiously exchanged in a deafening tone, and physical abuse accompanies verbal abuse. Sister is called a hussy by grandfather, and Mama slaps her in the face, while Uncle Rondo tears off Stella's kimono. Things are thrown around and grabbed from others. Doors are slammed, ketchup is spilled, and firecrackers go off to increase the cacophony. The fanatical rhythm in this story tends to be farcical and seems to have, as Sister puts it, “no rhyme or reason.” On the other hand, however, it might be more true to say that the family's anger is too disquieting to be acknowledged and consequently needs to be displaced in a variety of ways.

"A Worn Path": Immortality of Stereotype
An examination of the character Old Phoenix through the lens of immortality.
Mistletoe in Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path."
Presents a contextual analysis of the short story "A Worn Path," by Eudora Welty. Significance of the mistletoe in the story; Symbolism of the mistletoe; Description of Phoenix Jackson, the protagonist of the story.
Toward the north star: Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path" and the slave narrative tradition
Examines "A Well Worn Path" through the lens of the slave narrative, and offers critique of previous readings that obscure the question of race.
"Unsettling Every Definition of Otherness": Another Reading of Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path"
"(...)the text figures the writing process, that much more than a character sketch, "A Worn Path" is a complex analogy of fabulation--of invention, discovery, and subjective expansion. Far from resting on stereotypes, the story plays upon our "knowledge" of "others" to resist the "wornness" of old scripts. Phoenix's traits--her blackness, femaleness, age, and apparent poverty- are riddles told by the author to challenge the reader both to unlearn and to relearn, that is, to enter the process of creation."

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