Blooms Literary Themes - THE HEROS ... - ymerleksi - home

228Eudora Weltyher head) and household workers (“a long apron of bleached sugarsacks”). For many years after the Civil War, it was the law in parts ofthe South that black women could not appear in public without anapron. Welty’s fiction, with careful reading, can “come into focus asa photograph when” it is being developed (Pollack 505). As Pollackpoints out, when we consider Phoenix’s clothing, she is obviouslypoorly dressed for the “frozen day” in December. Phoenix has no coat,and not one person she encounters in the story notices this fact. Eventhe seemingly kind lady who lays aside her Christmas parcels to tie“Grandma’s” shoelaces does not really see the person before her. Eachof the characters Phoenix meets also patronizingly calls her “Granny,”“Grandma,” or “Aunt,” reinforcing racial stereotypes.To survive in the hostile wasteland around her, Phoenix has hadto rely on her wits. She has had to create and re-create herself to meetthe expectations of others. Phoenix’s constant journeying into hercreative imagination and her repeated acts of love give meaning toher life. Alun Jones has observed this view of life in much of Welty’sfiction: “The effort of living is [portrayed as] an act of imagination and,like the regeneration of the Ancient Mariner (which has often beeninterpreted as a poem about the workings of the creative imagination),must begin with an act of love” (26). Along the path, Phoenix talks toanimals and uses her imagination to ease her difficulties. When shestops to rest after freeing herself from the thorn bush, Phoenix imaginesa small boy offering a slice of marble cake to her. She had alreadybeen traveling for some time without eating. Such a treat would be“acceptable,” she thinks. Phoenix’s most daring use of her wits occurswhen she meets the hunter. Having seen him drop a nickel, she mustdevise a way to get her hands on it. Phoenix must know hunters liketo show off their dogs, so she diverts his attention to the stray blackdog in a way that will send the hunter off after the stray. This done,she is free to pick up the nickel, a true windfall for her.Although her exact age is unknown, Phoenix reveals that shewas a former slave, too old at Reconstruction to be required toattend school. For her entire existence, she has had to speak differentlanguages, choosing appropriate words and attitudes, especially forcircumstances involving white people. She is fully aware that being“uppity” may lead to punishment. According to Forbes, literacy is notonly reading and writing, it “is also a matter of relationships among