The story is a masterpiece of imagery and figurative language all working toward its multiple themes and dual level of meaning.Īnother dip into the deep metaphorical waters Welty’s short fiction, the title body of water is the central symbol of experience which both tantalizes and terrorizes young girls on the verge of blossoming into womanhood and the male lifeguard who saves one of them from drowning while at summer camp. The metaphors begin with the name of the old, black woman who is making her way across that literal and symbolic path: Phoenix Jackson. That more famous story is “A Worn Path” which also happens to be one of her most anthologized and studies. Somewhat similar to a much more famous Welty story, the literal journey is really just an excuse for the far more symbolic one taking place primarily inside his mind. Recovering from a bad bout of the flu, the salesman wrecks his car and attempts to make his way to the only house in view.
The salesman in this story inhabits a more traditional Welty narrative a metaphorical journey. Meanwhile, the salesman-unaffected by the violence-goes about his business as usual, revealing himself to be every bit as detached from genuine human closeness with friends and lovers as he is with the hitch-hikers he routinely picks up to keep him company on the road. Overnight, the two get into an argument resulting in one killing the other. This dream state is interrupted by a boorish family that sets up stakes on the beach right next to her, in the process intruding upon her memory so irreparably that it will now be forever tainted.Ī traveling salesman picks up two hitchhikers. The crossroads of the tour seems to converge literally at the Arabi intersection and metaphorically at all the exotic romance suggested by the name.Ī young woman’s day on the beach takes off into a dreamlike fantasia intimately connected with a memory of touching the boy of her dreams in the briefest possible of way. At the eruption of yet another argument, she finally decides to leave the home and settle 24/7 at the local post office.Ī man and a woman, unknown to each, but sharing the commonality of being from the North, meet in New Orleans and commence upon a strange tour that almost verges on the romantic, but gets only as far as one hesitant kiss. In tow is a young girl of questionable parentage. That someone turns out to be a new couple in town who have rented a room from the beauty parlor worker who have also identified a man wanted on four counts of rape as the “Petrified Man” from a traveling sideshow carnival.Īn unreliable young woman’s first person account of the 4th of July when a sister she constantly complains is the family’s favorite returns home after running away with the man the narrator says she stole from her. She is led to a room shared by two old women residents in what turns into a nightmarish encounter from which the young girls runs screaming.Ī conversation between beauty parlor worker and her customer erupts into a social firestorm when the worker accidentally mentions that someone has identified her customer as being pregnant.
In the 1930’s, a teenage girl visits a nursing home in order to earn Campfire Girl points for acts of charity. Ruby Fisher had the misfortune to be shot in the leg by her husband this week.” Ignorance and backwoods superstition cause her to become frightened and confused. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.Ī semi-literate, uneducated and isolated wife named Ruby Fisher manages to work out the words in a newspaper: “Mrs. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.