Week 5 Final - Running head Literary Conflict 1 Literary...

Running head: Literary Conflict 1
Literary Conflict
ENG 125 Introduction to Literature
Jennifer Naimark
August 11, 2015

Literary Conflict 2
Literary Conflict
“The Worn Path,” is a story of a woman’s travels on her way to obtain medicine for her ill
grandson. Pheonix is pit against fallen trees, a dog, a Hunter and her failing eyesight as she sets
out on her path. The Gift of the Magi evolves around a couple and their quest to show how much
they love the other during Christmas. The story’s main focus is on Della and the fact that she
only has $1.87 to purchase a gift for her husband. These two literary works tell of the love of two
people and their struggles in a poverty strictin time. The stories are different in many ways, but
they both involve overcoming the physical obstacles in the way of their individual quest..
The quest or journey that Pheonix Jackson is on in The Worn Path has her faced with
physical, psychological and social struggles. The most obivious one is the struggle against nature
and the landscape. Pheonix is defined by by the determination that she displays when faced with
these barriers along her path. She has conflicts with the hunter when he points the gun at her. She
remains calm and unwavering until the hunter finally says “Well, Granny … you must be a
hundred years old, and scared of nothing.” (Welty, 1980) She had to overcome walking the path
up a hill, getting knocked over by a dog, her failing eye-sight and the bush catching onto her
dress. She also had the obivious racial conflict because she was an older black lady walking by
herself. The psychological conflict consisted of her fear of God seeing her steal from the hunter.