Symbolism of the Journey

Symbolism of the Journey
Jen Weaver
ENG125
Michelle Pinkard
January 30, 2012
   
    A friend once said “you can choose your actions or you can choose your consequences but you can’t choose both.”  This quote holds true for many aspects of everyday life and is a guiding force as one considers the desired end consequences compared to the actions it takes to achieve these pre-determined consequences.  This quote also hold significance when considering the symbolism of the journey; especially in consideration of Frosts’ “The Road Not Taken” and Welty’s “A Worn Path”.  Frost’s poem is symbolic of choosing the consequences of the journey towards the beginning of a trail, while Welty’s story portrays the actions of an elderly woman already on a path which is laid out before her; yet both use the journey to symbolically speak to life journey’s toward happiness.

    The overall theme in both these literary works focuses on the journey individuals face during their lifetime; through trials, overcoming obstacles and making difficult decisions, and compares them to the struggles of a physical journey.  The Road Not Taken speaks to the “nature of choice making” as it depicts an individual figuratively facing the choice between two similar paths; one path less warn than another.  While the poem focuses on a physical description of the surroundings; “a yellow wood”, “bent in the undergrowth” and “grassy and wanted wear”, this is far from the theme of the poem (Clugston, 2010, Section 2.3).  The Road Not Taken is about the “nature of choice making”, an aspect of life that every individual faces as they chose life paths.  Going beyond making a choice between one road or another, Frost’s poem goes to the nature of the decision and ultimately the narrator makes a choice that makes him happier in the end, a choice “that has made all the difference” (Clugston, 2010, Section 2.3).

    A Worn Path centers on an older woman physically struggling to walk from one distant location into the city for her grandchild, and uses her physical journey to symbolize her emotional and mental internal journey.  Even though the narrator in A Worn Path uses painstaking detail to describe the woman's’ journey, the story itself is not about the journey.  “It's not about the ‘worn path’ that she has traveled several times previously, or about the threatening things she encounters. All of these are necessary details, but the power of the story emanates from within the old woman, from her character. It is shaped by experience to be sure, because she is old, and its essence is compassion” (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.4).  In the end, this woman demonstrates a measure of happiness through the love she has for the grandchild and her ability to love and care for him given whatever resources she has available, and the theme of the story could be described as “love that overcomes troubles” (Clugston, 2010, Section 7.1).

    In the same way that physical travels include junctures and diverging paths, so does one’s life journey.  Inevitably, each journey reaches forks in the road where we must choose how to react and what path to take.  For some, choosing their own path risks “the consequences of walking alone” (Bernardin, 2001, p. 23) as is depicted by the road “less travelled by” in Frosts poem.  This road symbolizes choices made different form the norm or customary paths of others; a path that has less travelers but may turn out to be more rewarding in the end.  This is an interesting perspective to take; that the path most people choose not to take ultimately leads to happiness.  What does this mean for the rest of the travelers?  Is it one fork in the road that makes the determining factor or are there many actions needed along the route to achieve the desired consequence of happiness?  Frost’s poem leads the reader into a dialogue, even a dialogue within themselves.  The poem’s structure is reminiscent of a conversation, as if the narrator is talking out the options ahead of him;
    Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
    And sorry I could not travel both
    And be one traveler, long I stood
    And looked down one as far as I could
    To where it bent in the undergrowth.
    Then took the other, as just as fair,
    And having perhaps the better claim, (Clugston, 2010, Section 2.3).
It is as if the narrator is considering the options of either path, standing physically at a fork in the road and trying to determine which way to go.  It is this dialogic approach that speaks to the audience, polyvalent as the symbolism holds multiple meanings for the audience and draws the reader into the dialogue with the narrator himself (Wilcox, 2000, p. 16).

    Furthermore, the symbolism of choosing the less travelled path is interesting when considered in light of Frost’s own life experiences.  According to the bibliography by Lawrance Thompson, Frost only found success in poetry after “nothing went well for him, and he seemed to have a gift for failure only.  Thus reduced to the verge of nothingness, and feeling completely without prospects, he turned more and more to his almost furtive writing of poetry, as a kind of consolation” (Thompson, 1964, p, 8-9).  How interesting that Frost turned to his road to happiness when all other roads seemed to have failed him and his body was too frail to continue on the path of physical labor he had chosen for himself.  Perhaps Frost wrote The Road Not Taken in hindsight, considering the path he had mistakenly taken with all the others and wishing he could go back and choose differently.  When reading the poem in this perspective, it can be seen symbolically as a warning to the reader, a warning that one cannot “travel both” and the path one chooses to travel can “make all the difference”  (Clugston, 2010, Section 2.3).  Frost wrote this poem as an experienced soul, one who had already travelled down a great many paths, yet he chose for the narrator to be at the cusp of making a decision.  The narrator had not yet chosen a path but was towards the beginning of his journey; a glorious opportunity to choose the wiser path and Frost allows his narrator to choose wisely; perhaps symbolically making the chose he wishes he could make again.

    While Frost’s poem depicts the beginning path of a long life journey, Welty’s short story portrays the short yet tedious physical journey of an elderly woman towards the end of her life's voyage.  The story uses hard facts to draw the reader into the journey, an option that is more readily available to Welty through the use of a story format rather than poem, and the “setting is rural, a cold, early morning in December in the South” (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  Details about the woman’s attire and accessories hint at her diminished financial capacity as her cane was “made from an umbrella” and her long apron was made of “bleached sugar sacks”.  Welty then proceeds to tell the harrowing tales of this woman's journey to town as she struggles with the thorny bushes and faces tense circumstances with a white man traveling the opposite direction.  Her name seems to be symbolic of her plight; Phoenix, which is a mythical creature that rises from its own ashes (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  This choice of name hints at Welty’s own background as she grew up loving literature, especially those including myths and legends.  (Champion, 2000, p. 348).  How significant that Welty chose to relate the name of a strong mythical figure to the plight of a common aged woman.

    Welty’s Phoenix begins her journey to town already tired and without great physical acumen; “she was very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grand-father clock”  Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  She faces dangers along the way and even surprises herself at her own strength when she is able to cross the creek, commenting to herself “I wasn't as old as I thought” (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  This journey is difficult to Phoenix, yet it is familiar, a trip she has taken many a time to obtain medication for her grandson and it a journey out of necessity.  Symbolically, the labor of Phoenix’s trip speaks to life’s journey as it is a voyage of necessity.  One must either continue in life’s journey or die, there are no other options.  Furthermore, people do not have the luxury to wait to face life’s obstacles until they are ready and fully rested.  People must make decisions and overcome life’s difficulties even when feeling heavy and inadequate for the task. 

    Welty goes through great deal to describe the surrounds Phoenix encounters on her journey, an attribute likely tied to Welty’s great respect for “place”.  In her biography, Bryant speaks to Welty’s “regionalism” stating “respect for place, moreover, makes an author pay attention to detail, makes him work harder to portray things with clarity, and finally prepares him to see through things as well” (Bryant, 1968, p. 6-7).  Perhaps it is due to Welty’s “respect for place” that the reader receives such descriptive phrases as “The sun made the pine needles almost too bright to look at, up where the wind rocked. The cones dropped as light as feathers” and “Big dead trees, like black men with one arm, were standing in the purple stalks of the withered cotton field.” (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  This imagery draws the reader in, enabling their imagination to picture Phoenix on her troublesome pilgrimage.

    While the physical trip is difficult by itself, it is symbolic of even greater difficulties the old woman faces.  Just as she reaches the point in her walk where she considers herself to be safe she sees a buzzard, then a field of dead corn and a ghostly atmosphere; symbols of death.  While it would be acceptable to be turned asunder by her physical ailments alone, or daunted by the symbols of dying that she encounters, Phoenix seems to be further resolved to reach the end of her journey.  She chooses to overcome these obstacles at every turn, even dancing with the scarecrow she finds in the corn field, symbolically driving away thoughts and images of death in the same way a scarecrow scares away scavenger birds (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).

    It is at the end of this trip that we see Phoenix experience happiness as she demonstrates her love for her grandchild.  She retrieves his medicine and with the ten cents she obtains on her journey she sets out to buy him a paper windmill, a gift he will find “hard to believe” actually exists in the world.  She announces that she will “march back where he is waiting” a journey that is just as long as the trip she took into town, but her strength and resolve is renewed out of the love she has for her grandchild.  Perhaps this leg of the journey is symbolic of the strength love has; strong enough to bring us happiness even when we face difficulties and a strenuous pilgrimage ahead.

    A theme is not simply the plot line, “the theme in a story is a representation of the idea behind the story” (Clugston, 2010, Section 7.1).  Whereas the “plot tells you what happens in a story... the theme tells you what the story is about” (Clugston, 2010, Section 7.1).  This is how both these works of literature can have such drastically different plots but a similar theme as they use the symbolism of the journey to communicate with the reader.  Neither piece is speaking of actual physical journeys, they are speaking symbolically of the journeys we face in our lives as we choose our life paths and respond to the choices laid out before us.  In Frost’s poem, the narrator could have easily chosen the more travelled path.  Nothing indicates that he was selecting a path in front of an audience and very few could hold it against him as they likely had already chosen the travelled path for themselves.  Yet this man chose instead the less travelled path; perhaps out of a sense of adventure, or simply wanting more success or happiness in life than he had commonly witnessed in the lives of others.  Whatever the reason, he made a life choice he was happy with.  Welty’s Phoenix had a more literal journey as she travelled to obtain medicine for her grandson, “up through pines... down through oaks” (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3), yet this journey was symbolic as she overcame her own shortcomings, weaknesses and failings to reach the doctors office.  This was a strenuous journey for Phoenix, facing symbols of death in a buzzard and then a scarecrow which she thinks is a ghost, before facing the physical conflict of a white man and his dog (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  After reaching the doctors office Phoenix realizes that she had forgotten why she made the journey to begin with and freezes momentarily waiting for her memory to catch up with her.  “At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke.  ‘My grandson. It was my memory had left me. There I sat and forgot why I made my long trip’" (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).  Upon obtaining the medication, Phoenix too found happiness in her decision, a happiness that even surpassed the harrows of her return journey home as she prepares to purchase a gift for her grandson with confident resolve; “she lifted her free hand, gave a little nod, turned around, and walked out of the doctor's office” (Clugston, 2010, Section 6.3).

    Both protagonists understood that they could choose their actions or their consequences, but they could not choose both.  They chose their consequence to be happiness and allowed their actions to lead them down dangerous paths.  These figures were willing to fight through their journey to obtain their desired happiness, and ultimately they were successful.  Whether their excursions were physical or metaphorical, both stood symbolically for their ultimate goals, happiness only to be achieved after hard work and perseverance.

    Frosts’ “The Road Not Taken” and Welty’s “A Worn Path” both speak symbolically of life journey’s toward happiness.  Both Frost’s unnamed traveller and Welty’s Phoenix endured physical journeys symbolic of the barriers they conquered against death, failure and fear.  In the end, both travelers experience happiness as they overcome all boundaries put in their way.


References

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