Katherine Anne Porter's "The Rope" and Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path"

Discussion Leader for Porter: Jon
Discussion Leader for Welty: Monica
Two great writers for Tuesday's class! Our first is the great Katherine Anne Porter. Click here for the Wikipedia entry for Porter!

In her short story the "Rope," Porter considers a torn relationship where a couple is caught in an unhappy marriage and in a sense is hanging on by a “rope.” Through the use of characterization, Porter effectively illustrates an unhappy situation between a married couple with the use of words and the characters’ interactions. Click here for the web site from which I "borrowed" the words above!

Click here for another online essay about "The Rope"

Eudora Welty is a fabulous southern writer (when I lived in Mississippi, I used to drive by her house to catch a glimpse of her but I never had any luck before she died). Click here for her Wikipedia entry.

Click here a web site that has a bunch of information on "A Worn Path," one of her most famous short stories. "A Worn Path" is considered one of Welty's most distinguished and frequently studied works of short fiction. Deceptively simple in tone and scope, the story is structured upon a journey motif that incorporates a rich texture of symbolic meaning. According to Alfred Appel, "'A Worn Path' passes far beyond its regionalism because of its remarkable fusion of various elements of myth and legend, which invest the story with a religious meaning that can be universally felt."

Have fun reading! See you folks in class on Tuesday! :D