Comparing A Pair Of Silk Stockings 'And A Worn Path'
824 Words4 Pages
Who runs the World? Girls, apparently now. But, in the 1890’s, this was a completely different story. Women were just like a common house plant, and just existed as property to a Man when the said Woman was married. Men ruled the World. This features Women being Marginalized, or pushed away from being part of Society. In “A Pair of Silk Stockings” {Written by Kate Chopin} and “A Worn Path” {Written by Eudora Welty}, both Mrs. Sommers and Phoenix Jackson are Marginalized for their selflessness for their children, discrimination for being a Woman, and having their morals being broken by money.
Starting with the Selflessness for their children, Phoenix comes to the
Natchez Clinic on routine to help her Grandson heal from swallowing Lye, “She…show more content… In “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, Mrs.Sommers’ name isn’t in the story whatsoever, Mrs.Sommers is always called “Mrs.Sommers” (Chopin 439). In the 1890’s, ‘Mrs.’ made a woman being owned to a man through Marriage, giving the first name of the Mrs. irrelevant. In “A Worn Path”, Phoenix is not just called ‘Phoenix’, she is marginalized with “ Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods. Her name was Phoenix Jackson,” (Welty 635). Another example of discrimination for Phoenix is her encounter with the Hunter, referring to her as ‘Granny’ (Welty 635). In both stories, Mrs. Sommers and Phoenix are discriminated for being women.
And lastly, Money causes both Mrs.Sommers and Phoenix to be against their morals. In “A Worn Path”, during the Hunter encounter, Phoenix takes a nickel from the Hunter, which fell on the ground. She feels ashamed by saying, “ God watching me the whole time. I come to stealing” (Welty 637), and knows she broke her own moral. In “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, Mrs.Sommers goes into a frenzy of Vainful purchases for herself rather than buying the items she originally thought about for her children (Chopin 438-443). Mrs.Sommers breaks her Morals by not buying the clothes for her…show more content… In “A Pair of Silk Stockings” Mrs.Sommers eventually loses to Temptation by buying the stockings, essentially leading to an entire wardrobe change of what she wears. This could show Mrs.Sommers being greedy, and makes even some of the readers scorn in her actions. In “A Worn Path” Phoenix is different than Mrs.Sommers by never stopping the routine trips to the Clinic for her grandson’s medicine. While the reader doesn’t know weather Phoenix keeps this up after the story ends, but theoretically, there’s a high chance Phoenix does. The second difference is where the two women want to be. In the end of the story in “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, Mrs.Sommers feels “a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever” (Chopin 443). Mrs.Sommers wants to stay in the present reality she is in, not going back to her children and her husband. She has had “certain better days” (Choppin 438) being single and wealthy. In “A Worn Path”, Phoenix wants to go back to the past, when her grandson did not swallow the lye. The repeated routine trips show that, with Phoenix never averting to the obstacles, being so used to her journey, like showing no reaction to the Hunter pointing the gun in Phoenix’s face (Welty