Taylor Cheshire
Dr. Z
ENGL 1102
20 October 2014
Essay 3
1. Of all the short stories I have read so far in this course, I would say that my favorite was “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan. I am going to write about the symbols that the author uses in this short story. One of the many symbols that Amy Tan uses is the piano. The piano represents the bright and famous future that the mother wanted her child to always have, but the daughter on the other hand has no interest in playing the piano. In the story the mother, Jing-Mei trades her cleaning skills/services so her daughter Su-Yuan, can get piano lessons. Another symbol I thought was good was Shirley Temple. Jing-Mei made Su-Yuan read and study Shirley Temple’s movies in hopes that Su-Yuan would be just…show more content… In the short story “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty, the main character Phoenix Jackson faces many internal and external conflicts. Some of the external factors that Phoenix Jackson faces throughout the story is her poor vision. Some examples of her poor vision include when she thought she saw a ghost dancing in the woods but all along it was just a scarecrow. Another example of her poor vision is when she believes she came upon a two-headed snake. Some more external factors that Phoenix faces is the weather outside. She is walking in the middle of winter when it is freezing cold outside. Her age also accounts for an external conflict because she is an elderly woman walking in the woods in the freezing winter and at first nobody knows why. Wild animals that are in the woods as she is walking and the thick brush that she walks through also show external conflicts. The hunter and the black dog also can account for external conflicts. Some of the internal conflicts that Phoenix Jackson goes through on her walk through the woods is the fact that she is fearless. Also she goes through memory loss, she cannot even remember why she was going to the hospital to begin with. Another internal conflict she faces is her consciousness. When she finds the nickel she keeps it even though she knows it was stealing. All of these factors are included in Phoenix Jackson’s internal and external conflicts when she was traveling in the woods alone, looking for medicine for her very ill