One-minute review: Old Phoenix, an African-American grandmother in the rural South who does not know how old she is, makes the long trip, slowly, tottering, step by step, holding her cane made out of an umbrella, along the path, through a barbed wire fence, to the doctor’s office in the town of Natchez where she is given a charity bottle of soothing medicine for her grandson who had swallowed lye three years before. It’s Christmas and, on this trip, she manages to gather two nickels which she is going to use to buy a paper windmill for her little grandson. And then the long, agonizing, step by step trip back to her home miles away. The author doesn’t tell about the trip back. She has vividly portrayed the tremendous effort the little woman has made just to reach town.
Comment: Vivid portrait of a courageous woman. The story is as agonizing to read as is
Note: Over the years, I have read hundreds of short stories. In this blog, I am going to summarize as many of them as I can. RayS.
Literature: An Introduction to
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