Navigating Culture and Healthcare: A Phenomenological Intersection of Aging in A Worn Path

Research Questions

1. How does the objective representation of old age and ageism differ from the subjective experience?

2. How is ageing lived, interpreted, and perceived across cultures?

 

Literature Review

The existing literature focuses on the thematic and critical analysis of Eudora Alice Welty's text, A Worn Path. The narrative often centers around the woman character's battle against obstacles on her journey to fetch medicines for her grandson. The prevalent literature predominantly highlights the symbolic meanings, her determination at this age, and her brave side. It commonly interprets the narrative style as a heroic description of a warrior overcoming villains. This research paper departs from traditional readings by examining the subjective experiences of the woman, highlighting her vulnerabilities, and exploring the underlying causes that lead her on this journey. While acknowledging the praiseworthy aspects of her endeavours, the paper refrains from glorifying her sufferings and instead aims to address the underlying issues.

 Abstract

This paper investigates how Eudora Alice Welty's text, A Worn Path is phenomenological experience of a woman’s physical and psychological journey in her senile years. The woman’s experience is the first-hand experience of how she grapples with her multiple identities and the constraints, both social, cultural, and physical constraints, she suffers of being old. The paper analyses these experiences through a phenomenological perspective and tries to address the subjective experience of being old. The paper aims to focus on the embodied perceptions and lived body, the old woman’s subjectivity and interactions, the intersection of healthcare and culture and provides a definitive conclusion.

Keywords: Phenomenology of ageing, embodied perception, culture and health humanities.

Introduction

Phenomenology, as conceptualized by Edmund Husserl, is a shift in focus towards studying experiences as lived rather than through objective notions and preconceived ideas. According to Husserl, the body is not only a Körper (objective body) but also a Leib (lived body). In Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, the lived body is explained as an embodied subject (corps sujet). Ponty rejects Cartesian dualism proposed by Rene Descartes, asserting that experiences are embodied in the body and inseparable from the mind. The body is not merely flesh and blood but an active participant in perceiving the external world. Just as a mother adds salt to a dish without measuring, it involves the embodiment of knowledge in cooking, sensory perceptions, and habits interacting with intuition. There is an integral and vital engagement of both body and mind, and they do not exist as separate entities.

 1.     The Lived Body and Embodied Perceptions

Aunt Phoenix's journey is not a naive trip to the hospital to collect medicines; it is an interaction of her sensory perceptions. Relying on her cane stick to test her walking route, interacting with the familiar path, mindful awareness of potential animal attacks, and engaging with the nurses portray the embodiment of perception. Through her interaction with the nurse, readers become aware of her intent to visit the hospital for her grandson. The conversation also reveals that she has been undertaking this journey for almost three years, and her grandson is presumably dead. Aunt Phoenix’s body becomes a site of embodiment and spatial awareness developed through perpetual habits. The embodiment of perception takes root in her body. Despite being old, weak, and bent forward, she decides to undertake the task of going to the hospital. An instance from the text highlighting this interaction is

 

Old Phoenix would have been lost if she had not distrusted her eyesight and depended on her feet to know where to take her.

It is her feet, her body, and the interaction of intuitive motor skills—the muscle memory—that guides her to her destination, given her weak eyesight.

2.    Subjective Experience of Aging

The old Phoenix’s subjective experience of aging is filled with conflicts. The various dimensions shaping her experience of aging include grappling with being a black African American senile woman living in a rural area and her frequent arduous journey to seek medical care. She faces layers of oppression—being a colored person, a woman, a senile woman, and a person who cannot depend on anyone to go to the hospital and collect medicines for her grandson. Through a phenomenological approach, readers experience the "feeling of being old" through rich narrative storytelling. Feeling old is  “being able to date the beginning of feeling old, fear of helplessness and of being unable to manage one’s life situation, not recognizing one’s former self, and feeling different from others” (Nilsson). An instance from the text to substantiate this statement is:

I ought to be shut up for good," she said with laughter. My senses are gone. I am too old. I the oldest people I ever know.

 

Loss and loneliness are closely related to the experience of aging. They trigger hallucinations and delusions. In Aunt Phoenix’s case, she is the last alive in her family. From the narrative, it is deducible that the grandson for whom she is fetching medicine was severely ill and passed away due to her helplessness to provide healthcare. This helplessness manifests as delusions, compelling her to take trips to the hospital frequently.

Her own interaction with her health is taken very lightly. In spite of harsh terrain conditions, the old woman decides to take a trip to the hospital frequently. She trusts on trial and error rather than seeking help. She frequently forgets why she is even making this trip, suffers from false vision Charles Bonet Syndrome, hearing difficulty, and early signs of dementia.

 

My grandson. It was my memory had left me. There I sat and forgot why I made my long trip." "Forgot?" The nurse frowned. "After you came so far?

The experience of aging is often expressed in the form of self-pity, frustration, and loss of self-confidence. The aged describe themselves as making efforts to stay strong through encouraging self-talk, balancing activities not to overdo or underdo, staying busy, and identifying as a strong person. In the story, the old woman is seen talking to herself a lot to instill confidence, fight loneliness, and believe in false positivism to keep herself sane. The old woman is subconsciously aware of the harsh reality that her grandson has passed away but remains to visit.

So she lay there and presently went to talking. "Old woman," she said to herself, "that black dog come up out of the weeds to stall you off, and now there he sitting on his fine tail, smiling at you.

 

Walk pretty," she said. "This the easy place. This the easy going.

 3.    Intersection of Ageing, Culture and Healthcare

In the story, aging is not conventionally and beautifully narrativized, but it is genuinely portrayed. Ageing is perceived, lived, and interpreted differently. Factors such as physical obstacles, lack of transportation, lack of healthcare accessibility, formal education, absence of caregivers, societal and cultural expectations, and racial and gender biases are touched upon.

Healthcare is majorly inaccessible to her due to her multiple identities as explicited in the previous section. She lives in a rural area where there are no hospitals nearby and she has to tae the thorny, bushy terrain to access healthcare facilities. Even if she manages to do this, she is treated with humiliation and taken as a joke.

The white characters exemplify racism in the narrative. During the course of the old woman’s journey, she meets a young white hunter who stereotypes her as a colored citizen. There is a clear insight into the American man’s perception of a woman of colour. This is the first time in the story where her identity is revealed. He says,

 

"Now you go on home, Granny!" "I am bound to go to town, mister," said Phoenix. "The time has come around." He gives another laugh, filling the whole landscape. "I know you old colored people! Wouldn't miss going to town to see Santa Claus!"

 

Later, towards the end of the story, the old woman is mocked by the nurses, calling her visit a “charity”. The healthcare officials fail to do their duties as they are rude and insensitive towards her. When she does not respond to them, they ask her if she is deaf and are not seen to be patient while she talks.  Here, societal and cultural standards work on two levels—the American gaze on a coloured individual and the perception of old age as a joke to the younger generation. Adding to it, societal expectations laid on an elderly woman are to stay inside. When the hunter meets the old woman, he repeatedly asks her where she is off. The young man advises her to stay indoors for safety. To quote from the text he says,

 

Well, Granny," he said, "you must be a hundred years old, and scared of nothing. I'd give you a dime if I had any money with me. But you take my advice and stay home, and nothing will happen to you.

Conclusion

The journey is an awakening in the old woman’s consciousness that she is old and fragile now. Her repeated emphasis on her weaknesses is suggestive that she has mentally perceived the reality that she is old. At the same time, she faces conflicts when she is able to do arduous tasks like crossing a piece of log successfully and encountering the white man’s exploitative acts. For the old woman, the process of ageing is a complex subject matter. Everything remains the same, the perpetual habits, the conversations, the exploitations, the interactions, the same old ravine that was there even before she was born. The only change is that her lived experiences of ageing have changed. People see her differently, address her differently and her mobility is getting restricted due to the senility. Ageing by her is lived differently, interpreted by society as a hindrance, and perceived as a menial subject of less importance.