This describes the journey of an elderly black woman named Phoenix Jackson who walks from her home to the city of Natchez to get medicine for her sick grandson. The landscape as Phoenix perceives it becomes a primary focus of the vividly evoked narrative, nature is depicted as alternately beautiful and as an impediment to Phoenix's progress. As she walks, she struggles against intense fatigue and poor eyesight, as well as such obstacles as thorn bushes and barbed wire. The combined effects of her old age, her poor vision, and her poetic view of the world heighten the lyricism and symbolism of the narrative. She mistakes a scarecrow for a dancing ghost until she gets close enough to touch its sleeve. A Particularly tense episode occurs when
