Response
“Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.”
I understand this quote as “Writing fiction has helped me respect what I don’t know about life. It also taught me how to look for clear and correct direction in a mess of directions.” I think this means that when Welty writes, she starts to respect what she doesn’t know about the characters she creates. She may have created her characters so well, that when you read it you recognize real people. And since you respect real people, she respects her human-like characters. I think it also means that when she writes fiction, she has to choose carefully how the story will end and what the events will be; because in fiction, anything can happen.
I can relate this to “A Worn Path” because when Phoenix entered the doctor’s office, I expected her to get some kind of medicine for her grandson. But instead, Welty chose to give her no reason in being there – she completely forgot why she walked the entire trail. This shocked me because I expected her to do what most people would do when they go to a doctor’s office (to get medicine). This was a good example of how Welty carefully chose the direction of the book (in the quote “correct threads”).