Welty says Phoenix is “very old and small” and walks with a cane and I infer that she is poor from the rag on her hair and her flour-sack apron. With unlaced shoes and tired steps, she seems an unlikely “phoenix." But her name is not purely ironic. Phoenix is strong, seen in the way she deals with obstacles like thorns and a hunter’s gun. Welty hints at this when Phoenix says that she isn’t as old as she thought. Her strength and dignity suggests a phoenix-like ability to rise from the ashes of poverty and racial isolation. The name also suggests Phoenix’s longevity: though the story takes place in 1941, she was already too old in 1865 to go to school. Like a phoenix, too, she makes her journey again and again without failure. This is why Eudora Welty chose to name the main character Phoenix.
