Setting and Dialogue in "A Worn Path"

      The challenging, obstacle course-like, setting of Eudora Welty's "The Worn Path" functions as a character within the story.  As it forces the main figure, Phoenix Jackson to hike over fallen trees and aggressive bushes, it also becomes something that she has a conversation with.  Welty writes, "She passed through the old cotton and went into a field of dead corn. It whispered and shook and was taller than her head. "Through the maze now," she said, for there was no path".    It is tempting to say that Phoenix Jackson is speaking a monologue as opposed to a dialogue since no one answers her until she comes across the dog (I can't believe the man might have shot him?) and the white man hunting in the Natchez woods.  Because of the intervals of the speech, however, the reader can see that while Jackson is the only one talking, the setting is moving her to speech, causes her to react and alter her course.  As it introduces new challenges, it almost feels as though it is responding to her spoken surmises.

       A question I was left with after finishing the piece was why we don't learn the reason for her hike until she makes it to the town and we discover that she is getting medicine for her sick grandson.  But she had forgotten why she was going into town until one of the nurses asked her about it.  I was wondering how this information changes her earlier movement through the woods.  Does it make it more poignant because she was moving forward for her grandson? If we had learned about her motivation earlier how would that have changed our interpretation of the events?  Even though she doesn't seem to remember why she is heading through the woods, that doesn't make it read as any less of a quest.