Phoenix

I found an article about this story that I thought was quite interesting. Just as the name Tub represented his glutenous character, the name phoenix represents her persevering character. A phoenix is a mythological bird that is said to live 500 or more years, die in flames and rise again from the ashes. Just as the phoenix bird has a cycle of life, death, and rebirth, phoenix takes a dangerous journey through the woods. She falls, gets back up and keeps on toward the goal of getting her grandson's medicine. The phoenix bird and Phoenix Jackson are also alike for other reasons. When both arrive at an obstacle, they persevere through it.

The myth also states that the phoenix bird can heal a person with just a tear from its eyes, and make them temporarily immune to death When Phoenix notices the sun above her, she talks to it: "'Sun so high!' she cried, leaning back and looking, while the thick tears went over her eyes." This passage relates her tears to the phoenix bird's tears, and shows her effort to make her grandson temporarily immune from death. This whole story is an extended metaphor between the mythical Phoenix bird and Phoenix Jackson.

Personally I found learning about this bird to be interesting because a friend of mine just had a phoenix tattooed on her back. I am not a fan of tattoos in the first place and found a tattoo of a random bird to be quite pointless, but now that I have a background of this myth, it is kind of neat to think about now.