Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" depicts the story of a dying woman's life. Throughout her eighty years of life Mrs. Weatherall has had her fair share of disappointments, heartaches, and unfavorable outcomes. This short story is written in a manner that allows the reader to get an outside view looking in; similar to looking at the story through a window as if being acted out in front of you in the theater. The story is eloquently written and leaves the reader with a sense of familiarity towards the family. The populations of readers who have had the pleasure of experiencing this pathetic story have come to relate their own experiences and disappointments towards the story and have empathetic feelings towards the main character Granny Weatherall. This story has many themes, but when I read it the underlying feeling of understanding and familiarity I related to was heartaches and pain that no amount of time can heal, or make vanish, that they are indeed part of the human condition. Porter, the author of this masterpiece, has chosen the name Weatherall for the main characters' name, throughout this essay, and during of the story we see how the name comes to be of importance. Granny has had a very difficult life and for her last name to be Weatherall, (weather-all means to endure whatever it takes to still be standing strong) is a play on words I think the author put in just to awake the reader. At the beginning of the story we are introduced to an elderly Granny Weatherall who has become bed stricken, stripped of her independence, childlike, and most of all bitter and condescending, to all. As the reader gets further involved into the short story, Porter divulges more clues as how Granny has become the person t... ... middle of paper ... ... for a long time." (517). Twenty years later, she feels shorted, now it has become her time and she knows it, "so my Lord, this is my death and I wasn't even thinking about it. My children have come to see me die" (522), and now she is not ready or prepared for it. She has not yet given her things away to her beloved children. Waiting for her Angel to come whisk her away to the afterlife, she asks God "give a sign" (522), with no response she looks around the room and, "again no bridegroom and the priest in the house, she could not remember any other sorrow, because this grief wiped them all away" (522). Granny feels, "oh, no, there's nothing more cruel than this--I'll never forgive it" (522). Granny passes into the afterlife as peacefully as she can, and she knew that everything she had in life did not come easily, and she earned everything she had accomplished.
... mold of a traditional woman throughout her entire life. She set new standards for women regarding relationships. She dared to get divorces, to leave an abusive man, to leave a cheating man, to have a lover, even to marry a much younger man, but more importantly she dared to write about these controversial topics. Readers may get a sense of Granny's bitterness toward men, but they cannot ignore her strength and independence. Porter was a part of the "era of exuberance" because she played her role in the evolution of women. The answer to the question posed at the beginning of this paper is the same question women of the early twentieth century began asking themselves. This question became a choice for them. Porter chose to be strong because of her ability to move on, and by the time she became Granny Weatherall she knew she had achieved what she had set out to do.
The Grandmother often finds herself at odds with the rest of her family. Everyone feels her domineering attitude over her family, even the youngest child knows that she's "afraid she'd miss something she has to go everywhere we go"(Good Man 2). Yet this accusation doesn't seem to phase the grandmother, and when it is her fault alone that the family gets into the car accident and is found by the Misfit, she decides to try to talk her way out of this terrible predicament.
In the story, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, written by Katherine Porter, Granny Weatherall is a character of depth. Her name is synomonous with her character. Three main qualities of her character are her strength, her endurance, and her vulnerability. Her strength is not so much physical but mental. She lies upon her bed contemplating all that she needs to do. Her daughter Cornelia does not even come close to handling affairs as well as she does in her own mind. In addition, she tell the Doctor Leave a well women alone...I'll call you when I need you. She does not like the patronizing position that she finds herself in. The fact that she has already avoided death once seems to add to her image of strength. As we follow her mental ramblings we obtain insight to her character as a woman that has endured heartache as well as hardship.
This essay will contrast a good and evil concept between two different stories. There is an obvious distinction that stands out between the stories; however they are similar in one way. In A Worn Path (Eudora Welty) and A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O’Conner) the one thing that sticks out, is the main character in both stories. The main character in both stories being the grandmother. Grandmothers are of course an important part of the family. In each story we have a grandmother of a different race, appearance, and attitude. In each story the grandmothers take different journeys, but there is one thing they both face being treated disrespected. We live in a world in which the grandmother resides with the family and helps to take care of the grandchildren. In the world today things are different and times are still hard if not harder. We live in a time when respect is no longer earned. Now days it seems as if respect is not as important as it was in earlier years and it is evident in these two stories.
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2000.
In the short stories “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter, the main characters both endure a failure in romances and both take poor steps in dealing with them. In “A Rose for Emily,” the story can be described as a romantic horror because of the situations and actions taken by the main character, Emily. Emily depicts the traditional “American South” of the age and how the small town gossip is used to further her issues. She has numerous examples of disappointment in her life, capping it all out with her failure of love with Homer Barron. Ironically, Homer is depicted as being from the North, putting an “opposites attract” theme in the reader’s mind; while the story ends with Emily poisoning Homer. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” the story is read in a lighter fashion. It involves the main character, Granny Weatherall, and her triumph through time and love. Granny fights for love and strength for her kids, despite being “jilted” by George at the alter and the issues and pains that come with that memory. Although Granny married, and had children, she never seemed to live down the fact of her being “jilted” by George. Death is an idea that both stories start, and end with. This theme helps to depict the struggles of both women with their actions taken after both of them being
Control, power, and influence are all things that people strive for throughout their lives. When a powerful person grows old however, their power may slip in spite their attempts to maintain control. An elderly person may feel useless, or they may have feelings of loss, regret, or waste. Issues of aging, control, and feelings of waste are something Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" describes with vivid detail.
In the short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin both authors make a strong connection between lightness and darkness as symbols throughout the story. Dark and Light can represent two opposing forces, whether good and evil or love and hate. In both stories light is used to show calmness and positive elements while darkness is used to show personal problems and negative elements. In “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator discovers his brother getting arrested for selling and using heroin. The lightness and darkness in this story is used to show the transition from Sonny’s childhood to his adulthood. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” the lightness and darkness is used to show the stages in Granny’s life. Both authors use these symbols as transitions in the characters life.
In a final moment of clarity, the grandmother becomes possessed by the Holy Spirit in a tantalizing display of the Redemption received. Even though it took her a great of pain and
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” was written in a style known as stream of consciousness. It must be understood that the confusion occurring in the structure of the writing, as well as the thought processes of the narrator, stem from the lack of lucidity of the narrator as she is led to her death. As for the structure of the writing, this piece of literature was written from the point of view of combined limited omniscient and interior monologue, meaning both third and first person (Rosemary). Moreover, in order to begin to understand the cultural and social elements of this short story, one must first comprehend the timeline that accompanies the drifting mind of the protagonist. The earliest piece of substantial information that is known is that the main character was jilted when she was twenty years of age. ...
The granny has a flashback to a little bit after she gives birth to her daughter. She talks about how everyone thought she was joking about the child and feeding it hay, but to her there was no love for this child she had. Her daughter Sylvie grew up without her mother’s love and became a wild child resulting in a child out of wedlock. Granny felt guilty she had not felt the love for her own child and carried that with her daily. Granny had a fear that her granddaughter would turn out the same way, she could already see that she was on that path. Granny did love one thing in her life, her little dog. She took the dog with her to work at the church and she loved it more than she felt like she could love any other thing. Page 282 says, “-the little dog found her. He could be counted on. He barked all the way, and squealed when she pulled the burr from his ear.” She felt something for this dog, that she could not feel for her own child part of me feels as though that is also contributing to her guilt towards the whole
The granny and the misfit are two completely opposite characters that possess two different beliefs. The grandmother puts herself on a high pedestal and the way she calls the misfit ‘a good person’ based upon his family background gives the reader an idea of what the grandmother acknowledges to be considered as ‘good’. Self absorbed as sh...
To begin, Granny Weatherall is inherently a prideful controlfreak. Granny Weatherall is at her deathbed, facing everything she has staved off for so long. This and all other adversity she faces throughout the short story map out her true personality. For instance, she is full of pride. When that pride takes a hit, as it does several times throughout the short story she metaphorically hits back at whoever or whatever
Anne Gray Harvey Sexton was a famous poet and playwright of her time. She was born in Newton, Massachusetts. Her father was Ralph Harvey who was a successful woolen manufacturer. Her mother was Mary Gray Staples. She was an unwanted third daughter in the family. She was raised in a middle-class environment. Her life remained uneasy due to the fact that her father was alcoholic and her mother has been frustrated by family life. Fighting with her tough family environment, Anne found peace in tying a close relationship with her maiden great-aunt, Anna Dingley, whom she used to call ‘Nana’. Whatever Anne could not share with her parents, she used to discuss with Nana. Anne went through difficult situations because of her parents. She faced a hostile behavior from them and feared that they might abandon her. Later, Nana’s death also gave Anne a big trauma (Sexton 3).
In "The Old Grandfather and His Little Grandson" a grandfather is continuously scolded by his own daughter-in-law for being "useless." He is unable to do many things due to old age. His grandson, Misha, notices this and realizes that his parents will end up like this too. He unintentionally teaches the parents that treating the grandfather like this is wrong. Everyone will end up being in that elderly state. You are not a nuisance just because you cannot do any physical work. All in all the parents wrongfully condescend their elderly parent.