Katherine Anne Porter's The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

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Stream of Consciousness in Katherine Anne Porter's The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

In "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," Katherine Anne Porter applies the rhetorical technique stream of consciousness to guide her audience through the last sixty years of a leathery, bitter woman jilted in life, and finally in death. The seemingly aimless and casual technique, similar to a human's thought pattern, effectively develops the exposition, conflict, and denouement.

By using the stream of consciousness technique, Porter establishes Granny Weatherall's background. The occasional glimpse into the main character's past reveals the demanding responsibilities of a young widow. She reflects on how digging post holes, riding country roads in the winter, and sitting up nights with sick horses, negroes, and children, changed her from the bride her late husband had known. Furthermore, the technique challenges the reader to draw conclusions from the vague references of death of her husband, John, and her daughter, Hapsy. Granny Weatherall imagines seeing John again, pondering on how her children a...

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