Character in Katherine Anne Porter's “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” a short story by Katherine Anne Porter, describes the last thoughts, feelings, and memories of an elderly woman. As Granny Weatherall’s life literally “flashes” before her eyes, the importance of the title of the story becomes obvious. Granny Weatherall has been in some way deceived or disappointed in every love relationship of her life. Her past lover George, husband John, daughter Cornelia, and God all did an injustice by what Porter refers to as “jilting.” This unending cycle of wrongdoing caused Granny to be a mixture of strength, bitterness, and ultimate fear as she faces her last moments in life.
Granny gained her strength by the people that she felt jilted by. George stood Granny up at the altar. He never showed at all and it is never stated that she heard from him again. The pain forced Granny to be strong as is proven by her thoughts when she is asked if anything could be done for her. “ I want you to find George. Find him and be sure to tell him I forgot him. I want him to know I had my husband just the same and my children and my house like any other woman… Tell him I was given back everything he took away and more” (Porter 584). Granny did marry a man named John, but her strength was again tested when he died at a young age, leaving her to raise their children on her own. “Sometimes she wanted to see John again and point to them and say, well, I didn’t do so badly did I?” (582). She had been strong enough to carry the burden of two lost loves and raise good children at the same time.
It was one of these children, Cornelia, who made her act somewhat bitterly in her last days. With her daughter whispering about her and saying she should be humored at her old age, Granny felt like she had been in some way betrayed. “It was strange about children. They disputed your every word” (584). She felt like Cornelia was treating her like a child. “The thing that most annoyed her was that Cornelia thought she was deaf, dumb, and blind. Little hasty glances and tiny gestures tossed around her and over her head saying, ‘Don’t cross her, let her have her way, she’s eighty years old,’ and she sitting there as if she lived in a thick glass cage” (582).
Ellen Weatherall from "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" suffers from a state of demension throughout the story. Her thoughts and memories grow tangled and confused with age, causing her to live in the dark. ""Here's Doctor Harry." "I won't see that boy again. He just left five minutes ago." "That was this morning, Mother. It's night now. . .""(779 -780). Ellen Weatherall's troubled mind can compare to the demented mind of Emily Grierson. Emily experienced a high status life, but that high status brought her down. Since Emily could never date or really experience a normal life, she surrounded herself with darkness and shut herself off from the world. Her mind slowly warped itself, clouding her morals and better judgment. Emily, like Ellen Weatherall, experienced mental trauma that tormented their thoughts. Ellen lost her child Hapsy and lost her fiance George, while Emily lost her father and eventually Homer Barron. While Ellen expressed her regrets during her mental turmoil, "There was the day, the day, but a whirl of dark smoke rose and covered it, crept up and over into the...
The Grandmother is a bit of a traditionalist, and like a few of O’Connor’s characters is still living in “the old days” with outdated morals and beliefs, she truly believes the way she thinks and the things she says and does is the right and only way, when in reality that was not the case. She tends to make herself believe she is doing the right thing and being a good person when in actuality it can be quite the opposite. David Allen Cook says in hi...
The family doctor, their priest, and the Weatherall family all gather around Granny Weatherall on her death bed, but for the majority of this time, she does not realize that she is dying, and believes that they are all making a fuss over nothing. Granny Weatherall is very annoyed by the attention, and almost always has a catty remark to her family’s concern, such as when she says to her doctor, “You look like a saint, Doctor Harry, and I vow that’s as near as you’ll ever come to it”(Porter, 265). While Granny Weatherall had a family that was very attentive to her, it seems as though the grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” had a family that was mainly annoyed by her presence. Not much is known about the grandmother’s past, but is seems as though her son tries not to be annoyed by her, but just cannot stop himself, and it is very clear that her grandchildren are very annoyed by her. She is found annoying by her family,
...d to go through, and the obstacles that came in her way, which she took head on, without having any other option. She describes herself as once being "a young woman with the peaked Spanish comb in her hair and the painted fan". Granny Weatherall was changed from this young woman to a different young woman, a stronger, innocent, young woman, the day her groom, George left her at the altar. At the same time, we learn that she did move on with her life after some time.
The grandmother is the central character in the story "A good man is hard to find," by Flannery O'Connor. The grandmother is a manipulative, deceitful, and self-serving woman who lives in the past. She doesn't value her life as it is, but glorifies what it was like long ago when she saw life through rose-colored glasses. She is pre-scented by O'Connor as being a prim and proper lady dressed in a suit, hat, and white cotton gloves. This woman will do whatever it takes to get what she wants and she doesn't let anyone else's feelings stand in her way. She tries to justify her demands by convincing herself and her family that her way is not only the best way, but the only way. The grandmother is determined to change her family's vacation destination as she tries to manipulate her son into going to Tennessee instead of Florida. The grandmother says that "she couldn't answer to her conscience if she took the children in a direction where there was a convict on the loose." The children, they tell her "stay at home if you don't want to go." The grandmother then decides that she will have to go along after all, but she is already working on her own agenda. The grandmother is very deceitful, and she manages to sneak the cat in the car with her. She decides that she would like to visit an old plantation and begins her pursuit of convincing Bailey to agree to it. She describes the old house for the children adding mysterious details to pique their curiosity. "There was a secret panel in this house," she states cunningly knowing it is a lie. The grandmother always stretches the truth as much as possible. She not only lies to her family, but to herself as well. The grandmother doesn't live in the present, but in the past. She dresses in a suit to go on vacation. She states, "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." She constantly tries to tell everyone what they should or should not do. She informs the children that they do not have good manners and that "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else." when she was a child.
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” a short story by Katherine Anne Porter, describes the last thoughts, feelings, and memories of an elderly woman. As Granny Weatherall’s life literally “flashes” before her eyes, the importance of the title of the story becomes obvious. Granny Weatherall has been in some way deceived or disappointed in every love relationship of her life. Her past lover George, husband John, daughter Cornelia, and God each did an injustice to Granny Weatherall. Granny faces her last moments of life with a mixture of strength, bitterness, and fear. Granny gained her strength from the people that she felt jilted by. George stood Granny up at the altar and it is never stated that she heard from him again. The pain forced Granny to be strong.
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.
During the 1800’s, America was going through a time of invention and discovery known as the Industrial Revolution. America was in its first century of being an independent nation and was beginning to make the transition from a “home producing” nation to a technological one. The biggest contribution to this major technological advancement was the establishment of the Transcontinental Railroad because it provided a faster way to transport goods, which ultimately boosted the economy and catapulted America to the Super Power it is today.
Granny Weatherall is prideful and has a need for control. In contrast, Miss Emily lives in a fantasy land and is obstinate. Like anyone dealing with trauma, Miss Emily and Granny must find a way to deal with it. Their differing personality traits dictate how their coping mechanisms. Granny Weatherall pushes away the hurt, and Miss Emily denies it in favor of clinging to a fantasy. Granny Weatherall and Miss Emily may both have skeletons in their closets, but what they have done with them is what separates the
The argument for instant replay is very strong. Through past experiences there is enough evidence that would warrant the expansion of baseball. Baseball has incorporated replay during games a little, allowing it on homeruns only. Don Denkinger a former MLB umpire, most famous for his blown call in game 6 of the 1985 World Series that helped the Kansas City Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals, gave his opinion on the weather replay should be used. “There are so many areas you can use instant replay. Maybe instant replay can clean things up. If a play is missed, it can be corrected. I didn’t feel that way in ’85, but I feel that way now” (Espn.com). Denkinger experienced firsthand why instant replay may be good for baseball. Denkinger also says that if the...
Transportation was a large factor in the market revolution. During the years of 1815 and 1840, there were many forms of improved transportation. Roads, steamboats, canals, and railroads lowered the cost and shortened the time of travel. By making these improvements, products could be shipped into other areas for profit (Roark, 260). Steamboats set off a huge industry and by 1830, more than 700 steamboats were in operating up and down the Ohio and Mississippi River (Roark, 261). Steamboats also had some flaws, due to the fact of deforesting the paths along the rivers. Wood was needed to refuel the power to the boat. The carbon emissions from the steamboats polluted the air (Roark, 261). The building of roads was a major connecting point for states. There were some arguments of who would pay for...
Major League Baseball (MLB) has been losing fans for several years. The average attendance for a MLB game has been decreasing for a number of years. If Major League Baseball would like to compete with popularity of professional sports such as Professional football (NFL) and Professional basketball (NBA), they need to embrace some of technologies that have made those sports so successful in recent years. Right now, MLB has a replay system used for determining home runs that are either fair or foul, whether the ball actually left the playing field or whether the ball was interfered with by a spectator. MLB should have an instant replay system that can be used for all judgment calls excluding ball and strike calls. MLB could adopt a similar policy that the NFL has where the head coach is given a certain number of challenges he can use to begin the instant replay process i.e. limiting coaches to two to three challenges per game. MLB could also look into adding an extra umpire to help with the replay system and alleviate time used for the challenges.
Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” epitomizes the idiosyncrasy of the Victorian society through satire and wit. Throughout the play Wilde criticizes the common perception of the mid seventeenth through early eighteenth century culture, “Prudish, hypocritical, stuffy and narrow minded”. With his quintessential characters and intricate situations Wilde configures the perfect depiction of the carless irrationality of social life, the frivolity of the wealthy, the importance of money, and the lack of reverence for marriage often manifested by those in this era. Wilde also jabs at the Victorian convention to uphold the appearance of decency in order to hide the cruel, indignant and manipulative attitudes of the time. Through setting, characters, comedy, and a great deal of drama Oscar Wilde portrays his views on the elitist of his time.
When many people think of animal testing, the average person thinks about millions of dogs and cats being injected with dangerous chemicals and substances. However, this is usually not the case. 61% of animals that have been used for research suffered absolutely no pain. 31% have had their pain numbed by anesthesia. Only 6% of animals tested actually experienced pain. The misconception of millions of animals being tortured is extremely wrong. 6% is not very many animals that actually experience any type of pain. Also, the pain is usually helpful to show how the procedure would harm humans. The animals’ pain actually saves human beings pain. Animal Testers are seen as the “bad guys”, when less than one dog/cat is used for research and studies for every 50 destroyed by animal pounds across the country. Millions and millions of animals are euthanized when they cannot be taken care of in a shelter anymore. Another assumption made with animal testing is that it is mostly dogs and cats. However, less than 1.5% of testing is done on these species of animals. Humans share 95% of the genes with a mouse, which makes them a great model for the human body (Animal R...