Katherine Anne Porter's The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall

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In Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, Granny is seen as an elderly woman, lying on her deathbed, hanging on to life. As she lies on her deathbed, she reflects back on her life and fades in and out of the present and past. Granny’s unforgiving nature is shown through religious imagery and symbolism which ends up getting in the way of her salvation.
The protagonist, Granny Weatherall, in this particular short story, is a resourceful, unforgiving woman who wishes to be independent. Throughout the story, Granny is described as an old woman who has been very neat and hates when things go to waste due to past experiences. Granny tells Cornelia at the beginning of the story to be sure to harvest all the fruit

this year and that “you waste life when you waste good food” and that it is too bitter to lose things (Porter). When she says this to Cornelia, she is referring back to her wedding day when the cake was wasted because George left her at the altar. Granny is also described as a woman who “imagined that life was a plan, whose edges could be tucked in order” (Porter). She always had her things neatly organized, having all her brushes and tonic bottles sitting on a linen because she “sought fulfillment through its visible order” (Unrue). Since the day she was left standing alone at the altar, Granny developed an unforgiving nature. Not only was she jilted by her one true love, she was also left behind by God. As she was lying in her deathbed, she knew the moment had come. Granny called out to God but there was no sign. She lost all her faith in him and said “Oh, no, there’s nothing more cruel than this-I’ll never forgive it” (porter). Although God never left her side, she had already lost her faith and her relationship with him long ago. Granny’s need for independence is also emphasized. She tells the doctor that she does not need him because she had made it this far without him (Porter). She also talks about how she sewed all the children’s clothes, cooked, and took care of anything they needed all by herself.
The imagery throughout this short story reflects back mostly in a religious way, including the light, darkness, and her faith.

Images of light and darkness are displayed several times in the story, light representing God, life, and the wedding veil, while darkness represents the night, fog, and evil. As Granny was imagining talking to Hapsy, the child whom she wanted most, she told her to remove the white cap upon her head. This image symbolizes the white wedding veil that was untouched the day Granny was supposed to marry George (Allen). At the very end of the story, as she called out to God and received no answer, she “stretched herself with a deep breath and blew out the light” (Porter). The light she blew out not only represented God, but life itself. The lamps that were used long ago that alleviated both the darkness and the children’s fear was also a symbol of light being hope. The images of darkness described represent the bad and evil in the world. Granny remembered a fog rising over the valley that “marched across the creek swallowing the trees and moving up the hill like an army of ghosts” (Porter). This darkness was the evil that scared the children. There was also a day when awhirl of smoke rose over the bright field where the crops were perfectly planted (porter). The dark smoke symbolizes George; he crept in her mind when she prayed that she’d forget him. This darkness was a hell that she knew, it “identifies the state of life when she was left at the altar”

(Unrue). Images in the story that represented her religion of Christianity were portrayed and emphasized. While she was on her deathbed, Granny had a priest in the room to bless her before she died. Also in the story, Granny thought to herself that she better hide from the light and turn over because it gave her nightmares. In this image, she is knowledgeable of God but her faith is not true.
The main theme of the short story is that Granny did not have a true relationship with God, even though she thought he had abandoned her.

Her faith in god was reliable because she had no true connection with him, “she had her secret understanding with a few saints who cleared a straight road to God for her” (Porter). The true way to heaven is not giving gifts and talking to priests to make it happen, it must be a one on one connection with God himself. The bible verse, Matthew 25:1-13, talks about how the wise and foolish virgins waited to see Christ the bridegroom. This is relatable to when George left Granny at the altar, just as Christ left the foolish virgins (Estes). Although Granny thought she was jilted by God, and it was ironic that there was a priest in the room, she blew out her own light as a final surrender because she was uncertain with her relationship with him. Since Granny did not have a true connection with God, it came in the way of her salvation and guarantee to

heaven.
The short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” was a story of an elderly woman who had been through and weathered a lot in her life time, causing her to be unforgiving and uncertain in her faith. Without her one true love in her life, she suffered much pain and ended up not being saved in the end because of her past experiences.