In Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" an old woman's light is slowly fading out and memories from her past are phasing in and out of her head as she lives out her final moments. The times she was "jilted" are pouring out of her memories, releasing themselves and allowing her the peaceful death she so desires. She has good memories: memories of her children, memories of her husband, and memories of her silly father: "Her father had lived to be one hundred and two years old and had drunk a noggin of strong hot toddy on his last birthday. He told the reporters it was his daily habit, and he owed his long life to that" (Porter 2). But it is the bad memories she's letting go of, the memories of her many "jiltings". Her children surround her as she dies, floating about like balloons above her. But she doesn't want to go yet she has so much she still wants to do. Granny Weatherall had been through a difficult life, full of hardships that shaped her into a strong, fiercely independent woman. Because she had lived past sixty and was now eighty, she had "[gotten] over the idea of dying [long ago]" (2). She wanted to live to be one hundred and two like her father and play jokes on the reporters. Besides, there was "always so much to be done" (1); why go now when she has so much to offer her children and grandchildren?
Her children are her happiest memory: "Granny wished the old days were back again and the children young and everything to be done over" (2). Despite going through such hardships in raising her children, she wished to do it again; suggesting that despite her many injustices she did eventually find love, peace, and reason within her life. It had been difficult "but not too hard for her" (3)....
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... her children, and gave people hope to see through the darkness. The theme truly is "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger". Granny is humanity. Humanity's need to give reason and purpose to life sets us up for disappointment. It is human nature to expect, whether good or bad, there is reason for our existence that someone will always be there to save us, especially in something as final as death. Granny surely believed her "jiltings" would be corrected upon her death because of her religious beliefs. But even in death, life tries to break you, and even in death you can find strength, the strength to blow out your own candle.
And, just as life is devoid of reason, death is no exception.
Works Cited
Porter, Katherine Anne. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." Flowering Judas and other Stories. New York : Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1958 180-187
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...
Engel, Mary Ella. “The Appalachian “Granny”: Testing the Boundaries of Female Power in Late-19th-Century Appalachian Georgia.” Appalachian Journal 37.3/4 (2010): 210-225 Literary Reference Center. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
Both women were religious, especially in their final moments. Granny Weatherall called upon God to give her a sign before she died, but was left jilted, again. The grandmother from “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, had a conversation with her killer, The Misfit, about Jesus before he killed her. She also called out several times for Jesus before she was killed, and instructed the Misfit to pray. Death was an element that was present in both women’s stories. In “The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall”, her family and friends are essentially playing a waiting game for her death. Granny Weatherall at first does not believe that she is dying, but towards the end of the story, she accepts her fate, and turns to God. Throughout “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, there are constant foreshadows to the families death, such as the family passing a hearse, the family passing a graveyard, and the family driving through a town called “Toomsboro”. The grandmother herself seemed to be prepared for her death, by making sure that she had on a presentable outfit to be found dead in, “…but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print… In case of an accident, anyone
In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter, we learn of an elderly woman who is lying on her death bed watching her life pass before her eyes. We learn, from these flashbacks, how much she has overcome and endured, and how she's put her whole heart into being a mother and wife up until her last breath, when she blew out the candle and rode with her Father in a cart to heaven. It’s this very reason why Porter, in my opinion, chose Granny as the narrator of this story; so we could see the story through her eyes, being able to relate and appreciate it better.
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2000.
... 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.
Janie's Grandmother is the first bud on her tree. She raised Janie since she was a little girl. Her grandmother is in some respects a gardener pruning and shaping the future for her granddaughter. She tries to instill a strong belief in marriage. To her marriage is the only way that Janie will survive in life. What Nanny does not realize is that Janie has the potential to make her own path in the walk of life. This blinds nanny, because she is a victim of the horrible effects of slavery. She really tries to convey to Janie that she has her own voice but she forces her into a position where that voice is silenced and there for condemning all hopes of her Granddaughter become the woman that she is capable of being.
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
In "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," there are two themes. The first is self-pity. The second theme is the acceptance of her death. Both deal with the way people perceive their deaths and mortality in general. Granny Weatherall's behavior is Porter's tool for making these themes visible to the reader. The theme of self-pity is obvious and thoroughly explored early on. As a young lady, Granny Weatherall was left at the altar on her wedding day. As a result, the pathetic woman feels sorry for herself for the rest of her life. She becomes a bitter old woman who is suspicious of everyone around her. This point is shown early in the story when the do Granny Weatherall, the main character in Katherine Anne Porter's The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, is an 80-year-old elderly woman who is at the doorstep of death. There is a sense of disillusionment with Granny that leads readers to develop their own interpretation of her relationship with Cornelia, her daughter As the narrator, Granny unknowingly would paint the picture of Cornelia as nuisance and bothersome. In fact, the reader can rationalize that it is just Cornelia's concern for an ailing mother that creates the situation of her seemingly being there all the time.
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.
For the most part of the poem she states how she believes that it is Gods calling, [Then ta’en away unto eternity] but in other parts of the poem she eludes to the fact that she feels more like her granddaughter was stolen from her [or sigh thy days so soon were terminate]. One of the main beliefs in these times was that when someone died it was their time; God needed them and had a better plan. Both poets found peace in the idea that God had the children now and it was part of the plan, but are also deeply saddened and used poetry as a coping mechanism.
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature Portfolio. Eds. Desmet, Christy, D. Alexis Hart, and Deborah Church Miller. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 204-211. Print.
In The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, Catherine Ann Porter shares the story of an eighty year old woman who has lived a long life filled with personal triumphs and tragedies. Having been left at the altar by the love of her life at a young age, Ellen “Granny” Weatherall, whose name appropriately represents her character, learned to put up walls of protection around herself and her family early in life lest she fall to the same hurt once again. These protective measures and the mindset that seems to come along with said measures contribute to Granny’s bold and abrasive personality which is displayed quite often throughout the story. Granny prided herself in her ability to maintain her home and family without the aid of a man, having been voluntarily left by one man and having the other taken by death at an early age. One finds, however, that Granny was “given back everything he [George] took and more” (Porter, 86) through her second husband, children, and home.
While people physically isolated him because of his elevated status, other issues that were ultimately the cause of a tragic situation also internally isolate him. In Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Richard Cory, Robinson writes, "And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head." (Robinson). Though Cory had been isolated both by himself and others, no one knows the effect of this isolation until it is too late. This is an example of how when people are isolated by others, they oftentimes isolate themselves. This can also be seen Katherine Anne Porter’s The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. Porter writes, "Get along and doctor your sick,” said Granny Weatherall. “Leave a well woman alone. I’ll call for you when I want you. Where were you forty years ago when I pulled through milk-leg and double pneumonia? You weren’t even born.” (Porter). This shows how Granny Weatherall further isolated herself because she had been isolated all her life. Both Cory and Granny Weatherall isolated themselves from society and were therefore unable to build a healthy relationship with others in their time of
...Prevention. "Physician-Assisted Suicide Should Not Be Legalized." Opposing Viewpoints: Problems of Death. Ed. James D. Torr and Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Harford Technical High School - MD. 15 Mar. 2010 .