The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall Summary

As people get older, they reminisce about events in their past. Sometimes the memories and stories are happy or funny and other times, they are more serious and sober. Growing old can be both a sad and happy time of life because the elderly are not able to be as active and involved as they once were but they can still enjoy reflecting on many fond memories. They have so many stories to share and lessons to teach. It can be very sad, though, when a person is frustrated and saddened by getting older and just wants to continue living as they have become accustomed. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, Katherine Anne Porter shows how one elderly woman is in denial about old age, illness, and her impending death.

The people around Granny Weatherall

know that she is progressing quickly towards her own death yet she is in denial of it.

When Dr. Harry comes in to check on her, Granny Weatherall’s defiance is apparent when she says to him, “’Get along and doctor your sick.’ While her body is failing, her mind is sharp and she says to him, ‘Leave a well woman alone. I’ll call for you when I want you.” Granny Weatherall is very ill but, in her mind, she believes that she will feel healthy and strong again because her current state is only a temporary condition. She tries to refuse the doctor’s orders and efforts because she feels her condition will pass. However, as the doctor leaves, she is unable to wave goodbye or even keep her eyes open because she is so frail. “She meant to wave good-by, but it was too much trouble. Her eyes close of themselves, it was like a dark curtain drawn around the bed.” Wanting to believe that she will fully recover, Granny Weatherall does not want her daughter, Cornelia, to tell the doctor how ill she really is and that she does indeed need the doctor’s care. She reinforces this

point as she suddenly becomes coherent and annoyed when she hears Cornelia and Dr. Harry whispering in the other room. “I want a lot of things. First off, go away and don’t whisper.” After Granny confronts Cornelia about talking behind her back to the doctor, she exhaustedly admits to herself that, “Tomorrow was far away and there was nothing to trouble about.” Granny Weatherall wants the next day to be the day that she clears her belongings from the attic, such as letters and other memorabilia from her youth, because she does not want her children to find “how silly she had once been.” The delaying of an important task is atypical of Granny Weatherall and reinforces that she is sick and progressing towards death.
Death quietly eased itself beside Granny Weatherall, “While she was rummaging around she found death in her mind and it felt clammy and unfamiliar.” Death introduced itself to Granny and she initially considers it without fear or regret.

Years ago, when she was sixty, Granny “had felt very old, finished” and thought that she was going to die so she went to see them all and said goodbye to her family. This time, however, seems different. Drifting in and out of the present and her physical exhaustion make her feel more uneasy than she had been with Cornelia and the doctor. When reminiscing, Granny seems surprised and sad that her life evolved from a time when she was vibrant and had young children. “Granny wished the old days were back again with the children young and everything to be done over.” However, not all of Granny Weatherall’s youth was enviable. She and her husband, John, lost a daughter, Hapsy. “There, wait a minute, here we are!” John, get the doctor now. Hapsy’s time has come.” Now, at the end of her life, Granny talks about how she sees Hapsy and indication that she is going in and out of heaven by reuniting with her dead daughter. This straddling of life and death makes Granny happy because she missed a lifetime with Hapsy and is now able to be with her and, “It was Hapsy she really wanted.” Hapsy loves Granny Weatherall, her mother, and tells her that she “thought you’d never come” and that she has not “changed a bit.” Unfortunately, the end for Granny

Weatherall is not a peaceful acceptance of her inevitable fate and she fights the unavoidable stating “I’m taken by surprise. I can’t go.” While God has her in His hands and she “lay curled down within herself, amazed and watchful” she continues to resist the end of her time on Earth.
In the journal analysis about the short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, the author interprets what it is like to grow old and how hard it truly is. The reader allows access to Granny’s final thoughts, fears, concerns, and annoyances. It is through this unfettered access that the source of her tough exterior reveals itself. The text reads, “It is easy to see the fortitude that she has built up to protect herself from experiencing pain like she felt that day ever again.” The reader knows that Granny’s “fortitude” is self-protection against ever being hurt as deeply as she was when her fiancé abandoned her. This one event affected her so deeply that it played a role in how she developed as a person, mother and wife; the jilting is the source of an overwhelming sadness from which she has never been able to recover. Granny did fall in love again, get married, and raise a family but the nagging memory of her fiancé’s abandonment continues to haunt her. The journal analysis correctly suggests that Granny continually seeks approval of how well she performed in her adult life because of “damage to her self worth.” When the text states, “In a telling passage Granny is reminiscing about all the useful things she has done while raising the children she has while married to John”, the reader, with access to her thoughts, sees firsthand how Granny proves her value to herself. Her fear of abandonment is reinforced when John and Hapsy, by dying, also abandon her.
Granny Weatherall’s experience is a lesson. Her thoughts and experience of passing remind us to appreciate the past but treasure the present and to live in the moment and fully love those around us. Death is a transition and the faithful will face it fearlessly. Granny Weatherall allowed the regret of an absent bridegroom to affect her entire life. Her lesson teaches us that life is short and not everything is perfect but it is still a gift. Choose to be happy, live without regret, and appreciate loving someone who loves us, even if it does not last as long as we want it to.