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Essay Name       : 1108.txt 
Uploader         : 
Email Address    : 
Language         : English
Subject          : Fictional Stories
Title            : "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
Grade            : 89%
School System    : High School
Country          : United States
Author Comments  : Granny Weatherall's Strengths and weaknesses
Teacher Comments : Explain in further detail her strengths and weaknesses
Date             : 10-14-96
Site found at    : from a friend
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   Webster's dictionary described the word "jilt" as the act of breaking with a lover who does not
want to end the relationship in a callously light-headed way. Jilting took ona double meaning in
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter with Granny's strength and
weaknesses revealed by her reactions to her being left at the altar and her slow death sixty
years later.
    The most obvious conflict of "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" was Granny struggling with
death.  She came off strong stating, "Get along and doctor your sick, leave a well woman alone,"
and saying when she was sixty years old she had felt old and was preparing to die after writing
her will. After getting over a long fever some twenty years earlier, Granny had once and for all
gotten over the idea of dieing. Although trying to appear strong during her struggle with death
and commenting she couldn't be worried now, she had ongoing illusions of her dead daughter
Hapsy and Hapsy's baby.  This showed she didn't want to die and wished she could go back to
see her children young again and to possibly save Hapsy or at least say goodbye.
     Granny being left at the altar was the underlying conflict of the story and was actually more of
what the story was about.  Granny had internal conflicts about her being jilted and was angry at
George, a lover from her past. Granny said she would like to find him and tell George she forgot
him, but because he was mentioned so much she obviously had not forgotten.  She wanted
George to know she had her husband, John, and fine children, but something was missing.
Granny had a life of hard work after the death of her husband installing fence rows with only the
help of a young negro boy.  For sixty years she had thoughts about George and was mad and
weak at the thought of him leaving her.
     "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" was a tale of a woman who was in love and was left or
jilted at the altar.  She found another, John, and had many children who loved her. After the
death of John, she had to work hard which changed her into a stronger harder woman by healing
sick horses, negroes, and children.  For the rest of her life she wandered about George who left
her and what might have been.  Granny Weatherall lived long and weathered all until the end,
when for the second time in her life there was no sign given by God. Again there was no
bridegroom and the priest was there in the house.  She could not remember any other sorrow
because the grief of being jilted twice, first by George,then by a hard life, wiped all the sorrow
away, when her dignified and triumphant life came to an end.  
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