Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Essay

While her own tenacity never lets her down, men always seem to lack Granny's staying power. Because she has been abandoned by two men, one because he did not marry her, another because he died young, Granny cannot believe in the certainty of her future salvation through the vehicle of a male figure. The fact that she has had to assume the role of man and woman is underlined: "I pay my own bills," she says. "In her day she had kept a better house and had got more work done. She wasn't too old yet for Lydia to be driving eighty miles for advice when one of the children jumped the track, and Jimmy still dropped in and talked things over: 'Now, Mammy, you've a good business head, I want to know what you think of this?…' Old. Cornelia couldn't change the furniture around without asking ."

Although the story does not give a final answer about the ultimate question as to Granny's salvation, it is women who emerge as stronger figures in the short story -- Granny endures in her love and in her life, even if men do not. Porter does not present this idea as blasphemy, but as a natural consequence of what Granny has endured.The doctor is also a recipient of her scorn: "The brat ought to be in knee breeches," she thinks when she sees him. Neither the doctor, George, John, Christ or even her children can save Granny -- ultimately, she saves herself and rather than submit to death, she seems to realize that it is time to leave the world. Willfully, rather than passively Porter's language makes it very clear that Granny decides when it is her time to go: "She stretched herself with a deep breath and blew out the light."

Works Cited

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. Directed by Randa Haines. 1980.

Layman, Barbara. "Porter's the Jilting of Granny Weatherall."

Porter, Katherine Anne. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" April 11, 2009.

http://people.morrisville.edu/~whitnemr/html/the%20Jilting%20of%20Granny%20Weatherall.htm.....