“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Porter depicts a misunderstood old woman’s last day on earth. The development of Granny’s character and how it tied into her procrastination helped show the reader that no one is ever prepared to die. Granny Weatherall is shown as having good natured intentions inside and yet her outward actions are often quite nasty. We get both the internal and external views of Granny Weatherall from the authors choice in using stream of consciousness as the perspective in this short story.
One aspect of Granny’s character development ,that made for the moral of this story, is her procrastination. At the beginning of the story Granny’s speaks of getting to things, ”Tomorrow”. Also, Porter reveilles to us that twenty years ago Granny visited her children for the last time, made her will, and was prepared to die. Toward the end of the story when Granny realizes that she is dying, she begs God for more time to do all the little tasks she had been putting off. This aspect of Granny’s character development proved to be one of the themes of this work. No one is ever ready for death.
Granny Weatherall’s actions toward others appear cruel to the other characters that can’t understand Granny’s inner thoughts. Granny’s actions toward other characters make her seem like a heartless old woman. She seems to be very curt to the visiting Doctor at the beginning. Her inner thoughts reveal that she wanted to make a kindly wave good-bye, but found herself to tired. Upon the doctor’s return, Granny rudely inquires as to why he’s returned after only a few minuets. The reader is allowed to see that it’s not Granny being ill-tempered, instead her inner thoughts reveal it to be an honest mistake.
Porter made an excellent choice in using stream of consciousness as this stories point of view. This perspective allows the reader to experience the actions, speech, thoughts and feelings of a character. This point lends itself to this story by making for easy transitions between the present and the past. Porter’s lack of clarity in describing both past and present events served a dual purpose. First, it gave us the sense of looking into a slightly old and senile mind. Second, it allowed Porter to draw the story to it’s climatic ending.
I think that Porter’s depiction of Granny Weatherall was terrific. Porter made Granny’s experience easy to understand and easy to relate to. It was easy to understand how Granny’s actions were often misunderstood as she slipped further away from life. I chose to write on this story because Porter’s description of Granny helps clarify the actions of the elderly that are seen as senile.

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