THE JILTING OF GRANNY WEATHERALL
THE JILTING OF GRANNY WEATHERALL
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, and novelist. She was also a dedicated political activist. Her works often deal with death, betrayal, and evil. Porter was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times, and she won the prize in 1966.
Let's Read
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is about an old woman on her deathbed. The narrative type is stream of consciousness, meaning that the story is told from a person's interior monologue, i.e. their thoughts. This can make the story hard to follow at times, so it is important to pay attention to every detail.
Remember: You are responsible for all of the highlighted vocabulary words! Now would be a good time to use your binder. If you would prefer to print out the story, you may do so: The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.
Activity
The reader experiences the events in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” from a psychological standpoint, not a chronological one. What does that mean? It means that we see Granny’s feelings about important events, and the most emotional event drowns out all the others. Even though major events in Granny’s life happened a long time ago, it all runs together in her mind, without reference to the past or the future. Her character is depicted fully in this stream of consciousness narrative. We know that she has many virtuous qualities like endurance, fortitude, intelligence, and the ability to work very hard.
Download the following worksheet. On it, you will find a list of events in Granny’s life. You will be required to assess whether the event happened in the past or the future, and then to organize them chronologically. This exercise will help you to understand the use of flashbacks, foreshadowing, and time distortion in literary works. When you have completed the worksheet, save it and upload it to question 20.
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