Granny’s hard knock life In Katherine Anne Porter’s short story, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” there is a vivid picture of an elderly woman’s last moments and storm of mentality on her death bed. The story is shown as a stream of consciousness in which granny remembers the grievances she had throughout her life. This making it obvious to the reader that she has had not one, or two, but three jilting in her life that has affected her character through the last shreds of her life. Her past love George, the death of her husband John, and the absence of god on her death bed, all affected granny’s life and personality. The first pitiable jilting of Granny Weatherall was done at the altar by a man named George who she once was deeply in love with; this jilting affected her life in many ways.
Granny gained her strength by the people that she felt jilted by. George stood Granny up at the altar; he never showed at all and it is never stated that she heard from him again. The pain forced Granny to be strong, in which is proved by her thoughts when she is asked if anything could be done for her. “I want you to find George. Find him and be sure to tell him I forgot him.
This is the opening sentence in Aunt Ida’s narrative. Now an old woman, Ida realizes that she has been going on about life carrying anger towards everyone, much like her own mother did. It all started as a young girl when her mother got sick. Her mom’s sister, Clara, was sent to come live with her family to help out. Aunt Clara is different than anything Ida has seen before.
At seven Walker lost both of her parents to yellow fever. Madame CJ Walker had to be cared for by her older sister. As a young girl she had to pick cotton, but when the cotton crops had failed, her and her sister had to move, but found work as washwomen. Her sister married an abusive husband, and Madame Walker left home at 14 to escape the abuse. Soon after she married and had a child, but became a widow a few years later.
Oscar died of swamp fever there in 1882 and Kate took over the running of his general store and plantation for over a year. In 1884 she had to sell it up and moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother. Sadly, Eliza O'Flaherty died the next year, leaving Kate alone with her children again. To support herself and her young family, she began to write. By the end of 1880s, Kate Chopin was writing short stories, articles, and translations which appeared in periodicals.
Both Miss Emily and Granny Weatherall are stubborn old women, who cannot face actually reality. Granny Weatherall is an elderly woman, who is eighty years old, but she is also a hard workingwoman. Similarly, Miss Emily is also an elderly woman. She lost her father, of who played a large role in her life. As you will find throughout this paper both death and denial are pathways to escape for both of these women in their lives.
“I want you to find George. Find him and be sure to tell him I forgot him. I want him to know I had my husband just the same and my children and my house just like any other woman…Tell him I was given back everything he took away and more.” My understanding of this passage is that it was her closure to George. It was her way of saying she was over him and that she moved on with John and that it wasn’t revenge. The jilt by George was the first of three jilts by God.
Granny Weatherall is a woman in denial about the basic truths of her life and character. She refuses to believe that she is dying and that she never got over the man who jilted her at the altar. Granny tends to think of herself as a gritty survivor. After the death of her husband, John, Granny became both mother and father to her children. When reliving moments in her life she speaks of both matronly task ‘When she thought of all the food she had cooked, and all the clothes she had cut and sewed’ (pg 81) and masculine jobs ‘She had fenced in a hundred acres once, digging the post holes and clamping the wires’ (pg 81).
Biographical Case Study Marilyn Monroe Biographical Case Study Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe one of the best known actresses of all time, was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926 (Marilyn Monroe biography, 2013). She had a very rough start in life, Marilyn never knew her father and her mother was mentally unstable (Stephan, 2013). She was put into foster homes where she was sexually assaulted and lived in an orphanage (Marilyn Monroe biography, 2013). She was married at 16 simply so that she wouldn’t have to go back to the orphanage (Stephan, 2013). Marilyn Monroe would marry and divorce three times during her short life; it has been reported that she also had several affairs (Marilyn Monroe biography, 2013).
When she dies at the end of the story, it is revealed that she has poisoned her past lover Homer, and slept next to the body for almost 40 years. The town’s gossip continues as it has for all of Emily’s life, and they are left to figure out if Miss Emily was a victim, criminal, or lunatic. Some of the town chooses to believe that Emily is a crazed lunatic. They believed that she showed misanthropic yet feeble behaviors that led people to believe she was following in her crazed aunt’s footsteps. Her great aunt had been showing signs of mental derangement and the town’s people found that since it was hereditary she could have it leading them to say “even with insanity in the family” (Pg.2).