A Life of Crisis and Hardships in the Jilting of Granny Weatherall

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall is a story of self-realization, regret, and irony. On her deathbed, a memory of sixty years ago, Granny (Ellen) Weatherall could no longer repress the day she was jilted by her husband-to-be. Voices and visions, imagined and real, linger and emerge throughout the story as this bold woman lives out her final moments. The name Weatherall is a suitable name for Granny as she has weathered many crises and hardships.

In the beginning of the story, Granny feels only a sense of being tired.

She does not realize that she is dying. Long ago, when Granny was sixty, she put to rest the thought of dying. Being very ill, she goes through the actions of saying good-bye and making out a will. Granny does not die from the illness; she sees the whole thing as just a concept like other things in life. From this she gets over her fear of dying once and for all.

This segment in her life contributes to her not realizing or her denying the fact that she, now eighty years old, is really dying.

Ellens grasp of reality starts to slip away as she begins to relive her past. Sixty years prior, her husband-to-be, George, jilted her at the altar. Spending the last sixty years repressing the memory and how she felt that day, she remembers how her faith had been shattered when the man she had once loved crushed her world. She lives her life as much to perfection as she possibly can in the sense of orderliness, from the way she keeps the house in an orderly fashion to the perfect rows in the garden.

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She does not waste food, nor does she allow anyone else to waste food. Subconsciously, she remembers the wasted wedding cake and sees wasting good food as wasting life. Granny expects certain results in exchange for the behavior she has presented. She hopes to never feel the way she did that hurtful day sixty years ago.

As Ellen does not realize she is dying, she remembers work still yet to be done, including going through the old letters from George and John, and says, that would be tomorrows business. The letters from the two men in her life make her feel uneasy; she does not want the children to find them after she passes and see how foolish she had once been. She recalls her children and how she has raised them; she sees this as an accomplishment.

Being completed, the hard work done along the way, she also sees as an accomplishment. She wishes to go back to the days when her children were young even though there were hard times; she does not feel that it was more than she could handle. She wishes to see John to show him what a good job she had done keeping on top of chores and raising the children but thinks to herself, that would have to wait. That was for tomorrow.

It is implied that Hapsy is a favorite daughter who died while giving birth to her infant son. Porter says, She had to go a long way back through a great many rooms to find Hapsy. Ellen really wants to see Hapsy and has to go deep in her mind to remember her. The significance of seeing her again represents a sign of impending death for Granny.

As Granny nears death, she confronts the jilting from George and decides that she wants him to be told about how her life turned out better than she expected and how she has a husband, children, and a house. Ellen realizes there must be something missing, something beyond the house, the kids, and the husband. She can not place what she is missing. Ellen does not realize that she has not allowed herself to truly have love in her life. Her other two children arrive to say their good-byes to their mother and death enters her mind like a rumbling thunderstorm.

On her deathbed, surrounded by her children, her doctor, and her priest, Granny realizes that she is dying. There are matters she wants to take care of: give Lydia the forty acres, give Cornelia the amethyst set, send some bottles of wine, and finish an alter cloth. These are deeds she regrets not being able to do; these are tasks she can not do tomorrow. She feels cheated and is not ready to die.

As her light dims, she is worried about finding Hapsy again. She is longing for a peaceful end and asks God for a sign telling her it is all right to let go. Ironically, the sign she is expecting to get from God never comes. This is so painful for her that she forgets the sorrow from the first jilting. Being the ultimate event that she needed at the end of her life, the sign that God did not give her brought her severe disappointment. Again, Granny Weatherall is jilted.