By Chrissy Hall

Analysis: The Jilting of

Granny Weatherall

BACKGROUND: THE JILTING OF GRANNY WEATHERALL

By Katheine Anne Porter.

Written in the 1930’s. Published in the short story collection Flowering Judas and Other Stories.

Hapsy. “I thought you’d never come. You haven’t changed a bit!”…

Significance: “God give a sign”. Granny blows out her own light.

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LIFE OF KATHERINEBorn in 1890; died in 1980.

Born Callie Russell Porter

Her mother died of complications of childbirth. Her father moved the children to San Antonio, Texas with his strict mother where the family lived in poverty.

Porter had four failed marriages, starting at 16, and numerous love affairs.

In 1922 she confessed that she had wanted a family but had many miscarriages. She was married to Ernest Stock who had given her ghonerrea. She divorced him.

In the late 40's and early 50's, Porter taught at Stanford and the University of Michigan.

Porter herself admired and says she was influenced by Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Henry James and Virginia Woolf.

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KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

"I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction." "I have a great deal of religious symbolism in my stories because I have a very deep sense of religion and also I have a religious training. And I suppose you don't say, `I'm going to have the flowering judas tree stand for betrayal,' but of course it does." - KAP

REFERENCES

Laman, Barbara. "Porter's 'The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall'." Explicator 48.4 (1990): 279-281. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 5 Feb. 2012.

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 7: Early Twentieth Century - Katherine Anne Porter." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. 5 Fed. 2012.

URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/porter.htm