You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
<br>Granny Weatherall is characterized as a very old lady who is extremely stubborn and bedridden. Granny Weatherall is a sickly old lady in denial. She believes that she is not sick although she is lying on her deathbed. Her life consisted of two men and her children with them. Granny Weatherall remembers her first love, John, leaving her at the altar. She later marries George who she has many…
- 495 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
" The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Ann Porter explores themes such as denial, regret, and most of all grief, centered around an eighty year old woman, Granny Weatherall. Her very name Weatherall is a symbol of what she has endured through life. She had to weather all she persisted and carried on. For her first love, George left her at the altar. Her husband, John died young in their marriage. And even God didn't show up to the time of her death. Consistently Granny has been jilted or abandoned by whom she loves and it caused her much grief.…
- 1183 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall portrays a determined eighty year old woman whose technique of denial and repression causes her to die without faith in her God. The story opens with Doctor Harry attempting to care for Granny Weatherall. She curses him for thinking she is ill and for talking down to her. She tells the doctor to “leave a well-woman alone.” She begins to think of all the work she needs to do around the house she believes to be hers, but is her daughter, Cornelia’s. She denies still thinking of George, her ex-fiancé, who “jilted” her the first time by leaving her at the altar. She recalls the first time she tried to prepare for death when she was sixty years old. She visited family and did her farewells. After living twenty more years, she feels she has been jilted a second time by God for not giving her time to prepare for death with a sign. She refuses…
- 1001 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
It is easy to tell that Granny is physically deteriorating, which is believable at her age. But, it is apparent that Granny is also struggling spiritually. Although she says that, “she had her secret comfortable understanding with a few favorite saints who cleared a straight road to God for her,” it is evident that she is still in conflict with the bitterness of being jilted, and the unexpected death of her husband (Porter 81). One can even go as far to say, that the “main concern of her adult life has been to heal her broken heart” (French 63). Her greatest concern was to forget George and to prove to John that she could raise the children and manage the household without him. This caused her to become an “expert in living on track,” even after she felt that she had derailed for a time (French 65). It is important to note, that a woman who is so obsessed with orderliness “has not yet thrown out George's sixty-year-old love letters” (French 76). These letters symbolize that George is fixed into Granny’s mind, and even after all these years of compulsive orderliness she cannot “clean him out” (French…
- 999 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
She was an elderly woman living on the way she was brought up explaining to her grandchildren how she would act if she was their ages. “In my time,” said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then” (368). She enlightened her grandchildren on intriguing facts along the trip that were presumed true. The narrator states, “The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic” (369). She then goes on to tell the grandchildren about a house with a secret panel where the family silver was located. She mistakenly thought the house was in Georgia, so her son drives the car down a long dirt road in the middle of nowhere to look for this house. The grandmothers’ cat jumps up out of the back seat and scares her son who then wrecks the car. The grandmother then remembers that the house was in Tennessee and not Georgia. The grandmother continues to lead her family into trouble by trying to make their vacation road trip as interesting as…
- 779 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The poetry of Cathy Song is a flowing collection of soft spoken and colorful imagery. She gently weaves her thoughts into an imaginative yet graceful story that has an overall sensual tone to it. Cathy invites the reader into her personal sanctuary of memories. She allows the reader to share in some of her most personal and critical moments in life. Some may think these things mundane but, when reading her poetry you can feel how utterly important they are to her. This can be evidenced in her poem The White Porch. Cathy uses this poem to allow the reader to participate in that moment of a woman’s life when she realizes that she is no longer a child.…
- 1503 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays -
As she grew older she began to resent Nanny for showing her a way of life where what matters is not the emotional but only the economic stability of the person whom she would be spending her life with. A person such as Janie who viewed the world as the blossoming pear tree where she once sat under and questioned her own nature was able to learn not to mourn but to live “To my thinkin’ mourning oughtn’t tuh last no longer’n grief.”(Page 114). Years ago Janie had told herself to wait for her in the looking glass. “The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place”(Page 108) the moment where she was able to separate herself from the “weak” animals and children that could not think for themselves. However it was when Nanny had died along with her dream of love that she became…
- 1143 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Jane tells her own story and takes you on a journey of no return. Jane arrives at a house that her husband rented for them as a retreat because he refused to believe that she is ill. Jane constantly tells her husband that her illness is not resolving but he doesn’t understand or believe in this nonsense. He thinks is just stress and if he takes her away she might relax and start writing again. Jane’s condition takes a turn as soon as she enters a room upstairs in the house that has yellow wallpaper. This yellow wallpaper must have triggered something in Jane because she starts to see it come to life. Once this obsession begins for Jane it seemed like no one can take her away from the idea that there are people trapped inside the yellow wallpaper. When Jane’s husband discovers that his wife was indeed ill it’s too late because what he sees when entering the yellow wallpaper room makes him faint. Jane is seen inside the destroyed yellow wallpaper room crawling on top of the debris and her husband. The ending of the story reveals how deeply Jane’s illness became because no one believed her therefore no treatment was given to her. The 1800’s seemed to be a very depressing era especially for women maybe because they were being oppressed by society. A woman in the 1800’s needed to be an upscale citizen, perfect daughter, wife, mother and obey every rule or be submitted to a mental institution for being…
- 763 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The narrator is suffering from an illness and her husband who is a physician takes her away to a vacation house to get better. While there he forbids her to do any mental or physical activity. While her husband is away she secretly writes in a diary telling the readers about her experience with the horrid yellow wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s character, the…
- 677 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Throughout, the story we see the grandmother being manipulative, deceitful, and selfish. Aruther Breatha, the author of the article “O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find” even compares the grandmother morally and philosophically to the serial-killing Misfit (Breatha 246). The grandmother is seen being manipulative when she is trying to change her son Baily’s mind about going to Florida, so she can go to Tennessee. She is described as “seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind” (O’Connor 364). She even tries to make Baily feel bad about taking his children in the direction where a criminal is a loose (O’ Connor 364). She has no care, for what the family as a whole want to do, and is only concerned, with what she wants to do, and where she wants to go on vacation. When all her attempts to stop the family from going to Florida fail, she starts to become deceitful. The first of her deceitful action is bring the cat along even though Baily said not to so, then when the family is on the road the grandmother want to stop at an old plantation she used to visit as a child. Baily does not want to stop so she lies and tell the children that “There was a secret panel in this house” (O’Connor 368), and that it was filled with silver. This of course drives the children to bug, Baily, and the grandmother get what she wants. Once, the family turns down…
- 1120 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
her owner expresses a sense of abandonment which illustrates the mourning of one who loses his…
- 984 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The story is a work of fiction focusing on the life of Caroline Spenser, a 76 year old woman who, after suffering from a heart attack, is taken to Twin Elms Nursing Home to live by her elder brother. It is made known by Caroline that she understood the decision her brother made because living with him was causing stress on her brother relationship with his wife. Caroline was a former teacher, never married, who enjoyed scenic views, poetry and music. She never really felt she fit in anywhere and so spent her life enveloping herself in the things she loved; such as traveling, teaching and giving her heart to a married man. Caroline’s life changed, however, when she had her heart attack. Caroline was forced to sell her home, she had to depend on others, and she had to give up many freedoms. These were some of the things that kept Caroline “lively” while at the nursing home, but she often had difficulties accepting her fate. Along with Caroline’s sadness for her new found losses, she eventually developed a deep hatred for the owner of the nursing home, Harriet, whom she reports had never treated her or any other clients with respect or dignity. Many times Caroline has overheard Harriet discuss the clients of the nursing homes in demeaning ways, once reporting “we are talked about always as ‘them’ as if we were abandoned animals thrown out of a car” (Sarton, 1973). In addition, Caroline felt alone by…
- 1983 Words
- 8 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Life as it is, can be full of ups and downs. Through time, individuals have lived healthy lives and life has treated them well, but also there are sicknesses in life that can be detrimental to ones-self. Individuals have different coping mechanisms that help with tough situations through life. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” portrays how one is able to go about dealing with an illness that ends up being detrimental to the narrator. Gilman, in the “Yellow Wallpaper,” through the use of the setting, symbolism, and point of view, conveys the message that the narrator suffers from an awful illness.…
- 1021 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Plot: Woman gets call at work from her father, telling her that her mother is dead. Father never got used to living alone and went into retirement home. Mother is described as very religious, Anglican, who had been saved at the age of 14. Father was also religious and had waited for the mother since he first met her. They did not have sex until marriage and the father was mildly dissapointed that the mother did not have money. Description of the house follows, very high ceilings, old mansion it seems, with chimney stains, it has been let go. Jumps in time to narrators ex-husband making fun of narrator fantasizing about stains. Next paragraph is the father in a retirement home, always referring to things: ‘The lord never intended.’, shows how old people have disdain for new things, the next generation appears to be more and more sacreligious. Shows streak of meanness when ‘spits’ out a reference to constant praying, narrator claims he does not know who he is talking to, but appears to be the very pious mother. Following paragraph jumps back in time to when narrator was a child, she asks her mother constant questions about her white hair and what color it was, mother says she was glad when it wasn’t brown like her fathers anymore, shows high distaste towards her father, the narrators grandfather. Mother claims hate is sin, that it spreads throughout your body like black ink in water. Next paragraph jumps to older narrator, discussing her name, Euphemia, how they called her Phemie at home, but when she started to work she called herself Fame (hated her real name), dialogue between her and a bar guest, which is where she worked, at a bar in a hotel. Shows the type of place and type of people she converses with on a regular basis. After that the next paragraph jumps back to 1947 when Euphemia was 12 (so she was born in 1935), she was helping her mother paper the downstairs bedroom because her mother sister Beryl was coming to visit. Her mother…
- 1609 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays -
Mrs. Wright’s is isolated in her house with her bird as her only source of comfort. Being at home all the time makes her feel “like she [cannot] do her part and…., [not] enjoy things when [feeling] shabby” (Glaspell 5). Indeed, Mrs. Wright has no companion to encourage her to have a stronger attitude. She is only inside with her bird which keeps her occupied and satisfied in her bad condition. However, she still has no one to share opinions and have a voice with. Of course, gradually this brings depression upon her and automatically makes her feel differently about her abilities. Just like Mrs. Wright, Olenka too “hardly ever [goes] out, expect to church, or her husband’s grave and [leads] the life of a nun” (Chekhov 5). This displays how she is too upset because she does not have any of her loved ones in her life. For this purpose, she does not feel the need to do anything, or be in her community. In addition, her sadness is reinforced by her only visiting her husband’s grave. Revealing how Olenka is too damaged by the loss of who she loves and still wants to be near him even after his passing. Likewise, with no one in Mrs. Wrights and Olenkas lives to show them love and communicate with them, they are not motivated to do anything, but only be full of sadness. All in all, human beings being isolated from devotion for a period of time will make them believe nothing in life has a…
- 1421 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays