The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1929

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Background

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Character Analysis

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Background

Sociohistorical Context: First Wave Feminism

Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) lived during a period of rapidly changing gender roles. Though 1848—the year of the Seneca Falls Convention—is commonly cited as the “beginning” of first wave feminism in the United States, the movement was particularly active around the turn of the 20th century, culminating in the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. Other key areas of concern to first wave feminists included the right to work outside the home (principally in middle-class professions like law, education, and medicine, as working-class women commonly labored for pay already) and the rights of women within marriage, including the right to own property and greater safeguards against domestic abuse.

Though Porter did not explicitly identify as a feminist, her life and works reflected the shifting norms of the era. Her first husband was physically abusive, and she divorced him in 1915. This was a scandalous thing to resort to in the early 20th century, but Porter went on to marry and divorce an additional three times; she also pursued at least one extramarital affair. Her professional life was similarly iconoclastic. In addition to writing fiction, Porter worked as a journalist—an unusual profession for women at the time.

Porter’s life informed her literary work, which often explores the experiences of women and challenges traditional gender roles and societal expectations. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” Porter presents Granny Weatherall as a strong-willed and independent woman who has survived many challenges. Though proud of how she has mothered her children, she refuses to be reduced to this role; she is unsentimental about her children and reflects on the sacrifices she has made as a mother and the expectations placed on her as a wife and caregiver. Through Granny’s narrative, Porter raises questions about the societal constraints imposed on women and the potential for self-realization and personal fulfillment beyond traditional gender roles. Granny’s struggle against patriarchal power structures is particularly pronounced in her jilting by George, which serves as a metaphor for the control and dominance exerted by men in Granny’s life. Granny’s determination to assert her own agency and autonomy despite these betrayals is an act of resistance.

Literary Context: Modernism

“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” is associated with the literary movement known as Modernism. Modernism emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a response to the era’s changing social, political, and cultural landscape. It reoriented literature around not only new subjects but new forms, forgoing the linear narration and omniscient perspective of much 19th-century Realism in favor of more interior and fragmented styles. Stream-of-consciousness narration is a hallmark of Modernist literature famously associated with writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and, in the US, Porter’s fellow Southerner William Faulkner. Such writers use techniques like run-ons, fragments, and non sequiturs to evoke the subjective experience of human thought and to create psychologically realistic characters. Closely related to stream of consciousness is Modernism’s use of flashbacks and other forms of nonlinear narration, often to explore the nature of memory. In keeping with this emphasis on subjectivity, Modernism also challenged the existence of objective, universal truths.

“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” displays most of these characteristics, immersing the reader in Granny Weatherall’s reflections, memories, and associations via a fractured and nonlinear narrative. This technique emphasizes Granny’s unique perspective on the story’s characters and events—i.e., their significance to her specifically—and creates a psychologically complex portrait of one woman’s thoughts, emotions, and defense mechanisms. Its use of flashback is particularly notable, as this not only adheres to Modernism’s emphasis on fragmentation but also facilitates Porter’s exploration of denial and memory. Porter’s story thus exemplifies the relationship between form and content in Modernist literature.