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An Unfulfilled Life

The characters in Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" include Ellen Weatherall and the people who made up the memories and her present reality. They represent the sum total of Granny Weatherall's experiences, her relationships, her suffering, her endurance, and finally her passing. The characters and memories offer Granny no resolution and no peace in the final hours of her life.

Granny's name "Weatherall" reflects strength, survival, and endurance (Harder, 151). Her memories upon her deathbed reveal her to be strong, independent, Catholic, and Southern (Abcarian, 20). Her life was a struggle to avoid dealings with her true feelings (Brinkmeyer 12). Granny is not ready to die and has not come to terms with the events of her life. She is desperate to discover some meaning and purpose for the life she lived (Abcarian, 20). Granny is bored to explore repressed memories and her true self and feelings (Brinkmeyer, 11-12). The critical event in her life occurred when her fiancй George left her at the altar (Abcarian, 20). It is obviously a turning point in her life (Brinkmeyer, 11). She returns to it again and again and recalls that "the whole bottom dropped out of the world" (Brinkmeyer, 11). Despite marrying another man and having a family, she suffered a loss that was never fulfilled (Abcarian, 21). Granny comes to realize in the end that even her religion has been a means of denying real feelings and pain (Brinkmeyer, 13-14). She looks for, but does not receive a sign from God (Brinkmeyer, 12). She believes she has not received a sign from God but may actually have received a sign from Hapsy, her daughter who died (Laman, 279). She sees Hapsy who tells her she has been waiting for her for a long time (Laman, 279).

Jennings 2

Hapsy is a daughter who died giving birth to her own child. Like the fiancй, Hapsy is the one she really wanted, but who left her. Granny sees her as she fades in and

out of consciousness. Hapsy says, "I thought you'd never come" which may have been the sign Granny was looking for (Laman, 279). The name Hapsy may symbolize happiness. Hapsy represents, not only loss, but love and creating that have been part of Ellen's life to (Harder, 151).

George brought turbulence and destruction to Ellen's life when he jilted her (Harder, 3). Ellen declares that losing George was not important because she "... found another world a whole lot better, and she is desperate to have someone let him know she found something better. Almost immediately, though, she realizes her loss is