What are your suggestions? How can I expand my conclusion? Thanks for the help!
In Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," after sixty years, the jilting by George looms so large in Granny Weatherall's mind. Granny's strong statements that the pain of the jilting is more than compensated for the happiness she ultimately found with her husband, her children, and her grandchildren should not be accepted. Throughout her life, she is in constant denial.
Granny's grudge of being jilted by George is demonstrated in her antagonistic relationship with men. Granny defies male authority figures. After a male doctor insults her by his condescending manner, Granny rebukes, "Get along and doctor your sick...Where were you forty years ago when I pulled through milk-leg and pneumonia?" (1028). As is evident, she continues to hold resentment for George at the same time when she reprimands sharply and expresses her strong emotions of abandonment towards the doctor. Just as the doctor was not there forty years ago to help her, George jilted and abandoned her after sixty years. Such resentment can also be seen in how she perceives her husband John. The speaker states, "She used to think of him as a man, but now all the children were older than their father, and he could would be a child beside her if she saw him now" (1030). Granny sees John as a stunted man, indicating that men declined in her esteem.
Granny feels that she need to conceal the hurtful feelings of being jilted through conscientious household tending. She states, "Things were finished somehow when the time came; thank God there was always a little margin over for peace: then a person could spread out the plan of life and tuck in the edges orderly" (1029). Granny forces herself to believe that everything can be manipulated and "tuck in the edges orderly." Ironically, she was not able to "spread out the plan of life" when she was jilted by George. With her family, she does not feel better after her jilting. She states, "No matter if Cornelia was determined to be everywhere at once, there were a great many things left undone in this place" (1030). Her "great many things left undone" can represent the feelings following her having been jilted.
Granny thinks the pain of her jilting is gone. She states, "Yes, she had changed her mind after sixty years and she would like to see George. I want you to find George. Find him and be sure to tell him I forgot him" (1032). If her pain of her jilting were gone, she would not have to convince herself so. When Granny was jilted by George, she was deeply impacted. The speaker explains, "The whole bottom dropped out of the world, and there she was blind and sweating with nothing under her feet and the walls falling away" (1033). To feel that she was "blind" and "sweating," the experience must be awful and distressing.
Thus, Granny Weatherall is constantly feeling the pain of the jilting. Her reactions to men, meticulous household tending, and denial makes it clear that the pain of the jilting continues to exist.
Greetings!
You've written a good essay, but a few of your sentence constructions are a little awkward. Here are some suggestions for you:
the jilting by George looms so large in Granny Weatherall's mind - If you use "so" you need to balance it with "that": "...looms so large... that she cannot get past it."
Granny's grudge of being jilted by George is demonstrated - The grudge that Granny holds from being jilted by George...
Granny feels that she need to conceal the hurtful feelings of being jilted - Granny feels that she needs to conceal the pain of being jilted...
Does the story explain what happend when she was jilted? Your essay would be easier to follow if the reader knew exactly what happened when Granny was jilted.
I think you just need another sentence or two in your concluding paragraph; perhaps something like:
Despite her denials to the contrary, the jilting of Granny Weatherall continues to dominate her life decades later.
I hope this helps!
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
