Bad Love and Granny Weatherall

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Anne Porter (Delbanco)is a story of a woman, well past her prime, in the final moments of her life.  She is remembering parts of her life. One memory was the bad love of George jilting her when she was a young woman of twenty and how it almost devastated her. George was a painful memory, a lost love that she suppressed for sixty years. Granny later proclaims that she “finds a whole world better named John” (Porter 265).  Because of the broken heart and unrequited love from George jilting Granny, I would put this story in the bad love category. 
            Granny Ellen Weatherall is an independent, stubborn woman.   She has built up fortitude to protect herself from feeling the kind of pain she felt on the day she was jilted.  Granny states, “Plenty of girls get jilted.  You were jilted, weren’t you?  Then stand up to it” (Porter 263).  Even though Granny has moved on with her life, the impression is given that everything she does is for the approval of others.  The way George rejected her sixty years ago was so devastating that she has always felt unworthy and unlovable.   
            Throughout the story, Granny is seeking approval of love from the priest, God and especially John her deceased husband.  Granny tried to overcome the rejection of a lover to have the husband and children that George denied her.  She wants George to know that John did not find her unworthy or unlovable.  Also, she wants to show John that she did not do so badly in taking care of things after he did at a young age. "Sometimes she wanted to see John again...and say, Well, I didn"t do so badly, did I?"(Poter263).   Again, Granny was looking for approval. 
            Granny Weatherall was going through life with baggage that influenced the path she decided to take and the decisions she made. The experience of bad love with George had her always looking for external validations of her worth to be loved.   In the end of her life, “Again no bride groom and the priest in the house…there’s nothing more cruel than this—I’ll never forgive it” (Porter 265).  With that Granny Ellen Weatherall blew out the light of her life, she finally gave up looking for approval of the worthiness. 
The broken heart, unrequited and loss of love makes this story one of bad love. Granny has repressed and prayed against remembering the love she lost when George jilted her on their wedding day.  Granny also felt unworthy of love because of John dying young and no sign coming from God.  Starting with the day George jilted her until the day she died, Granny Weatherall was obsessed with being worthy of love.  In the end Granny Weatherall gave up the fight to be worthy of love.  "She streched herself with a deep breath and blew out the light." (Poter265)  We all strive to be worthy of love in our lifetime but Granny Weatherall never felt loved. 
=About the Author=
            Katherine Anne Porter was born Callie Porter in 1890.  She died at the age of 90 in 1980.  She grew up motherless in extreme poverty.  Katherine had been married and divorced four times.  She wrote ass a journalist, essayist and book reviewer.  Katherine Anne Porter won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. I also viewed this story as a movie on http://www.popcornflix.com/The-Jilting-Of-Granny-Weatherall/25762c12-6016-483e-9956-7b21253721ca
=Works Cited
=. 
Delbanco, Nicholas and Alan Cheruse. Literature Craft and Voice. Second Edition. New York City: Mc Graw-Hill, 2012. Print
Porter, Katherine Anne. "Jilting of Granny Weatherall." Delabanco, Nicholas and Alan Cheuse. Literature Craft and Voice. New York City: McGraw Hill, 2012. 261-265. Book. 
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