distinguish as Granny, in pain on her deathbed, in a memory relives the pain of giving birth to Hapsy. She finally welcomes the presence of a doctor as she cries out ambiguously,' 'my time has come."

Memory Memory is a double-edged sword in this story where the central character moves back and forth between the present reality and the remembered past. On the one hand, Granny Weatherall's memories are a source of strength for her; she seems to take pride in remembering her life's accomplishments, particularly in overcoming the setback she experienced in being ''jilted." She values occasional moments for reflection when she is able to "spread out the plan of life and tuck in the edges orderly." She also finds comfort in remembering her late husband John and is confident that he would still understand her despite all the changes she has gone through since his death—''She wouldn't have to explain anything!"

On the other hand, Granny's reminiscences also seem to reopen old emotional wounds and bring back painful experiences she thought she had put behind her. Her memory of the other man in her life, George, seems to undermine her sense of order and self-worth and to create a kind of debris she has had difficulty throwing out. She is made "uneasy'' by the thought of her children discovering the box of letters from George which she has kept in her attic all these years. At one point, she even fantasizes about going to the absurd length of instructing her daughter to find George and ' 'be sure to tell him I forgot him."

“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” is primarily a character study. By being privy to Granny’s death, the reader can infer much about her life. The title describes the enormous hurt and humiliation that has secretly festered in her mind and heart for sixty years. Her great pride was devastated by her jilting; although she married a good man, raised a family, and managed a farm by herself after her husband’s death, she never totally got over the shock and disappointment of George’s rejection. The fact that she has saved George’s letters suggests how much he continued to mean to her in her heart and how the pain of her jilting remained with her for sixty years.

Over the years, Granny was transformed from Ellen, a young bride with “the peaked Spanish comb in her hair and the painted fan” to the fiercely proud old woman, living with one of her daughters, whom the reader encounters on her deathbed. She has weathered all that fate has thrown at her: serious illness, perilous childbirth, traveling country roads in the winter when women had their babies, sitting up all night with “sick horses and sick negroes and sick children and hardly ever losing one.”

Through perseverance and hard work, Granny has surmounted life’s obstacles and endured into old age with children who love her. However, in her most secret self, there is the evergreen memory of George’s rejection. She has not been able to share this deep hurt with her loved ones, and it has cut off a central and tender part of herself from all others. Katherine Anne Porter has drawn Granny’s character with such clarity and compelling force that her life story becomes a kind of prototype for everyone’s, regardless of age or circumstance. Personhood is sacred, and, once violated, the scars may remain for a lifetime. There is something ineffably poignant about Granny’s wanting George to know that she had her husband and children like any other woman. The sanctity of the human heart and the existential loneliness of the human condition are the enduring themes of this story.