The Jilting of Granny Weatherall By Katherine Anne Porter

When I was reading, I was confused on point of view being either 3rd person limited or first person, because it seems to jump back and forth between the two within the paragraphs, but for the most part it is 3rd person limited. The main characters are Granny, Dr. Harry and Cornelia. Granny, I think, is the protagonist, and Dr. Harry and Cornelia are the antagonists because they both conflict with Granny rather equally. The setting was also slightly ambiguous, obviously Granny was bedridden even though her thoughts wandered to normal activities, but being either in a hospital of some kind or her own home was left for the reader to decide. I felt like the mood was kind of dreamy and sad, almost like a state where you’re too dazed to really feel a strong emotion, like with Granny moving in and out of her consciousness. Granny’s conflict was man versus circumstance, her fate, her life, being left at the altar by John, and George dying put her in a position where she had to do everything, and now life is taking the only thing she wants to do, which is be alive and carryout everything like she was before. The theme is that people shouldn’t discard others, or “jilt” them out of their lives, because everyone means something to someone.
This was a challenging story, not as much as The Yellow Wallpaper, but I definitely had to pay attention to the point of view and who was speaking when. It made me think about what was going on and what that means in the story and outside the story, applying it to me. Personally, I loved how Granny was basically bedridden but thought she could still do anything she wanted.