Faulkner\'s a Rose for Emily and Porter\'s the Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Armant

S, Jr.

Never-Ending Relationships

Miss Emily Grierson in Faulkner's, "A Rose for Emily" and Granny Weatherall in Porter's, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" are quite similar characters though they are set in different times and different places. The two characters from each respective story have some similarities between each other; however, the most notable is that they both have been "jilted" in love, and the rest of their lives have been impacted because of it.

Emily Grierson is not a stranger to being jilted in love. Though the first jilt happens with her father -- a manipulative and controlling man, it is the second jilt (at the hands of Homer Baron) that is the one that send Emily over the edge of sanity. After being rejected by Homer Baron, Emily decides to find a way to keep Homer with her forever. Instead of tying Homer to her by marriage, Emily decides to tie Homer to her by death -- his death. Emily purchases some arsenic and poisons Homer, keeping his body in a back bedroom. In this way, Emily has won and outsmarted the men who have always seemed to have her under their control.

Granny Weatherall is another character jilted in love. Granny's jilt was perhaps worse than Emily's in that she was left at the altar by the man she loved -- humiliated in front of everyone. Granny believes that she was able to move on from George and, in a sense, she did when she married and had children with another man, but the story fills us in on details that make us think otherwise. For one, Granny keeps old letters from George. One could compare these old letters to the dead body that Emily Grierson keeps in her home. Both are inanimate objects, taking up space, rotting away -- but keeping the owner bound under their symbolic control. While Emily may appear to be the winner of the situation (because she does succeed in taking Homer's life), it is really Homer -- the man -- who has all the control -- even in death because his memory holds Emily hostage. Homer has gone on to be free in death, but Emily will forever be a prisoner of her mind.

Granny and Emily can be viewed externally as strong woman, but upon closer inspection, the women are victims of love. Emily grew into a strange woman, mocked by the neighborhood children while Granny became a cantankerous old woman -- annoyed by even her very own children. Even on her deathbed Granny's children annoy her. "She lay and drowsed, hoping in her sleep that the children would keep out and let her rest a minute" (Porter 243). Granny becomes sassy and even downright mean. She is a character in denial about her life and, in this story, she becomes a character that is even in denial about her own death (as she seems to be unaware that she is dying).