When Granny, in the wanderings of her mind, thinks she is still a young wife and mother, the hard work Granny is accustomed to doing on a daily basis, even while resting, comes through, "there was always so much to be done, let me see: tomorrow," thinks Granny. Even now Granny takes pride in the neatness of her home, as she lies there, although she worries about the lost, resting love letters, stashed away fearing about being seen as silly, when individuals go over her personal possessions after she is gone. Granny thus accepts her eventual death, even while she worries about the arrangement of the hairbrushes on the bedside table. She had expected to die at age sixty, now she is eighty. She "had spent so much time preparing for death there was no need for bringing it up again." But Granny wishes to control how she is remembered. She is frustrated being unable to control the thoughts and lives of others, as is evidence about her worries over her silly love letters, and thus the way she will be remembered. This is why the memory of her jilting rankles her so much -- she had no control over the heart of the man she loved, and she wishes she could have, even though she is happy wit the way her romantic life ultimately turned out, with the man she married, and the children she bore him.

However, although Granny is controlling, her children still Of her life, Granny states, "It had been a hard pull, but not too much for her." This could be the epithet for Granny's life. Granny nursed the sick, gave birth to children, and dug up fence posts. She picked her own fruit, and cooked for her family so, again true to her frugality, nothing was wasted. But her wounded vanity, however, prevents her from seeing her life as a stream of unbroken perfection -- always, in Granny's mind, there is something else to be done, there was another heart and life to be dominated and won. She won most hearts and most struggles -- with the exceptions of her battle to win her first suitor's heart and her final battle with death.

Works Cited

Porter, Katherine Anne. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." Full text available 28 Feb 2005 at http://people.morrisville.edu/~whitnemr/html/the%20Jilting%20of%20Granny%20Weatherall.htm