Katherine Porter Use Imagery In The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall

The following passage is an excerpt from Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how such choices as figurative language, imagery, and dialogue develop the complex emotions the character is feeling.

The character grandmother in O’Connor’s story has grounds the reality of the events and drives the family into tragedy. She is a central character in O’Connor’s story and is depicted to be a dynamic character stuck in the old ways. Through her actions and the idea of being stuck in the old ways of thinking, she leads her family into tragedy. Being the main character in the story, Grandmother significantly adds to the development of the plot. The author manages to win the attention of the reader from this character owing to the manner in which she shapes the storyline. Grandmother’s reminiscing of the old ways claims a distinctive curiosity from the reader and helps in

The use of imagery allows the reader to picture the long-lasting emotions gripping the narrator. Being a concrete representation of an object or sensory experience (myLearning), imagery permits the reader to visualize what the narrator is experiencing. One example of imagery is used in line 5 “I'm stone. I'm flesh.” The narrator is using metaphoric and literal imagery describing his body. The reader can visualize the attempt to harden the body against the onslaught of emotion, and the reflection of the vulnerable flesh body in the granite wall. Another example of imagery can be found in lines 22 through 24 “Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's / wings cutting across my stare. / The sky. A plane in the sky." Here the realistic memories of war involuntarily flash through the narrator’s mind.

The tone of this story seems to portray Granny’s bitterness, which is seen during a part of her consciousness when she hears her daughter and the doctor whispering, “Wait, wait, Cornelia,

This literary device is being used when he states, "I see a young Negro boy. He is sitting on a stoop... The stench of garbage is in the halls. The drunks... jobless... junkies are shadow figures of his everyday world". The use of imagery throughout his passage is to evoke emotions like empathy, from his audience. It allows his audience to be able to establish a connection with the images he portrays, and for the audience too also be able to understand how desperately social change is needed in the United States. Another example of imagery would be where he states," black people, brought to this land in slave ships and in chain, had drained the swamps, built the homes... to lift this nation from colonial obscurity to commanding influence...". He uses imagery to put the audience into the Black community's hoes, so that they are able to comprehend that the way Americans are treating them is not right and needs to be changed because they also made the nation great. He is further persuading his audience for social

An example of imagery as the most prominent literary element in this story, is when the barber describes what it would be like to slice open the captain’s neck, how the blood would gush out and get on everything (Tellez 21). This one example of imagery offers the readers an opportunity to visualize the scene if he were to slash the captain’s neck. The barber even thinks to himself, “The skin would give way like silk, like rubber, like the strop” (Tellez 22). Another example of imagery Tellez uses to create a visual effect in “Just Lather, That’s All”, is when he describes the way the captain’s beard makes him look. “And the beard, which made him seem a bit older than he was, didn’t suit him badly at all” (Tellez 10).

The short stories, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Catherine Anne Porter and “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty, have many similarities as well as differences. Both stories have a simple plot with a theme that is symbolic of their lives. These stories include great characterization, description of elements in the stories, and the point of view.

In “Mericans” Sandra Cisneros uses imagery to develop the text’s theme. Imagery is when an author uses visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work. In “Mericans” Sandra Cisneros uses imagery multiple times to describe and develop the scene around the narrator. The first example of imagery is “Some with fat rags tied around their legs and others with pillows, one to kneel on, and one to flop ahead”. Additionally imagery is used again, as it states, “After all that dust and dark, the light from the plaza makes me squinch my eyes like if I just came out of the movies.” The use of imagery creates an visualization of the area around the narrator and how she is reacting to that area.

Imagery is one of the best used literary devices in this short story. Imagery means “The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/define/imagery) In The Pedestrian Bradbury tells us that Mr. Mead’s house “had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window s loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.” (51) This story also uses imagery when it talks about the police car and says, “…peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.”

Imagery is widely used in O'Connor's story, which makes the characters and surroundings seem lifelike. In the depiction of the grandmother the reader can visual see the woman sitting in the car waiting on the others to arrive. "Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had penned a purple spray of violets containing a sachet." These are a few phrases of description that O'Conner used to describe the old

The color blue can be seen as just the color of the sky. In the story, it represents faith and confidence. When Dorothy landed in Muchkinland, she trusted the Witch of the North to direct her and give her guidance on her journey. Dorothy had the courage to go on the trip to Emerald City to see the Oz by herself. This shows that she had the courage and confidence even as a young child.

In the same paragraph that discusses the grandmother’s outfit, the colors red, blue, purple, and green are introduced. These colors are mentioned for the first time when discussing the grandmother’s clothes and the mother’s kerchief, and they repeated throughout the entire story. A connection can certainly be seen with the grandmother’s blue dress, because when the reader is first introduced to The Misfit, he is wearing blue jeans, and after his sidekicks kill Bailey, they take his shirt embroidered with blue parrots. It may not be easy to pick up on the repetition of these colors, but they are most

The author uses imagery to interest the reader in her story that may seem mundane without the imagery. An example of this happening is when Jeannette is going to her new school in Welch it was her first day and the teacher picks on her because she did not have to give the school her records to her not having them as that is happening a tall girl stabs her out of nowhere“I felt something sharp and painful between my shoulder blades and turned around. The tall black girl with the almond eyes was sitting at the desk behind me.

Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" depicts the story of a dying woman's life. Throughout her eighty years of life Mrs. Weatherall has had her fair share of disappointments, heartaches, and unfavorable outcomes. This short story is written in a manner that allows the reader to get an outside view looking in; similar to looking at the story through a window as if being acted out in front of you in the theater. The story is eloquently written and leaves the reader with a sense of familiarity towards the family. The populations of readers who have had the pleasure of experiencing this pathetic story have come to relate their own experiences and disappointments towards the story and have empathetic feelings towards the main

Another example of imagery in the story is when the author used it to describe Emily when she ask for poison to the druggist.“still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyes ockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keepers face ought to look”. The author makes emphasis in Emily’s face and eyes meaning that she is lost in her own world and foreshadows that Emily would use the poison for something wrong.