To Blow Out The Light
F.R.R. Mallory
March 2, 2006

Henry James, author of such illuminated works as "The Turn of the Screw", describes characters in fiction as: "What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?" (James 229). Character and plot are often so closely intertwined that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to separate one from the other. It is through the illumination of character that a reader is drawn to invest in a story. It is through caring about that character, being interested, curious and concerned for them, that the reader connects to become part of the story as it unfolds. Yet character is often something devilishly elusive for a new writer to master. Too often characters are delivered partially formed, like cardboard shadow puppets, no deeper than a bit of face paint and caricature. Yet in a master's hand, a few brief words can scream across the page rich with suggestion and mystery. Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" demonstrates this mastery in the way he is able to capture the immediate attention of his audience. "Call me Ishmael" (Melville 1). In just three words the reader knows that Ishmael has a secret.

Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" illustrates how seamlessly character and plot can be blended to seduce the reader. This short story isn't exactly the kind of story that would normally attract my interest. The subject matter is that of an elderly woman who is dying. Both aging and death tend to be topics I have a little discomfort with, topics I might avoid for something more pleasant. But Porter seduces me from her very first paragraph as she gently, yet firmly, begins her unveiling of Granny Weatherall. She tells me "There's nothing wrong with me" (108). Granny is vibrant and alive, whole in some essential way. I can see myself in Granny from these first brief words explaining, no matter what it is you think you see when you look at me, I'm okay. This is the person inside, this is the internal character who is just like me.

Porter's cast of characters is small and varied and includes an attending doctor, Doctor Harry, and her daughter Cornelia as the main foils. As the story progresses we are also introduced to her dead husband John, her jilting Fiancee George, Father Connolly, her son Jimmy, daughter Lydia, an unnamed nurse and Hapsy who is never clearly described, who could be living or dead and perhaps might even be Ellen Weatherall herself.

Each of these characters bounces off the perceptions of Granny Weatherall adding definition and clarity to her character. She's gently patronized by the good doctor when he chides her, calling her Missy, "You're a marvel, but you must be careful or you're going to be good and sorry" (108). Through his conversation with her we experience both his concern and the warmth with which he speaks to her. "She was never like this, never like this!" (108). We can hear the panic in Cornelia's voice - and her love for her eighty-year-old mother. Granny herself remembers a recent conversation with her son Jimmy; "...Mammy, you've a good business head, I want to know what you think of this?" (109). In this exchange we are shown that those closest to her still treat her as valuable and whole, as a person with no diminished mental capacity and this reassures us, as readers, because we want to believe we will reach eighty years old with a fresh mind, surrounded by loving friends and family.

We know Porter is leading us inexorably toward death. We can see the end of this story telegraphed through her spectacular weaving of mystical elements along with the rawness of reality. Yet, not only do we tolerate this journey, there is a pleasure, an almost voyeuristic glee in sharing Granny's adventure. This is a glee we do not expect and in this way Porter surprises us with how deeply she has been able to develop this character for us.

Porter tells us "her bones felt loose, and floated around in her skin" (108). This is early, just after we have met Granny and already we know that feeling loose and floaty bones is unusual. It means... It could mean the Granny that is spirit is cutting itself free from the Granny that is flesh. We don't really know these things in any scientific way but for most of us there is an understanding of how death might be like this - a loosening of bones in the skin. It isn't a creepy reference but it has an edge, it catches at the attention of the reader and it suggests that one of the great mysteries may be examined in this story.

In this way we are also allowed inside both the body and thoughts of Granny as she thinks about or even feels what we believe we might also think about or feel if we were eighty and death had come to visit.

As Granny's mind roams across the landscape of both past and present Porter allows us to see when "a fog rose over the valley, she saw it marching across the creek swallowing the trees and moving up the hill like an army of ghosts" (110). This elegant passage informs us of the increase in her experience of the change she is undergoing. There is something to be done, but she can't quite remember because the fog is coming in.

She remembers George, her jilting fiancée. She thinks about how she had prayed to forget him for sixty years, to protect herself from "losing her soul in the deep pit of hell" (111). He is her dark wounding, her rejection, her unhealed pain. Even so, she doesn't seem to worry much about her soul - she hasn't followed George into his darkness.

It's the mysterious Hapsy that seems to materialize at her bedside who becomes Granny's welcome. Porter keeps Hapsy insubstantial when she says "Hapsy melted from within and turned flimsy as gray gauze..."I thought you'd never come" (111). As a reader we aren't certain that Hapsy is dead but perhaps we want Hapsy to be dead, to be welcoming Granny, to be waiting eagerly for Granny to arrive.

As we near the end Granny listens to Cornelia's voice bumping along like a cart, a cart Granny "stepped up in...very lightly and reached for the reins, but a man sat beside her and she knew him by his hands, driving the cart" (113). What is this cart? Who is this man? What we know is that Granny accepts him and his presence without question. The cart, Porter tells us "...rounds corners, turns back and arrives nowhere" [sic] (113). We are on the cart with her as her thoughts realize the implications and adjust. In our final last push with Granny, what we want is for Granny to make it out under her own terms, her own power. Porter delivers us this way:

The blue light from Cornelia's lampshade drew into a tiny point in the center of her brain, it flickered and winked like an eye, quietly it fluttered and dwindled. Granny lay curled down within herself, amazed and watchful, starting at the point of light that was herself; her body was now only a deeper mass of shadow in an endless darkness...She stretched herself with a deep breath and blew out the light (113).

Work Cited

James, Henry, Literature For Composition, Essays, Fiction,  Poetry, and Drama, 7th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, William E. Cain. New York, Pearson/Longman, 2005. 229

Melville, Herman, "Moby Dick."
     http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby_001.html

Porter, Katherine Anne, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." Literature For
Composition, Essays, Fiction,  Poetry, and Drama, 7th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet,
William Burto, William E. Cain. New York, Pearson/Longman, 2005.
107-113

Katherine Anne Porter
1890-1980

I wanted to include this essay to reflect on why it is not particularly successful as an essay. The objective was to do a character analysis of Katherine Anne Porter's story "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall".

I believe I do reflect on how character is created and presented in a fictional work, what I don't manage to do is to actually analyze that character fully. Why is the character doing what they are doing and what can I look at to explain their motivations and processes?

Showing how an author gets from point A to point B isn't nearly enough. I suspect that I never feel that a character is fully developed in fiction. My instinct is to pursue the author - I know the author is real and ultimately it is their character that is under analysis through the choices they make in their writing.

When characters are incomplete as all characters are in fiction - how do you analyze them in a way that isn't totally artificial?

I believe one of my issues with this process is that this is quite similar to the process used in summary analysis of real people by the press - they are sound bite arm-chair assignments of judgment. They only look at a few shallow details and through those details they want other people to believe that they 'know' the entirety of the person being examined. This is essentially a violent and oppressive process in service to those wishing to justify their own actions against that person - in other words, they are part of the machination of artifice upon which actions of violence are dependent. These are violences 'false legs'. I abhor these in real life and cannot find it in me to participate with this process in its smaller cousins, such as in the analysis of short stories.

When all we are given are a few details it simply isn't possible to know or understand the person - even in fiction. For me, fiction is often the author playing out a tiny portion of their own consciousness against the staging of their inner theatre - this is one pane on the million pane prism of their reality. To judge them through such fine details is to ensure mistakes. It simply isn't possible to know them when so much isn't presented.

So, this essay is a failure.

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