The Analysis of Stream of Consciousness Technique in The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
Abstract
Katherine Anne Porter was a famous short story writer in the 19th century. “The Jilting of Granny Weath erall” is one of her masterpieces. Through the close reading of the original text, this article aims to analyze the different kinds of stream of consciousness technique, such as time montage, interior monologue and multiple points of view in this short story, which contributes tremendously to the development of this story.
Key words:stream of consciousness; interior monologue; time montage; multiple-point-of-view; free association.
Born in 1890, Katherine Anne Porter was mainly famous for her short stories which are considered to be beyond comparison of all time. Her ever lasting fame lies in her endeavor to be strict with her writing. She is a “publicly recognized stylistic in the critic circle” (Tan 27 ). The Jilting of Granny Weatherall is a representative work of Porter’s short story. In the story, the autho r employs the technique of stream of consciousness fluently and deftly.
Though simple in content and language, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” is considered to be a masterpiece of Porter’s short stories. The story unfolds during the dying moment of the suc cessfully “weather-all” things Granny Weat herall who is almost eighty years old. On the very moment of her last day, the fortitude granny finally reviewed her past and faced directly to the secret kept within her heart. The secret was that when she young and get married, her fiance, George, did not appear at the alter. One never knows why the man jilted Granny Weatherall, nor does one know the feeling of young Granny Weatherall at that time, however, she must be deeply hurt and suffering from lifelong embarrassment. Without deep thought, she quickly married with another man named John. Seemingly, the fate has complemented the Granny and brought her another man. In fact, she was jilted again. The man died at a young age and left all the life burden to the twice jilted granny. She had no choice but to be strong and able. She brought her five children up and did all the hard work on her own. She has managed to weather it all and has proved herself to be a truly wonderful and admirable woman. Finally, the last day of the tough woman came. When she was in the unconscious consciousness, she shuttled back and forth between past and present. Once again she thought of the gnawing memory of George. Evidently, she could not forget George and the life long embarassment he brought to her. She would like to tell him about what a wonderful life she had. By saying so, she could revenge on him. Finally, the old granny died and stopped all the conscious and unconscious thought.
The plot of The Jilting of Granny Weatherall is non-linear and fragmentary. It serves as a good example of the stream of consciousness technique. Meanwhile, by employing the technique, the author successfully presents the dying moment of the
old lady whose reminiscent of the past is quite chaotic. Her consciousness is sometimes in the here and now, while sometimes it jumps to the back and past.
Firstly, the author uses the time montage technique in the story. “Originally, montage is a term used in the film art, referring to the rearrangement in a certain space of different pictures in different times and places.” (Li 108). In order to break the bounds of natural clock time, Porter employs the time montage. The stream of consciousness fiction writers frequently adopt time montage and space montage in their work to reveal the character s’consciousness. Time montage in the stream of consciousness work means that wihtin a certain space, the characters’ consciousness goes beyond the time limits, and freely moves between the past, the present and the future. It is an effective way of revealing the change of the characters’consciousness, and enable the characters’ life experiences in different stages to be fully manifested and interlocked and overlapped within a certain limited space, and thus displaying the pluralistic and three-dimensional effects. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, the author skillfully and successfully uses time montage. Here is a typical example. “The pillow rose about her shoulders and pressed against her heart and the memory was being squeezed out of it: oh, push down the pillow, it would smother her if she tried to hold it. But he had not come, just the same. What does a woman do when she has put on the hit veil and set out the white cake for a man and he doesn't come?She tried to remember. No, I swear he never harmed me but in that. He never harmed me but in that…and what if he did? There was the day, the day, but a whirl of dark s ick rose and covered. It crept up and over into the bright field where everything was planted so carefully in orderly rows. That was hell, she knew hell when she saw it. For sixty years she had prayed against remembering him and against losing her soul in the deep pit of hell, and now the two things were mingled in one and the thought of him was a smoky cloud from hell that moved and crept in her head when she had just got rid of Doctor Harry and was trying to rest a minute. Wounded vanity, Ellen, said a sharp voice in the top of her mind. Don’t let your wounded vanity get the upper hand of you. Plenty of g irls get jilted. You were jilted, weren’t you? Then stand up to it. Her eyelids wavered and let in streamers of blue-light like tissue paper over her eyes. She must get up and pull the shades were not down. How could that happen? Better turn over, hide fro m the light, sleeping in the light gave you nightmares.” By placing the experience of past and present together, the author reproduces the life track of the granny. I t involves the reader’s thought to flow freely with the unconscious granny and generally k nows the basic experience of the tragic character. Later on, the writer’s experience once again flashes back to the present with the protagonist.
Secondly, the author uses the interior and narrated monologue. Interior monologue refers to the unspoken psychological language or language consciousness in the char acters’ mind expressed through free speech. In the interior monologue, without the disruption of the narrator, what is going on in the characters’ mind flows out freely and faithfully with more direct ness and vividness. Porter writes that “She flicked her wrist neatly out of Doctor’s Harry’s pudgy careful fingers and p ulled the sheet up to her chin. The brat ought to be in knee breeches. Doctoring around the country with spectacles on the nose! Get along now, take your schoolbooks and go.
There’s nothing wrong with me. Well, and what if she was? She still had cars. It was like Comelia to whisper around the doors. She always kept things secret in such a public way. She was always being tactful and kind. Comelia was dutiful; that was the trouble with her. Dutiful and good: “So good and dutiful” said Granny, “that I’d like to spank her.” She saw herself spanking Comelia and making a fine job of it.” By using the interior monologue, Granny’s in nermost thought was presented, while sometimes the narrated monologue slipped in and thus the two kinds of narration intercourse with each other. Just like the conscious present and unconscious past are juxtaposed. It makes the reader know more about both the present and the past.
Thirdly, the author uses the multiple-point-of-view. A well-suited point of view is significant for both the overall structure and the artistic effect of a literary work. The choice of the point of view in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” undoubtedly reveals Porter’s creative power as an excellent stylist, and is also an important factor that accounts for the artistic success of the work. The story in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” develops on two parallel levels. One is the objective world, on which the author records Granny’s constant change beween her state of comma and that of sobriety before her death; the other is Granny’s subjective world, on which the author deals with Granny’s flow of consciousness. To perfectly combine these two levels in the work, the author employs the multiple-point-of-view through the alternate use of the omniscient point of view, which records Granny’s change between her states of comma and sobriety, and the internal point of view, which reveals Granny’s mental activities. “Meant to wave good-bye, but it was too much trouble. Her eyes closed of themselves. It was like a dark curtain drawn around the bed. The pillow rose and floated under her, pleasant as a hammer in a light wind. She listened to the leaves rustling outside the window. No, somebody was swishing newspaper: No, Comelia and Doctor Harry were whispering together. She leaped broad awake, thinking they whispered in the ea r.”There is a constant change between granny’s co mma state and her sobriety. In order to develop the story smoothly, the author employed the multiple point of view in depicting the story. On the first hand, the author depicted the objective world and behaviors of the people confronting granny’s dying. On the other hand, the author exhibited the innermost mental activities of the old granny.
Fourthly the author also uses free asssociation. It refers to the process of the aimless and illogical flow of the characters’consciousness. The characters’consciousness in a stream of consciousness work does not follow the time sequence; instead, the consciousness about the past, the present and the future interweaves; the characters sometimes focus their consciousness on eternal reality, sometimes on imagination and internal reality, namely, the characters’consciousness flows to and fro between the external world and the internal world. And in either case, certain catalytic agents are needed to activate the characters’ imagination.
In the Jilting of Granny Weatherall, the use of free association is a very important method for presenting Granny’s consciousness. And similarly, the catalytic agents that activate Granny’s consciousness come from certain stimuli either in the objective world or in Granny herself. These stimuli first result in the sense impression in Granny’s head, and then lead to her consciousness activities. For instances: fristly,
Granny imagines that the pillow on the bed flows under her; this causes her to think of the swerving hammock in the light wind; the swerving hammock in the light wind causes her to think of the leaves rustling in the wind outside the window; the rustling leaves in the wind lead to her illusion that Comelia and Doctor Harry are probably speaking ill of her; secondly, Comelia’s messy room causes Granny to recall the better housesshe has kept; the better houses she has kept lead her to recall the work she has done in her life, especially the farm-work and child raising; the work she has done leads to her pride; her pride causes her to wish that John would be back again to see her children; the work she has already done at the same time makes her think of the many things left unone and feel energetic about setting to work at the present; thirdly, Granny’s need of fresh air in the room in which she is now confined causes her to think of the wedding dy with a fresh breeze; her recalling of the wedding day leads her to recall her jilting by George; her jilting by George leads to her recalling of how she has been suffering from the struggle of trying to remember and forget him in the past sixty years. The use of free association in The Jilting of Granny Weatherall helos the major events in Granny’s life to present themselves naturally and smoothly, and thus expands the time and space of the narration.
Through the frequent change of montage, multiple point of view and interior monologue, Porter smartly and deftly portrays the dying moment of the old granny. The readers thus get a panorama of the fortitud e, strong, tolerant old granny’s whole life. The technique also contributes a lot to the theme and content of the story. The perfect combination of the structure and content made this short story an enduring success in literary. “T he Jilting of Granny Weatherall”is a successfully managed classical stream of consciousness techniques. Through the frequent shift between the omniscient point of view and the internal point of view, and the use of interior monologue together with indirect interior monologue, she makes the narration unfold itself on the two levels of the external objective world and the internal subjective world, revealing on the one hand the change of Granny’s illness on the last day of her life, and on the other her rich and complex mental activities, thus manifesting the image of Granny in a three-dimensional way; through the use of free association and time montage, she presents in a limited amout of time all the major events in Granny’s life, expands the amount of information in the work, gives the reader the opportunity to fully grasp Granny’s personality, highlights the theme of the work, and enriches its connotations; besides, the stream of consciousness techniques enormously add to the artistic brilliance of the work, making it one of Porter’s most popular short stories and one of the most widely read short stories in modern American literature.
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