MEMORY AND VISION IN KATHERINE ANNE PORTER'S "THE JILTING OF GRANNY WEATHERALL"

The present article aims to investigate the nature and quality of the memories and visions stated by the limited third person narrator and the protagonist of Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" (1930). The central questions of the study are: how do the various memories and visions embedded in the stream-of-consciousness narrative, through which the plot is unfolded, expose the protagonist's personality and her wishes, concerns, and fears and how has Porter tied them up to one another and loaded them with recurrent motifs and thematic clues. To answer the question, the researcher first offers a general digest on the writer and the plotline of the story and then explores the semantic, metaphorical, and figurative thrust of the presented reminiscences and images. This narratological analysis reveals that most of the limited third person narrator's descriptions and portrayals are realistic and objective; in addition, they predominantly deal with the present state of things and people. Those represented by Granny, on the other hand, are imaginary and subjective and they deal with the past. Also, it shows that what connect the stated accounts and visions, some of which are hallucinatory and delirious, are the two key words of title, namely, jilting and withering/weathering.