The Similarities And Differences Of Emily Grierson and Granny Weatherall

2 Pages 562 Words

Human beings react in many ways to tragedy. Some run and hide, some resort to lieing and cheating, and others do the unthinkable, kill. A more positive reaction to tragedy is when a person can look adversity in the eye and weather-all. These two opposite reactions are described in graphic detail in the short stories, “A Rose For Emily” and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” The characters of Emily Grierson and Granny Weatherall are similar in many ways, but how each one faces their misfortune defines them.
These two women had many similar characteristics. Both were left by their first loves. Miss Emily’s first love turns out to be gay(133 paragraph 41), and Granny Weatherall is left at the alter by her fiancé.(417 paragraph 43) Both remained alone for a long period of time. When Miss Emily’s father dies, she is left a poor old woman all alone, and after the death of Granny’s husband, she is left alone to raise her family.(415 paragraph 25) In each of these stories both are portrayed as stubborn old women. Miss Emily defies the tax collectors by refusing to pay. (131 paragraph 10) Granny Weatherall refuses to believe that she is dying.(41 paragraph 1) What sets each of these women apart is their reaction to tragedy.
Miss Emily’s father never allowed her to love any man.(132 paragraph 25) After her father’s dies, she is free to love. Emily meets Homer, “a big, dark man with eyes lighter than his face.”
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Later in their relationship, Emily finds out that it will not work out with Homer. The man that she loved so much was known to like men.(133 paragraph 41) She could not take the pain. Finally, after years of loneliness, she was allowed to love, but she could not have him. Miss Emily’s solution was to purchase arsenic and poison Homer. (133 paragraph 39) By killing the man she loved, keeping his deteriorating body in her bed so that she could lay with him every night, she secured...