What’s Up With the Title?

We might be wondering why this story isn't called something like "The Death of Granny Weatherall." After all, that's pretty much the main event of the story. Granny got jilted long ago, when she was practically a teenager—an insignificant moment in the grand scheme of life, right?

Um, not exactly.

See, now that Granny's dying, the memory of being jilted is front and center in her mind. The narrator tells us:

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 (29).

It seems that Granny's done a great job blocking out the pain associated with old George all these years, but now that she's dying, all bets are off. Her illness seems to have weakened all of those mental defenses she's relied on and she can't seem to get the pesky thought of being jilted by George out of her mind. So, in a way, the death of Granny Weatherall really is all about the jilting of Granny Weatherall.

And that's probably a good thing since "The Death of Granny Weatherall" doesn't have nearly the same ring to it.