What is ironic in that Granny says she wants to see George 60 years later to tell him that she has forgotten him for 60 years?"The Jilting of...

In "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," by Katherine Anne
Porter, I think that Granny wants to see George, sixty years after their break-up, to
tell him that she forgot about him; however, I think that there is an old heartache that
she has tried to bury. She has his letters, and her husband John's letters locked away.
She has repressed the memory of George because of the embarrassment of being left at the
alter.

Granny is very clear about the fact that except for
standing her up at the alter, he had never hurt her in any way. She had all the things
she thought she would lose when he left: a loving husband who she
loved, a house and children. She has struggled and faced difficult times, but she
survived and is stronger for it. She feels right with God and doesn't seem to have
regrets.

In some ways, I think she did
forget George to a very real extent:

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There was the day, the day, but a whirl of dark
smoke rose and covered it, crept up and over into the bright field where everything was
planted so carefully in orderly rows...For sixty eyars she had prayed against
remembering him...

In her
health, Granny has put George in his place: in her past, forgotten, filed away with
other memories "in orderly rows."

However, as she
approaches death, her thoughts wander and her mind won't cooperate: many images come to
her from the past, and she sorts through them trying to ascertain what is real and what
is imagined. The thought of being jilted by George upsets her if she allows herself to
think about it. Being rejected, especially as a young woman who is in love, is not
something that goes away easily. In her unguarded moments as life is slipping away, she
confronts the memory of her husband, and then the unwanted memory of what she
may consider failure: George's abandonment. He
made the decision, but it is her
pain:

Plenty
of girls get jilted. You were jilted, weren't you? Then stand up to
it.

This has been the way
Granny Weatherall has lived whenever things were tough, and she knows her husband John,
long gone, might not recognize her, but would be
proud of her accomplishments with their family. All of
these things she could battle—raising sick children and caring for
the homestead. But regarding George's actions, she could only repress the memory. She
has forgetten, until she becomes too weak at the end. The thought
of him comes to her mind, but it seems simply like unfinished business as she puts her
affairs, in her mind, in order.