On the Use of Time Montage in The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

朱 蕾

ZHU Lei

(Department of Foreign Languages,Ankang University,Ankang,Shaanxi, 725000)

1 A general introduction of Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter scorned popular formulaic construction and fashioned her own unique style[1].Hendrick names her an artist of the first rank and compares her stories with James Joyce，Katherine Mansfield and Sherwood Anderson[2].Many of her works portray an individual’s search for understanding and freedom in an oppressive world.Porter was particularly noted for her ability to universalize individual experience.She has been called“a maker of darkish parables”for her treatment of individuals who are impoverished by the modern environment and also for her use of the themes of guilt，isolation，and spiritual denial.Porter focuses on the darker side of reality but uses her own sort of humor to lighten her writings.Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter appeared in 1970.Porter’s only novel，Ship of Fools(1962)，depicting a voyage on an ocean liner on the eve of World War II(1939-1945)，was made into a motion picture in 1965.

2 A general introduction of The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall is one of Porter’s best short stories.The old Granny Weatherall is dying of serious illness.The time is probably the late 1920s，while，on the bed，she recalls her past life as far back as the late 1860s，when her fiancé abandoned her on the day they were to be married.She is such a typical female protagonist who spends most of her life in hardships.In fact，the name Weatherall has already foreshadowed that her whole life will be rough and painful.She did all kinds of housework—cooking food，cutting and sewing clothes，making gardens and raising children.“It had been a hard pull，but not too much for her.”[3]She overcomes all of these difficulties with great persistence and fearless courage.She also experienced great agony when she was deserted by her lover George.

3 The use of time montage

Time is a very important factor in the stream-of-consciousness novels.Breaking through the traditional time order is a typical feature of it.Meanwhile，montage originally is a term used in the film art，referring to the rearrangement in a certain space of different pictures in different times and places[4].The stream-of-consciousness writers frequently adopt time montage and space montage in their works to reveal the characters’consciousness.Time montage in the stream-of-consciousness work means that within a certain space，the characters’consciousness goes beyond the time limits，and freely moves between the past，the present and the future.This kind of juxtaposition is effective to reveal the flow of the characters’consciousness，and enables the characters’life experiences in different stages to be fully manifested and interlocked and overlapped within a certain limited time.

In The Jilting of Granny Weatherall，the author skillfully and successfully uses time montage.The physical time of the story is in a day but the psychological time occupies the whole life(about 80 years)of Granny.When Granny Weatherall hears that her daughter Cornelia tells husband that she is getting childish and they will have to humor her，she thinks“Wait，wait，Cornelia，till your own children whisper behind your back!”[5]It is her thought about the present.Then she starts to recall in her day she had kept a better house and got more work done and her children asked advices from her.It’s her thought about the past.She is proud of her hardworking and wants to show her achievement to his husband，until then，she realizes that all of her children have already grown up.So her thought is about the present again.During the whole process，the time of the present and past are intertwined naturally and jump frequently，but the readers won’t feel anything uncomfortable or abrupt.And the strong and able image of Granny is shown vividly.

All of the stream-of-consciousness techniques used in it combine the form and content of the story perfectly，especially the employment of time montage.So it fully reveals the artistic charm of Katherine Anne Porter’s writing style which makes Porter one of the most well-known writers in the 20thcentury.

［1］［2］Hendrick，George and Willene.Katherine Anne Porter,Revised Edition.Twayne’s United States Author Series[M].Boston：Twayne Publishers，1988：137，138.

［3］卲錦娣，白勁鵬.文學導論[M].上海：上海外語教育出版社，2002.

［4］李維屏.英美意識流小說[M].上海：上海外語教育出版社，1996：108.

［5］Porter，Katherine Anne.The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter[M].New York：Harcourt，Brace，&World，1965.