Joe Van Lanen
May 6, 2004
EN 135
J.K. Ray
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall and The Man to Send
Rain Clouds both deal with people's attitudes towards
religion and the role of in people's lives. Write a paper
discussing the role of religion in these two stories.
Religion
In both stories The Man to Send Rain Clouds and The
Jiltingof Granny Weatherall religion plays a large part in
the lives of the characters, but in death it takes an even
more central role.
In The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, granny has lived
A long life filled with many struggles and hardships along
the way. She has staid the course throughout her life and
endured all the trials and tribulations which God asked of
her. She endured being jilted by her husband to be, George
at an earlier time in her life. Later her husband John
dies, leaving her to care for the children and tend the
upkeep of the farm.
"When she thought of all the food she
had cooked, and all the clothes she had cut and sewed, and
all the gardens she had made - well the children showed
it". (page 1032) "She had fenced in a hundred acres once,
digging the post holes herself and clamping the wires with
just a negro boy. That changed a woman". (page 1032) As
death nears, she thinks that God will give her a sign
before He is ready to take her out of this life. "I'm not
going Cornelia. I'm taken by surprise. I can't go". (page
1036) "Granny lay curled down within herself, amazed and
watchful, staring into a tiny point in the center of light
that was herself; her body was now only a deeper mass of
shadow in an endless darkness and this darkness would...