Young Writers Society

Matthew M.

Mrs. R. 3rd period E/LA

In the two short-stories “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and “Marigolds” there are two characters that are somewhat similar. Katherine Anne Porter was the author behind the story of Granny Weatherall while the latter was written by Eugenia Collier. The two characters that will be compared are Granny Weatherall and Mrs. Lottie, from Marigolds.


As the story begins in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” we see Mrs. Weatherall as being a feisty woman of about eighty years. When she was younger, probably around her twenties she was rejected, or jilted, by the one she loved at the time whose name was George. She soon married John and together they had four kids: Haspy, Jimmy, Cornelia, and Lydia. Her husband, John, died at an early age and Mrs. Weatherall was left to care for the children, farm and animals that he had left behind. The death of John, when compared with the jilting she faced at an early age, is possibly a big contributor to why she is so feisty in her later years of life. During the time of the story she is dying but all the while she has flashbacks of when she was young and most of them involve George, the one she loved. The constant flashbacks make Mrs. Weatherall seem sane at times but completely senile at others. A few other reasons that can point to Mrs. Weatherall's being feisty is her attitude to her children, especially Cornelia. Cornelia is one Mrs. Weatherall's three daughters and as you can learn from reading the story Haspy is the only child Mrs. Weatherall ever wanted. This is especially hard on Cornelia because all she's ever wanted is to be loved and appreciated by her mother, she never receives this despite the tremendous help Cornelia has given her mother. Mrs. Weatherall also seems to have a great love and fascination with her chickens; this can be seen when she talks to her chickens and encourages them to lay better eggs.


When we first see Mrs. Lottie in her story of “Marigolds” she was being watched by some kids. These kids, name Lizabeth (she is the story's main character), describe Mrs. Lottie. Mrs. Lottie's home is unkempt, old, and falling apart. However she has a garden of marigolds in her front yard that she tends too, more than her house. Day in, and day out, hour after hour, Mrs. Lottie tends to the Marigolds while on her knees. Those very flowers seem to be her life. Lizabeth and Joe, along with a few other kids that are with them are hiding in the bushes watching Mrs. Lottie. Lizabeth thought; “We children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful; they did not make sense(pg.79)”.
The group of kids soon pick up some pebbles and stone the house and the marigolds. Mrs. Lottie gets furious of course, and begins to rant and swear at the kids. Lizabeth then ran out of the bushes and yelled “Old witch, fell in a ditch, picked up a penny and thought she was rich (pg.80) .” All the while Lizabeth dances around Mrs. Lottie and the other kids soon join in. It was when Old Joe, Mrs. Lottie's husband, walks off his porch the kids run off.


Later that night Lizabeth, along with Joey, walk over to Mrs. Lottie's house. Lizabeth, in a rage triggered by all of her pent-up emotions, starts stomping on the marigolds and begins ripping them out of the ground. After yelling at Lizabeth, and begging, Joey gets Lizabeth to calm down. Joey points something out to Lizabeth and it's Mrs. Lottie, lying prone in the garden.

First off, you seem to be a good writer. And, since you say this is a school assignment, I'll be straightforward. Things to improve: a few run-on sentences you should catch if you read it over and a couple little organization issues. Usually, in a compare and contrast essay, you have a simple but neat organization style. This style is ideal because its organized. Basically, it's just the introduction, summarization of one story, summarization of another story, compare/contrast, and conclusion. I think your essay is good, but it doesn't quite compare and contrast, which is the purpose of it. I believe that if you fix little grammatical mistakes which you should catch upon checking it over, organize it a little, and maybe spice it up with some more sentence variation, this could be a great piece. Right now, it's still good, though. Good writing, and I hope my review helps.

Alright so I'm going to give you a little advice on comparison essays, seeing as I'm a little late on getting to this review before you had to hand in the original piece. In any case, this might help with later on essays that you'll find yourself having to do (which there will be many of them, especially if English is your subject).

In any case, what I noticed is that you fell right into the pattern of what most young teens and teens do. That would be the 'book report' syndrome, or so I like to call it. Though I haven't read either of these books, I can already tell that you were uncomfortable talking about the books theoretically. Instead, you chose to write about what you knew and what it gave, which ended up turning into a synopsis instead of a comparison/contrast. Because you are still young, I'm sure your teacher won't think much of it, but it will help later on to head these words of advice.

That being said, what consists of a good comparison/contrast essay? Sourcing. You know your books well, so now start coming up with your own thoughts and ideas on them. Lottie and Mrs. Weatherhall are similar? What makes them similar? That being said, find three things that make them similar, like behavior, relatively similar situations, and maybe personality. Those three things will end up being the point of each paragraph, so all around you'll have an intro paragraph, three paragraphs on those three things above (including sourcing from the books if you have the patience to do so), and a concluding paragraph that should summarize everything you stated above in a clean manner.

There are many methods to writing decent essays. One important thing, though, is that essay writing is not like free-hand, pleasure writing. Its all about structure and your ability to maintain your points all the way through. If you can do that, you'll have a successful paper that should end up proving the points or ideas that you made on the text. Not simply summarizing what was in the text.

Hope that helped! I can be a be confusing sometimes xD.

~Walker