Porter once wrote that her stories grew primarily out of her passion for the feelings and motivations of individual people, claiming "I have never known an uninteresting human being, and I have never known two alike." For her, however, fascination with the individual did not preclude an interest in broader social and historical issues. Unique individuals were, in her view, the very building blocks of history—"these beings without which, one by one, all the 'broad movements of history' could never take place." The central character in "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," is someone who seems curiously removed from the time and place in which she lives—unable herself even to distinguish past from present. Yet, for Porter, individuals like Granny Weatherall provide the vehicle for an exploration of the broader social and historical forces of her time.
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