Community Stories

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall page 848

• What is the connection between her experience of having been jilted sixty years ago and her experiences in the final paragraph?
• When Granny was jilted 60 years ago, her sweetheart George left and abandoned her, she wanted to see him to show him how well off she had been.  But when Hapsy left the room, Granny felt abandoned for a second time.  She was even more depressed and sad that she just "let life go" and blew out the light.
• In Granny's eyes, how/is the community dissolved?
• The community has "dissolved" by the respect and manners no longer being evident.  The kids aren't as nice or caring and don't go to see Granny.  The gardens weren't tended to and it made her want to plant flowers, trim hedges, and put the place to rights again.
• What is the difference between a dissolving/disappearing community versus a changing one?
• A dissolving/disappearing community doesn't have involvement in things going on around it.  It's fading into the past and new things aren't being done.  But, a changing community is just growing and becoming better than it was before.  If the community is changing for the good, then the community is advancing.

University Days page 548 (old book)

• Write about a specific way Thurber;s university classes did not live up to his expectations and one way he did not live up to their expectations,  How did these expectations form his experiences in this community?
• In the college, Thurber disappointed his Science teacher because he was not able to see any of the flower "particles" in the microscope.  He even had to retake the class because he took a pass to drop it but it was a required class to finish college.  But, in his last year, he had to do the military drills again and when he was there, the captain complimented him because he was the only one in the whole program that was walking the correct way.  Even though he wasn't very good at the sports, he passed gym by cheating and he was embarrassed because he was the only last year college student still in the military drills.  He said he had an ok time in college because of all of his struggle but then there were some factors that made it better.