Chris Offutt's, "Aunt Granny Lith"

The short story “Aunt Granny Lith” by Chris Offutt, in a way, was confusing to me. The beginning of the short story started with three characters and the common thread was moonshine. Towards finishing up the short story, it started to make sense especially when Offut included, “Thirty years before, Casey’s first wife died the day after they were married……The next day he came to court her on the front porch.” I liked how Offutt included Casey’s past, so the present makes sense. I was trying to determine the narrator of the story, I first thought it was Beth, but then it was written in third person. I believe the setting of the story is perhaps in the Appalachians (just because of Moonshine) and the fact that they, “there’s a shot gun by the door and a pistol at the bed.” The language and the words the sound made throughout the story was difficult for me to understand. The grammar of Beth, Casey, Nomey, and Lil’ was hard for me to follow.

·      The religious aspects of the characters’ lives was different as well. I was just assuming that because they are from the Appalachians, Baptist would have been their religion. I may be wrong, but Offutt made it seem like the characters believed in spirits, not the Holy Ghost, but spirits of Mountains, or River, kind of like what the Native Americans believed in.

·      The old woman who causes all the marriage drama between Casey and Beth is unnamed, although the readers know that she delivers the town’s babies and she is not married. Beth’s mother even said, “That women fetched me into this world.” I believe it was ironic that Beth became pregnant around the time that this mysterious birthing mother became present in her life. I found it very brave that Beth allowed her husband to meet with the old lady, allowing him to be with her for just one night. I believe it was very admirable of Beth and she even told her husband to, “leave your clothes by the log and crawl right inside there.”

·      In the short story, there was situational irony. When Casey came back from seeing the old women, instead of him coming back perfectly normal, he was beaten up with gashes and bruises. Another situation was instead of her killing him, the old woman “she begged me….to kill her.”

·      I couldn’t find any vocabulary words in the short story that I didn’t know. Although what I couldn’t really understand was the way the characters spoke. However, the title of the short story began to make sense for me. I believe the old woman's name was "Lith" and because she was so old, she inherited the name, "Granny", but because she birthed so many babies, she also inherited the name "Aunt."