The Trauma and the Triumph

Abstract

This chapter proffers a re-reading of “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” using the perspectives of gender studies and trauma studies. Using feminist criticism to critique the protagonist, the chapter places her against the socio-cultural context of first-wave feminism. Katherine Anne Porter’s protagonist, Miranda Gay, longs for independence, freedom and autonomy. The short story addresses the challenges and demands placed on a young woman in her quest for autonomy. Porter chooses Denver, Colorado for Miranda to begin a new life, away from the South and away from her past. She escapes the South and its feudalistic and oppressive hold on women but has to combat sexism in the mythical West. This is understood best if one takes into account the full trilogy of the collection Pale Horse, Pale Rider especially “Old Mortality”. In the newspaper job dominated by men, Miranda is forced to adapt to a discourse which is not natural to her. The newspaper tries to control her finances too. The setting of the eponymous short story is against the backdrop of the First World War and the Spanish influenza pandemic. Miranda’s challenging experiences and individual trauma are set against a collective trauma, intensified within this very sombre historical context. The young twenty-four-year-old spirited journalist manifests hopeful expectations that soon lead to a life-threatening conflict as Porter’s story portrays her indulging in a brief love affair with Adam Barclay, a young Army officer. In the story, Miranda’s romance also gets associated with trauma. Within the domains of history and art, Porter shows the continuous reaction of individual consciousness towards external traumatic events. Porter used the works of Albrecht Dürer as the structural and thematic references for her apocalyptic work. “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” becomes a piece of literature as traumatic memory and shows a constant interplay between memory and death. Trauma, aestheticized and bound by fictionalization, is also partially shared by the reader. As Porter fictionalizes her traumatic past experience, she simultaneously blends individual trauma with collective trauma, by linking her personal experience to the experience of millions – the survivors of the war and survivors of the Spanish influenza pandemic. After the terrible ordeal Miranda emerges as a woman triumphant and empowered.