Porter

The Porter stories touch on many of the same prominent themes of the South that we have read in many of the other stories this semester. I think the way that Porter addresses these “touchy” topics is very creative and also extremely sly. I often found myself reading about something that in other books jumped out at me as “oh, this was an important issue of the time,” and not even noticing. For example, the race relationships seemed to be more accepted between Nannie and the grandmother than they would have been portrayed by other authors. Like Chopin, Porter portrays a great deal of female strength in her writing. For example, the Grandmother took on many “manly” jobs once she received the opportunity when her husband died.
A person contradicting their beliefs also appears to be recurrent in southern literature. Jefferson for example contradicted himself often in his writings. The grandmother is very self contradicting in Porter’s stories. The reader can clearly tell that she does not necessarily approve of the rules of society, yet for some reason she follows them. I think this is because Porter has the grandmother represent the “Old South” and its values. The reader could tell that the grandmother wanted to take on more “masculine” roles, but she did not until after her husband dies, and even then she was very subtle in the roles which she took on.
I think that “The Grave” represents Miranda’s coming of age more than any other piece of Porter’s stories which we read. The reader sees how in a previous short story, “The Circus,” Miranda is very girly, and sticks to the more traditional values of femininity. She cannot even stand to sit through a circus and has to be brought home. A few stories later, she is out with he brother Paul shooting animals and rummaging through graves. I think that the grandmother’s death represented the death of the “Old South,” and the values that went along with it. Once she was dead, Miranda was freed from living up to these traditional values. Although the end of the story shows her in a way returning to those same “scared,” and “feminine” characteristics, she does break free from them and learn on her own who she really is, not who she is expected to be.