Pale Horse, Pale Rider

In the novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter creates a very formal, almost 19th century version of her setting and characters before demolishing them and submerging the reader and the story in a modern, metaphysical journey through pain, despair, illness, and death. Similar to Melancholy Whores, the writer is able to both prove a universal truth while questioning it at the same time. After all, as the main character seems to embody, both before and after her illness, that being alive is a wonderful thing. And it is. However, while Porter does seem to prove this true, the beauty of the story is how she questions the point of being alive, and further, questions the motives of the human race to ruin the life we all have to live.
One consistent theme throughout the story is the war, which, although happening elsewhere, is a looming symbol of death, regardless of the different arguments for or against its existence. Miranda consistently views those who are going to fight the war as “sacrifices” or “sacrificial lambs,” suggesting that this war is not one that requires skilled soldiers to win it through strategy, but rather blood and bodies, that the war simply requires a certain number of lives before it can end, and this means that Adam will certainly die, at least to Miranda. When she is at the show with Adam and the man on stage is ranting about the war, she even thinks, “Did you mention Adam? If you didn’t, I’m not interested. What about Adam, you little pig?” (175). This is the ultimate mistake in viewing war in its natural place, because once it hits home, once its personal, can the sacrifice really be justified? Perhaps, but it makes life difficult to justify at the same time. At the end of the story, when Miranda discovers Adam has died from influenza, she presents this concept as she is having a discussion with the ghost of Adam. She asks him, “what do you think I came back for, Adam, to be deceived like this?” (208). Shortly after, Miranda realizes that she has only returned from death to continue on the path directly back to death. Perhaps Porter intentionally has Adam die from influenza to further complicate the feelings on the doomed relationship; that for all the war, all the death and destruction, all the young men maimed or crippled or killed, there will always be death, both fair and unfair. That although Miranda seemed to know that Adam would perish in the war, and therefore their entire relationship was inevitably pointless, he died even sooner, leaving her there attempting to be grateful for her second chance.
I enjoyed this collection of short novels immensely, but my appreciation of the title novella was much greater than the previous two. I think the reason for this is primarily based in the duality of the story that I discussed at the beginning. I think the way Porter is able to dismantle this world she has so carefully and deliberately created is what gives the story such a masterful stroke. The pacing of it is perfect, involving the reader in wartime America, the workplace for women at the time, the strange contradiction between the proud young men who are going to fight (and die, in many cases) and the older, prideful men who have trouble reconciling their inability to do their duty, and so on. It is extensive and complicated, and Porter handles it all so deftly that it is not a 600 page Henry James epic, but a quick, modern look that takes the reader as deep as possible. Perhaps that is easy to do, jump on the praise-for-Porter bandwagon, but it is truly so well deserved.