"No memory is really faithful": memory and myth in Katherine Anne Porter's "Old Mortality".

"No memory is really faithful": memory and myth in Katherine Anne Porter's "Old Mortality". "AH, THE FAMILY... THE WHOLE HIDEOUS INSTITUTION SHOULD BEWIPED from the face of the earth. It is the root of all humanwrongs" (217). Eva Parrington, in Katherine Anne Porter'sstory "Old Mortality," focuses her bitterness and resentmenton family in general but ultimately on the family's mythologizingas the cause of her suffering. Eva has been wounded by her extendedfamily's method of dealing with their memories of the past bywriting their own narrative and holding so fiercely to the myth that noone and no event can adequately measure up to the glories of thecollectively remembered past. In her attempts to enlighten and instructher cousin Miranda about their family's wrongs, she leaves theyoung woman in the confusing position of having to determine for herselfhow she will respond to competing myths. Although myth could be downplayed as merely a fiction and not anobjective truth that should constitute a personal, familial, or evencultural memory of the past, Karen Armstrong For the operatic soprano, please see Karan Armstrong.Karen Armstrong (b. November 14 1944 in Wildmoor, Worcestershire, England) is an author who writes on Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. , in A Short History ofMyth, defends the tradition in saying that "human beings falleasily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented storiesthat enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed anunderlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressingand chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value"(2). Miranda's family in Porter's story has clearlymythologized their past in extolling the incomparable beauty and virtueof one of their females and promoting the role of their men asprotectors and worshipers of women. By examining the family'sromantic myth, Cousin Eva's opposing myth, and the effects of bothon Miranda, Porter leads the reader, along with Miranda, to aconsideration of what Janis Stout describes as the "very seriousproblem of memory, fantasy, and truth" ("Miranda's"267). Porter once wrote in her journal that "of the three dimensionsof time, only the past is 'real' in the absolute sense that ithas occurred" (Essays 449), a statement that would seem to indicateshe places a higher value on the past than on either the present or thefuture. Why then does she seem to deal so critically with afamily's sense of the past in "Old Mortality"? The answerlies in the fact that the words "the past" and"myth" are not synonymous. A myth is born from viewing thepast in a particular way. In her journal entry, Porter continues,"One of the most disturbing habits of the human mind is its willfuland destructive forgetting of whatever in its past does not flatter orconfirm its present point of view" (449). Miranda's family isindeed guilty of willfully willfullyadv. referring to doing something intentionally, purposefully and stubbornly. Examples: "He drove the car willfully into the crowd on the sidewalk." "She willfully left the dangerous substances on the property." (See: willful) misremembering or reconstructing the past inorder to create their own myth, or what the folklorist Mody Boatrightcalls "family saga For the Icelandic family sagas, see .The family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. " (Grider 227). (1) An objective look at thedetails of their lives would be less flattering, less dramatic, lessheroic, less romantic than what they can mythologically devise, so theysimply alter those details to suit their needs. Even as a child, in PartI of "Old Mortality," Miranda recognizes that "suchepisodes [of family myth] confirmed ... the nobility of human feeling,the divinity of man's vision of the unseen, the importance of lifeand death, the depths of the human heart, the romantic value oftragedy" (179). Richard Gray attributes their recasting of memoryto the fact that "They--her parents, her grandparents, and her'cousins'--still subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day"subscribe, takebuy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; the official Southern version ofthe past" and that "in a sense they have to, because itprovides them with a historical confirmation of their code, a myth toreassure them as to the validity of their own life style" (186). The official memory, the family narrative that they choose to craftand perpetuate, is one made up of historical Southern chivalry chivalry(shĭv`əlrē), system of ethical ideals that arose from feudalism and had its highest development in the 12th and 13th cent. ,beautiful maidens, dramatic moments never to be equaled, and "lovestories against a bright blank heavenly blue sky" ("OM"175). The challenge for the family is that reality does not alwaysreflect these elements; however, they simply find a way to adapt bysubverting memory in order to fashion a myth. Gary Ciuba says that"Miranda's relatives desire the past that they remember yetremember the past that they desire" (83). As Miranda observes,"something seemed to happen to their ... memory ... in the face ofevidence contrary to [their] ideal" (174-75). Therefore,Miranda's father asserts that "There were never any fat womenin the family, thank God," in spite of the fact that Aunt Keziah isso obese as to be banned from riding her own horses out of "charityto our faithful dumb friends" (174). Consequently, successivegenerations of females are condemned to being continually compared toAunt Amy ("she rides almost as well as Amy"; "the firstAmy had been lighter"; "but rolled into one they don'tcome up to Amy" [177, 197]), a woman whose "brothersremembered her tenderly as a sensible girl" in spite of her ownadmission that she was not (183). "'You might live as long asanyone, if only you will be sensible,' [her mother once told her].'That's the whole trouble,' said Amy" (182).Unfortunately, as a result, a shadow is cast against any momentouspresent or future event because "there was always a voice recallingother and greater occasions" in spite of the fact that the cousinswonder, "why should anyone need to recall the past?" (179).And thus Father states after Gabriel's death, "Life forGabriel ... was just one perpetual picnic" (219), in spite of thefact that Gabriel was an obese, unkempt drunkard One who habitually engages in the overindulgence of alcohol.In order for an individual to be labeled a drunkard, drunkenness must be habitual or must recur on a constant basis. who was oftenimpoverished and had a miserable marriage to a perpetually disapprovingand bitter second wife. The willful forgetting of details, the embellishing of those theydo remember, and the focus on the resultant myth are indeed harmful tothis family, exemplifying Porter's concern about misremembering.Amy appears to have been propelled to a premature death Premature Death occurs when a living thing dies of a cause other than old age. A premature death can be the result of injury, illness, violence, suicide, poor nutrition (often stemming from low income), starvation, dehydration, or other factors. either by herdramatic efforts to become what she calls "the heroine of thisnovel" (189), as if she is consciously aware of, and trying todetermine, her place in the family myth, or to escape the mythaltogether. Gabriel, who, according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Jane Krause DeMouy, "playsthe Southern knight so well that he continues the role years afterAmy's death" (132), lives with a dead woman's memory towhich no one, not even (or perhaps not especially) a second wife, couldmeasure up. Miranda, when forced to compare what she sees around her tothe wonderful stories she has been told, is left wondering as a child,"Oh, what did grown-up grown-up?adj.1. Of, characteristic of, or intended for adults: grown-up movies; a grown-up discussion.2. people mean when they talked, anyway?"(197) and later is unsure of what truth even is. Cousin Eva is damagedby the family myth because she is unable to conform to Verb 1. conform to - satisfy a condition or restriction; "Does this paper meet the requirements for the degree?"fit, meetcoordinate - be co-ordinated; "These activities coordinate well" its requirementsfor physical beauty: she cannot be a Southern belle because she has nochin, has two "enormous teeth" and is considered"ugly," a "blot" on the family (178). After all,there are rules involved in this family's myth: There were points of beauty by which one was judged severely. First, a beauty must be tall; whatever color the eyes, the hair must be dark, the darker the better; the skin must be pale and smooth. Lightness and swiftness of movement were important points.... Beautiful teeth and hands, of course, and over and above all this, some mysterious crown of enchantment that attracted and held the heart. It was all very exciting and discouraging. (176) As a result of her outsider status as "ugly duckling Ugly Ducklingscorned as unsightly, grows to be graceful swan. [Dan. Fairy Tale: Andersen’s Fairy Tales]See : BeautyUgly Ducklingugly outcast until fully grown. [Fairy Tale: Misc.]See : Ugliness "(178), Eva becomes embittered; but rather than exposing and annihilatingthe myth as she thinks she does, she merely creates her own version--amirror or reverse image. Eva's perhaps unconscious desire to be a "romantic"part of the family myth is evident when she hopefully asks Miranda onthe train, "You don't happen to remember that I once had abeautiful sapphire velvet dress with a train on it?" (208). Thisthwarted desire has had a curious effect on Eva; as Walter Sullivan For other persons named Walter Sullivan, see Walter Sullivan (disambiguation).Walter Sullivan is a fictional character and antagonist of the video game . Although he is the main antagonist of the game, and the player character is a young man named Henry Townshend, many observes, "Eva at once is destroyer and victim: the myth has shapedher and she cannot fully rum away from it, even as she works to bring itdown" (8). The myth shapes her by driving her to action, ironicallya feminist action, considering her unwitting obsession with thedecidedly patriarchy-based family myth. She reminds Miranda, "Isuppose you must know how I fought for votes for women when it almostmade a pariah of me" (210) and sounds intentionallyself-sacrificing about it. When she later says, "It wasn'tjust showing off, mind you," the word "just" is importantto understand her motives (210). She has been forced to choose anunorthodox means of gaining attention since she lacks the more standardprerequisite of Southern beauty and thus casts herself as ananti-heroine, a feminist martyr, who was willing to go to jail threemore times for the cause of women's suffrage The term women's suffrage refers to an economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage — the right to vote — to women. The movement's origins are usually traced to the United States in the 1820s. "if it werenecessary" (210). As would-be exposer of the family myth, Cousin Eva chips away atAunt Amy's pedestal. She attacks almost every angle of the familylegend regarding their darling, including her romance with Gabriel. Shefeels that it is her duty to enlighten Miranda, whom she addresses as"you poor baby, ... you dear innocent," as to the "bitterfacts of the case" and begins by describing Amy in a manner that isstartlingly star��tle?v. star��tled, star��tling, star��tlesv.tr.1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start.2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. unlike any description Miranda has heard before: Amy was a"devil and a mischief-maker," who "went through life likea spoiled darling" (212, 211). To refute the established familynarrative, Eva declares that, contrary to Miranda's claim, noteverybody loved Amy and not everybody said she was very beautiful.Furthermore, she reduces the romance of courtship to "justsex," adding that Amy was "simply sex-ridden, like therest" (216), an accusation that ironically may reveal more aboutEva herself than about Amy. Even Amy's illness is subject to thisrewriting of family legend when Eva indelicately proclaims: "Andher illness wasn't romantic either ... though to hear them tell itshe faded like a lily. Well, she coughed blood, if that'sromantic" (215). In fact, Eva doesn't appear satisfied untilshe hints darkly that not only had Amy committed suicide rather thangracefully expiring from consumption but also she had done so to"escape some disgrace, some exposure that she faced" (214). Even though Eva considers herself the one family member clearsighted enough to tell the truth, it is obvious that she too is amythmaker myth��mak��er?n.One that creates myths or mythical situations.mythmak��ing n. who simply wishes to shape the family's mutual past toserve her own needs, which are not served by the family's version.M. K. Fornataro-Neil points out that although Eva writes her own"counternarrative," she is still a "coconspirator, stilla willing participant in that established narrative, since it providesher with a sense of home and history" (352). (2) She is, after all,the one who "automatically" tells Miranda on the train,"Your mother was a saint" (217), which sounds suspiciouslysimilar to the manner in which the family describes its own. Miranda,after listening to Eva's version of the past, reflects to herself,"Of course, it was not like that. This is no more true than what Iwas told before, it's every bit as romantic" (216).Furthermore, after Eva condemns the family as a "whole hideousinstitution," she does not hesitate to step off the train, takehold of Miranda's father's arm, and immediately begin"going over old memories and finding new points of interest inthem" (217, 220). She tells Miranda what she calls "the otherside of the story" (217), but it is a "story" all thesame, and Miranda is left with the task of deciding how to reconcile thefamily myth she has heard all her life with this alternative version. Growing up, Miranda is immersed in family memory and myth; in fact,the narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. points out that she and her sister Maria at the ages ofeight and twelve "had lived not only their own years; but theirmemories, it seemed to them, began years before they were born, in thelives of the grown-ups around them" (174). It is a tradition thatthe two sisters thrive on: when listening to family lore andparticularly stories about wonderful Aunt Amy, "they were drawn andheld by the mysterious love of the living, who remembered and cherishedthese dead.... Their living memory enchanted en��chant?tr.v. en��chant��ed, en��chant��ing, en��chants1. To cast a spell over; bewitch.2. To attract and delight; entrance. See Synonyms at charm. the little girls"(176). Miranda sometimes notices discrepancies between what she sees andwhat she hears, as when she hears her father say there are no fat womenin the family and then she remembers Aunt Keziah or when she studiesAmy's portrait and then hears of her fantastic beauty, but she"simply wondered, without criticism" (174). Furthermore, sheapparently inherits the family tendency toward the dramatic and actuallyseems a child following in Aunt Amy's footsteps. After all,"She believed for quite a while that she would one day be like AuntAmy, not as she appeared in the photograph, but as she was remembered bythose who had seen her" (177). Therefore, as a young girl, eventhough she detects threats to the myth, she prefers its romance to theless attractive, and less romantic, possibilities. It is easy to see a resemblance between Miranda as a child and whatAmy must have been like at the same age. She is, as Cousin Eva relates,a "lively little girl ... and very opinionated" and has adefinite flair for the dramatic that would likely have delighted AuntAmy: "She had, in midweek, given way to despair over her arithmeticand had fallen flat on her face on the classroom floor, refusing to riseuntil she was carried out" (207, 195). When she and Maria are sentto be educated at the Convent of the Child Jesus The Child Jesus, or Christ Child is Jesus as an infant up to the age of twelve, when he was considered to have become adult, following both the Jewish custom of his own time, and that of most Christian cultures until recent centuries. , they remember theProtestant propaganda novels they have read and fantasize about being"immured" themselves in order to add a "romanticglint" to their lives, which are so different from the"thrilling paper-backed version" (194). Not surprisingly,Miranda herself initially expresses her intention to be a nun, the firstof many such unique ambitions. For example, at one point she wants to bea tight-rope walker who plays the violin while on the wire, at another ajockey, and at the age of eighteen, already married for nearly a year,she tells Cousin Eva that she now wishes to be an air pilot. As an adolescent, Miranda absorbs the family myth and longs tosupplement it whenever she can. She is disappointed when she finds thatMary, Queen of Scots Mary, Queen of Scotsorig. Mary Stuart(born Dec. 8, 1542, Linlithgow Palace, West Lothian, Scot.—died Feb. 8, 1587, Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, Eng.) Queen of Scotland (1542–67). has not actually died on the stage in front of heras she had believed; after all, it would have been a great occasion forthe family. She also regrets the fact that her distant relative whofollowed the plays of John Wilkes Booth had not seen Booth'sultimate performance since "it would have been so pleasant to havethe assassination AssassinationSee also Murder.assassinsFanatical Moslem sect that smoked hashish and murdered Crusaders (11th—12th centuries). [Islamic Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 52]Brutusconspirator and assassin of Julius Caesar. [Br. of Lincoln in the family" (180). Further, afterhearing the poem that her uncle Gabriel had written for Amy'stombstone Tombstone,city (1990 pop. 1,220), Cochise co., SE Ariz.; inc. 1881. With its pleasant climate and legendary past, Tombstone is a well-known tourist attraction. The city became a national historic landmark in 1962. , she is impressed because, after all, Gabriel is herfather's second cousin second cousinn.1. A child of a first cousin of one's parent.2. A child of one's first cousin; a first cousin once removed. , and "It brought poetry very near"(181). Even in a moment when she is confronted with a reality that appearsto contradict her romantic myth, Miranda finds a way to adjust it to fitthe legend. After a lifetime of hearing of the Great Romance between Amyand Gabriel, at the age of ten she finally meets this man whose hearthad been broken by Amy's untimely demise and is dismayed to beconfronted with "a shabby fat man with bloodshot blood��shotadj.Red and inflamed as a result of locally congested blood vessels, as of the eyes.bloodshotVox populi adjective blue eyes, sadbeaten eyes, and a big melancholy laugh, like a groan," a man who"was completely drunk" (197, 199). Not only has Gabriel nothad a brilliant career as Miranda had supposed; he is now living inpoverty with a wife who bitterly hates the myth with which she has hadto compete, Uncle Gabriel's memory of Amy. Miranda appears to havea moment of crisis when she questions what grown-ups have told her, butshe recovers by making even Gabriel's present state part of theGreat Romantic Myth. After considering the situation, "Miranda feltit was an important moment in a great many ways. 'UncleGabriel's a drunkard, isn't he?' she asked her father,rather proudly" (200). If he can't remain cast inMiranda's mind as Amy's handsome, grief-stricken widower, hecan at least be re-assigned the part of the broken-hearted familydrunkard, one whose unfortunate state can be read as a testament to hisdevastating loss of Amy, a dramatic role which would still serve familymyth and preserve the "romantic value of tragedy" (179). There is, however, a moment of clarity that occurs that same day atthe track which sets Miranda apart in a way that will not be fullyunderstood until the day years later when she returns home forGabriel's funeral. In the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?"midmost of her ecstasy over seeingGabriel's horse, Miss Lucy The schoolyard rhyme sometimes known as "Miss Lucy" is found at "Miss Susie".Miss Lucy (born Lucy Offerall, d.1991) was a member of the '60s group the GTOs. , win, she is confronted with the realityof the horse's suffering. There is no mention that either herfather or sister pays any attention to the bleeding, trembling horse;but it has a revealing effect on Miranda: "So instantly andcompletely did her heart reject that victory, she did not know when ithappened, but she hated it, and was ashamed that she had screamed andshed tears for joy when Miss Lucy, with her bloodied nose and burstingheart had gone past the judges' stand a neck ahead. She felt emptyand sick" (199). As a result, she forsakes her dreams of becoming ajockey. It seems, then, that Miranda is at least sensitive and awareenough to notice and give thought to the ugliness or harm that can bepart of a romantic myth. When, at the age of eighteen, she meets Cousin Eva on the train asthey travel to Gabriel's funeral, it initially appears that Mirandahas finally "immured" herself in myth by acting almost asunacceptably as had Aunt Amy: she has defied societal, and family,conventions by dramatically eloping from the convent school. Will shecontinue the pattern that has been set before her? Amy had destroyedherself, presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. in part as a reaction to or against her"role" in the myth, and Miranda's path seems to beheading in a similar direction. As Eva, in conversation, tries todestroy the family version of Amy's life, Miranda loyally adheresto the family version of Amy's life, protesting that everybody hadloved Amy and said she was beautiful. On the other hand, at one pointshe even seems drawn to Eva's version simply because it is actuallythe more dramatic of the two: "deep in her was a horrified hor��ri��fy?tr.v. hor��ri��fied, hor��ri��fy��ing, hor��ri��fies1. To cause to feel horror. See Synonyms at dismay.2. To cause unpleasant surprise to; shock. fascination with the terrors and the darkness Cousin Eva had conjuredup" (214). Ultimately, however, she sees Eva's account as"no more true than what [she] was told before" (216), and thusshe must either choose between the two versions, reject them both, orfind a compromise between the two extremes of complete acceptance ordenial. When Miranda steps off the train and is more or less rejected byher father, she faces a critical moment in her life. "Feelinghomeless" because she is excluded from the family favor as a resultof her rebellious act (apparently rebellious women in this family needto die before they can be revered), she decides to alienate herself fromthem; but the narrator notes she does so in her "arrogance, herpride" (219). Reminiscent of Eva, her reaction is similar to thatof a child who, when told she can not be part of a group, says, "Ididn't want to be part of your dumb old group anyway" and thensets out to make her claim true. She resented, slowly and deeply and in profound silence, the presence of these aliens who lectured and admonished her, who loved her with bitterness and denied her the right to look at the world with her own eyes, who demanded that she accept their version of life and yet could not tell her the truth, not in the smallest thing. "I hate them both," her most inner and secret mind said plainly, "I will be free of them, I shall not even remember them." (219) She begins to ask herself the right questions, questions thatappear to demonstrate growth, but her answers are still immature. Shewants to know what life is and what she should do with it; but herimmediate reaction, rather than considered response, is to run away fromanyone or anything that "threatened to forbid her making her owndiscoveries, that said 'No' to her" (220); in thisformulation she still sounds suspiciously like Aunt Amy and her selfish,childish behavior. In the final passages Miranda states, "I don't want anypromises, I won't have false hopes, I won't be romantic aboutmyself. I can't live in their world any longer.... At least I canknow the truth about what happens to me" (221). Are we to believethat Miranda breaks free of the myth as she sets out to find the truth?She admittedly comes to a recognition about her family's(mis)remembrances, as Darlene Unrue points out: "She is theself-acknowledged seeker of truth The Seeker of Truth is a position within Terry Goodkind's series of fantasy novels The Sword of Truth''. General DescriptionThe Seeker of Truth is a position that is above any king or any other person of any station. The Seeker is a balance point of power. , while being fully aware for the firsttime that she does not know what the truth is" (Understanding66-67). However, Stout notes that Miranda "is still excessivelyhopeful, excessively sure of her own freedom from the distorted visionof her elders.... Promising herself 'I won't have false hopes,I won't be romantic about myself,' Miranda is sunk in aromanticism of her own, the Byronic exaltation of the solitaryrebellious spirit" ("Miranda's" 270). Miranda doesmake a promise to herself to seek the truth: "Her mind closedstubbornly against remembering, not the past but the legend of the past,other people's memory of the past," but she does so, it cannotbe overlooked, "in her hopefulness, her ignorance" (221).Miranda is on her way to finding a means to deal with the past, and thusher present and future, because she is questioning it; but it is obviousfrom the narrator's use of the word "ignorance" that sheis not there yet. What, we must wonder, does she need to realize? Whatis Porter saying about myth and memory in this story? In notes she made for a lecture delivered in Paris in 1934, Porterwrote: No legend is ever true, but I believe all of them are founded onsome germ of truth; and even these truths appear in different lights toevery mind they are presented to, and the legend is that work of artwhich goes on in the human mind, adding to and arranging, harmonizingand rounding out, making larger or smaller than life, and holding theentire finished product in a good light and asking you to believe it.And it is true. No memory is really faithful. It has too far to go, toomany changing landscapes of the human mind and heart, to bear any sortof really trustworthy witness, except in part. (Essays 440) Therefore, Porter would certainly want readers (and Miranda) tobelieve that there are fragments of truth in both the family's andEva's memories and myths, but it is unreasonable and foolish ofMiranda to expect to find absolute truth in either version or for thereader to expect Miranda to reach a point of objective reality and totalclarity about the past, present, or future. In fact, Fornataro-Neilstates, "In Porter's world, there is no absolute, objectivetruth. We all write and rewrite our own stories and histories based onour circumstances, agendas, pains, and individual narrativepurposes" (352). So if there is no such thing as an objective orabsolute truth, but if, on the other hand, family myth and itsunrealistic ideals can cause harm, then why does the narrator seemsomewhat cynical about Miranda's claims that she will reject herfamily's "legend of the past" and refuse to perpetuateit? The answer is that the story is pointing toward the truth not ofrejecting all myth as distorted memory but of continually questioningand sifting memory and myth and seeking the "germ of truth"that does lie within. Miranda must shape her own myth, but it needs tobe myth that will lead her to her own truth, not someone else's.Armstrong proposes that a myth "is true because it is effective,not because it gives us factual information. If, however, it does notgive us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed. Ifit works, that is, if it forces us to change our minds and hearts, andgives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully, it is a validmyth" (10). Miranda's family myth was one based on theromantic ideals of a dying culture, and it held her to impossiblestandards, standards that suffocated even the woman who was presumed tobe their very embodiment. In rejecting their memories and seeking tofind her own, Miranda is attempting to write her own version of memory,a myth that will give her hope and allow her to live more fully. Suzanne W. Jones points out that although Miranda decides todismiss both versions of the family myth, she does not actually discoverthe germ of truth in either: Miranda misses not only the "truths" that both versions of the story contain but also the nature of the ideologies that shape these "truths." By failing to comprehend the complexity of the reading experience [reading the "narratives"], Miranda undermines her own ability to see how she has unconsciously used the romance narrative to script her elopement and the feminist critique to write the erotic plot out of her life. (29) She adds that in choosing this ending, Porter also creates a"typical modernist ambiguous ending that runs counter to theplot's interest in creating feminist readers" (29). I wouldagree that yes, Miranda fails to achieve what would, for the reader, bea satisfying point of enlightenment about any "truth" in thecompeting versions of the past or even her own motives or choices, andyes, the ending isn't a feminist vindication. On the other hand,how realistic would it be for Miranda to exit the train at age eighteenwith a maturity of vision that it might more realistically take her alifetime to achieve? (3) That she has begun the creation of her own"work of art" is enough. Hearing Miranda say in the end that she will turn her back not onlyon the past but also on "other people's memory of thepast" (221) creates the hopefulness of the ending because she is atleast attempting to take an active role in her own life, trying todiscover what truth is (in itself a heroic undertaking). Her tellingherself that she won't have false hopes and won't be romanticabout herself demonstrates her naivete na��ive��t��or na��?ve��t�� ?n.1. The state or quality of being inexperienced or unsophisticated, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical.2. An artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act. , but at least she has set out onher journey. Like Eva, some of what she does will likely be determinedby her effort to reject the myth of others, thus, in a sense, continuingto empower it, but at least by challenging others' narratives, shewill be attempting to form her own self-identity, even while selectivelyarranging her own memories and writing her own myth. Works Cited Armstrong, Karen. A Short History of Myth. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Canongate,2005. Boatright, Mody. "The Family Saga as a Form of Folklore."Mody Boatright, Folklorist: A Collection of Essays. Ed. Ernest Speck.Austin: U of Texas P, 1973. 124-44. Ciuba, Gary M. "'Given Only Me for Model':Porter's 'Miranda' Stories and the Dilemmas ofDesire." Desire, Violence, & Divinity in Modern SouthernFiction. Baton Rouge Baton Rouge(băt`ən rzh)[Fr.,=red stick], city (1990 pop. 219,531), state capital and seat of East Baton Rouge parish, SE La. : LSU LSU Louisiana State UniversityLSU Large SubunitLSU La Salle University (Philadelphia, PA)LSU La Sierra UniversityLSU Link State Update (OSPF)LSU Learning Support Unit P, 2007.55-114. DeMouy, Jane Krause. "Face to Face: 'OldMortality.'" Modern Critical Views: Katherine Anne Porter Noun 1. Katherine Anne Porter - United States writer of novels and short stories (1890-1980)Porter . Ed.Harold Bloom '''Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American professor and prominent literary and cultural critic. Bloom defended 19th-century Romantic poets at a time when their reputations stood at a low ebb, has constructed controversial theories of poetic influence, and . New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 127-39. Fornataro-Neil, M. K. "Constructed Narratives and WritingIdentity in the Fiction of Katherine Anne Porter." TwentiethCentury Literature 44:3 (1998): 349-61. Gray, Richard. The Literature of Memory: Modern Writers of theAmerican South. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Noun 1. Johns Hopkins - United States financier and philanthropist who left money to found the university and hospital that bear his name in Baltimore (1795-1873)Hopkins2. UP, 1977. Grider, Sylvia. "Memories That Never Were: Katherine AnnePorter and the Family Saga." From Texas To The World and Back:Essays on the Journeys of Katherine Anne Porter. Ed. Mark Busby &Dick Heaberlin. Fort Worth: Texas Christian UP, 2001. 225-27. Jones, Suzanne W. "Reading the Endings in Katherine AnnePorter's 'Old Mortality.'" Southern (Quarterly 31:3(1993): 29-44. Porter, Katherine Anne. The Collected Essays and OccasionalWritings of Katherine Anne Porter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. The company's headquarters is located in Boston's Back Bay. It publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers , 1990. --. "Old Mortality." The Collected Stories of KatherineAnne Porter. New York: Harvest/Harcourt, 1979. 107-82. Stout, Janis P. Katherine Anne Porter: A Sense of the Times.Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1995. --. "Miranda's Guarded Speech: Porter and the Problem ofTruth-Telling." Philological phi��lol��o��gy?n.1. Literary study or classical scholarship.2. See historical linguistics.[Middle English philologie, from Latin philologia, love of learning Quarterly 66 (1987): 259-78. Sullivan, Waker. A Requiem for the Renascence: The State of Fictionin the Modern South. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1976. Titus, Mary. The Ambivalent Art of Katherine Anne Porter. Athens: Uof Georgia P, 2005. Unrue, Darlene Harbour. Truth and Vision in Katherine AnnePorter's Fiction. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1985. --. Understanding Katherine Anne Porter. Columbia: U of SouthCarolina South Carolina,state of the SE United States. It is bordered by North Carolina (N), the Atlantic Ocean (SE), and Georgia (SW).Facts and FiguresArea, 31,055 sq mi (80,432 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,012,012, a 15. P, 1988. CHERYL D. COLEMAN Lynchburg College Coordinates: Lynchburg College is listed in Loren Pope's Colleges That Change Lives. HistoryLynchburg College was founded in 1903 by Dr. (1) Sylvia Grider defends Porter against critics' charges thatshe displayed "selective memory" in details about her own pastgrowing up in Kyle, Texas Kyle is a city in Hays County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,314 at the 2000 census; it was 17,770 in the 2005 census estimate. GeographyKyle is located at (29.989080, -97.875947)GR1. . She cites Boatright's article "TheFamily Saga as a Form of Folklore," in which he states, "I usethe term [family saga] mainly to denote a lore that tends to clusteraround families, which is preserved and modified by oral transmission,and which is believed to be true." Boatright theorizes that a storyrelated in such a way has "a relation to a social context andreflects a social value." Gilder adds, "In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , thesestories are not empirically and literally true. They relate the deepervalues of what might have been or what ought to have been rather thanwhat really was" (227). In addition to Grider, other critics such as Janis P. Stout(Katherine Anne Porter) and Gary M. Ciuba (Desire) have written aboutPorter's own ambivalence regarding truth in recounting her past andabout her identity as artist and woman. Ciuba, calling Miranda theauthor's "fictional double," claims that Porter"illustrates [Rene] Girard's belief that novels record theirwriters' own struggles with imitative im��i��ta��tive?adj.1. Of or involving imitation.2. Not original; derivative.3. Tending to imitate.4. Onomatopoeic. desire" (59). Thus, thestruggles with memory and truth in "Old Mortality" are alsoPorter's own. (2) Mary Titus says that Porter's notes about the story"indicate that Eva's story is companion rather than correctiveto the family legend": "Scene on the train. Legend notexploded because the legend was true as the one who loved it toldit." Furthermore, Eva's version "arises from the weddingof legend and memory and confirms Eva's present identity: it is herordering fiction" (191). Ciuba points out that "Despite herdenunciation DENUNCIATION, crim. law. This term is used by the civilians to signify the act by which au individual informs a public officer, whose duty it is to prosecute offenders, that a crime has been committed. It differs from a complaint. (q.v.) Vide 1 Bro. C. L. 447; 2 Id. 389; Ayl. Parer. , Eva is a true daughter of the traditional South. Just asthe Rheas [Miranda's family] idealize i��de��al��ize?v. i��de��al��ized, i��de��al��iz��ing, i��de��al��iz��esv.tr.1. To regard as ideal.2. To make or envision as ideal.v.intr.1. beauty, the unlovely Evaabsolutizes corruption" (96). (3) Darlene Unrue believes that at the end of the story Mirandamust "wait for greater maturity." She also points out thatPorter originally "thought of the work which became 'OldMortality' as a longer novel, which she referred to as 'thatbook of Amy.'... Whether Porter intended her central character tohave a total rebirth at the end of the novel is not clear. But shesurely intended all along to show a degree of progress towardtruth" (Truth 131).