conduct.
The contrast of the fi g tree and the dead chick, of life and death, parallel the con-
trast of Miranda ’ s grandmother and great - aunt in the story. The grandmother repre-
sents the traditional Southern woman confi ned by gender to a fi gurative straitjacket,
a symbolic death in life or live burial, something which Miranda implicitly fears and
rejects. The depiction of Great - Aunt Eliza is life affi rming and expansive, a clear
repudiation of the precepts of Southern womanhood into which Miranda ’ s grand-
mother, father, and Aunt Nannie, the family ’ s black retainer, have tried to circum-
scribe Miranda. This traditional model threatens to bury Miranda alive; her imagining
Katherine Anne Porter
267
that she has buried the chick alive projects her own fears of becoming a conventional
woman as defi ned by her family. Great - Aunt Eliza is a signifi cantly different kind of
Southern woman, who has clearly rejected the traditional woman ’ s role for one she
has carved out for herself. Neither her appearance, nor her occupations, nor the objects
identifi ed with her suggest anything genteel or well - bred. She enacts the traditional
masculine occupations of supervisor and scientist. Not beautiful and ladylike, Eliza
is a guide and role model for Miranda, illuminating an alternate path for her, as she
guides Miranda through the darkened fi g grove holding her hand ( Collected Stories
361). Miranda is in “ a fog of bliss ” at the conclusion of “ The Fig Tree ” not only
because she comes to realize that she had not buried alive the baby chick at the town
house. She also has learned that there is at least another model of womanhood, less
suffocating, confi ning, and constrained than that posed by her grandmother. She has
observed that a woman can both play her biological role determined by gender and
have an active, meaningful self - fulfi lling life.
Porter originally conceived of the other six stories published in Collected Stories
under the heading “ The Old Order ” as a portion of a novel to be titled “ Midway of
This Mortal Life. ” She sent “ 60 odd pages ” of the novel, titled “ Legend and Memory, ”
to her publisher Donald Brace in April 1934. 16 The surviving portions of this manu-
script among Porter ’ s papers consist of forty - two pages, forty of which comprise clean
typescripts of three stories: “ The Grandmother ” (fi rst published as “ The Source ” in
Accent , Spring 1941 ), “ The Circus ” (fi rst published in Southern Review , July 1935 ), and
“
The Old Order
”
(fi rst published in
Southern Review , Winter 1936 , retitled “ The
Journey ” in Collected Stories ). In the manuscript, these stories are numbered I, III, and
IV, respectively. From evidence in Porter ’ s correspondence, it is also possible to deter-
mine the other stories missing from this manuscript ( “ The Witness, ” “ The Grave, ”
and “ The Last Leaf ” ) as well as the numbering on them (II, V, and VI, respectively).
These last three stories were the fi rst among them to be published, appearing in
Virginia Quarterly Review in January and April 1935 .
Porter planned for the entire novel to be set in the period between 1700 and 1918.
An unnumbered page of the “ Legend and Memory ” manuscript indicates that the
“ scene is laid in the southern states of the United States of America, time, between
1827 and 1903
”
and further asserts,
“
these fragments have not been selected at
random, but run consecutively, making a unifi ed, if not complete, story in them-
selves. ” 17 Porter further explained her method and plan in a May 31, 1934, letter to
Charles A. Pearce of Harcourt, Brace:
In This Legend and Memory manuscript, I have begun to use Time, past present and
future as a means of showing each character as the whole sum of himself at any given
moment: this is to say, the grandmother is old, but the child she was is still present in
her memory, herself as child is shown beside her grand - daughter as child, and the old
people live over within themselves every stage of themselves from infancy to their present.
[ “ The Grave ” ] really is the fi rst step towards the future out of the past Miranda has
lived in all her childhood. 18
268
Ruth M. Alvarez
The six Old Order stories return to the characters and setting that Porter had created
for “ The Fig Tree ” and later described as “ my past and my own house and my own
people – the native land of my heart ” ( “ ‘ Noon Wine ’ : The Sources, ” Collected Essays
470). Four of these characters, Miranda, her grandmother Sophia Jane, and two black
former slaves, Aunt Nannie and Uncle Jimbilly, each appear as the central fi gure in
at least one of the individual stories of the sequence.
The grandmother is truly “ The Source, ” the title of the fi rst of the Old Order
stories. Her memory is the source of the family legends that she recounts, passed on
to Miranda, who, in turn, remembers and recounts them as well as her own memories
of the grandmother and other family elders, who “ all talked and behaved as if the
fi nal word had gone out long ago on manners, morality, religion, even politics
”
( “ ‘ Noon Wine ’ : The Sources, ” Collected Essays 471). “ The Source ” depicts the yearly
trip the grandmother makes to her farm in the country, where her three unnamed
grandchildren are sent after school is closed. Although her son Harry, the father of
the three children, is annoyed at the upsets and inconveniences of these annual visits,
the grandmother ’ s arrival has a salutary effect on the place and its inhabitants. Observ-
ing that “ everything is out of order ” ( Collected Stories 322), she directs the cleaning
and refurbishing of the Negro huts, the making of new clothes for the Negro men,
women, and children, the cleaning and setting to order of the main house, and sees
that that same “ restoring touch ” is applied to the barns, smokehouses, potato cellar,
and “ every tree or vine or bush ” (324). In addition, she soothes dozens of small injuries
and complaints arisen since her last visit. Her dominion extends to the three mother-
less grandchildren who loved her as their “ only reality ” but felt that she was a “ tyrant ”
from whom “ they wished to be free ” (324). The visit culminates with her ritual of
riding her “ weary, disheartened old ” saddle horse Fiddler (324) and an “ easy stroll in
the orchards with nothing to do, ” as, with nothing more to restore to order, she can
return to “ the place in town, ” “ which no doubt had gone somewhat astray in her
absence ” (325). Although the grandmother chooses to believe that “ she herself walked
lightly and breathed as easily as ever, ” the ironic third person narrator subtly suggests
that the old order, which she represents, is declining, like Fiddler and herself, to its
certain end (325).
Uncle Jimbilly, who appears briefl y in “ The Fig Tree, ” is the central character in
“ The Witness. ” His testimony is of slavery, and he recounts both legendary tales and
his own m
emories of the hardships and horrors of slavery. Bent, stiff, and hobbled by
many years of building, mending, replacing, and repairing things, Uncle Jimbilly, a
former slave, tells the three children, identifi ed by name as Miranda, Paul, and Maria,
bloody tales of torture and death in slave times. Both his person and his stories make
the children feel guilty, but they retain a measure of skepticism about his personal
suffering and the accuracy of his slave narratives. They observe that he “ had got over
his slavery very well. Since they had known him, he had never done a single thing
that anyone told him to do ” ( Collected Stories 341). In addition, the veracity of slave
legends is called into question by his “ exorbitant ” threats of murder and mayhem,
“ that not even the most credulous child could be terrifi ed by them ” (342). But slavery
Katherine Anne Porter
269
and the plight of Southern Negroes is not the central concern of “ The Witness. ” That
concern is death, the profound and ubiquitous theme of many of Porter ’ s short stories.
Uncle Jimbilly carves miniature tombstones for the small beasts and birds the children
bury with “ proper ceremonies ” and replies when prompted that “ thousands and tens
upon thousands ” perished in slave times (341, 342). In his own person, he bears
witness to the physical deterioration and certain death to which all of humanity is
subject.
Miranda is the central intelligence in “ The Circus. ” Like her grandmother, Miranda
is attending her fi rst circus in the company of a large party that includes her nuclear
family and about a dozen members of her extended family – great aunts, fi rst and
second cousins, an uncle, and an aunt – on the occasion of a family reunion. Signifi -
cantly, Miranda is “ fearfully excited ” before she notices “ the bold grinning ” stares of
“ roughly dressed little boys peeping up ” the skirts of female members of her party
( Collected Stories 344). This vaguely sexual threat colors Miranda ’ s reaction to the high
wire act of a man dressed in a Pierrot costume: when she realizes that he could be
injured or killed, she covers her eyes, screams, and cries. Her father and grandmother
order Miranda ’ s Negro servant minder, Dicey, to take the hysterical girl away. As
they depart, a dwarf “ made a horrid grimace at her, imitating her own face ” and, after
Miranda struck at him, followed this with “ a look of haughty, remote displeasure, a
true grown - up look ” (345). When the remainder of the family party returns from the
circus, Miranda learns what she has missed and is maliciously taunted for “ spoiling
the day for Dicey ” (346). Bursting into tears again, Miranda is taken away, falls asleep,
and is awakened by a nightmare: “ the bitter terrifi ed face of the man in blowsy white
falling to his death … and the terrible grimace of the unsmiling dwarf ” (347). It is
Dicey, not her father or grandmother, who responds to Miranda ’ s screams, but Dicey
can do little to address Miranda ’ s inchoate fears of sexuality and death.
The single most important story in the Old Order sequence is “ The Journey. ”
Indeed, most of the sequence ’ s “ legend and memory ” resides in this story set in the
period between 1827 and 1901, the life span of Porter ’ s paternal grandmother, which
is assigned both specifi cally and by inference to the fi ctional Sophia Jane, Miranda ’ s
grandmother. Although the story opens when the grandmother and her former slave
Nannie are in “ their later years, ” it limns their parallel life journeys. While fi tting
together “ scraps of the family fi nery ” into more or less useful household furnishings,
their conversation and recollections can be pieced together by the reader into a fairly
complete family history ( Collected Stories 326). Born to a genteel slaveowning family
in Kentucky, Sophia Jane received Nannie as a gift as a child of fi ve. Both marry at
seventeen to men deemed suitable by Sophia Jane ’ s elders. Sophia Jane marries her
second cousin Stephen; and “ Nannie was married off to a boy she had known ever
since she came to the family, and they were given as a wedding present to Miss Sophia
Jane. ” Their ensuing “ grim and terrible race of procreation ” results in eleven births
for Sophia Jane and thirteen for Nannie (334). When Nannie nearly dies of puerperal
fever after the births of each of their fourth children, Sophia Jane nurses both the
children, experiences a “ sensual warm pleasure ” “ missed in the marriage bed, ” and,
270
Ruth M. Alvarez
henceforth, “ resolved never again to be cheated ” by “ giving her children to another
woman to feed ” (334).
Wounded and ruined in the Civil War, Sophia Jane ’ s “ selfi sh, careless, unloving ”
husband dies, having used her dowry and property for “ wild investments in strange
territories: Louisiana, Texas ” (335, 337). “ Left so, ” Sophia Jane moves her nine chil-
dren, Nannie and her three sons, Uncle Jimbilly, and two other Negroes, fi rst to
Louisiana where “ she sold out at a loss, ” and fi nally to “ a large tract of fertile black
land in an almost unsettled part ” of Texas (337, 338). By dint of her merciless driving
of herself, her children, the Negroes, and the horses, the grandmother is able to build
a “ stronghold … for the future of her family ” (337). Taking on “ all the responsibili-
ties of her tangled world, half white, half black, mingling steadily, ” Sophia Jane comes
to despise men – the young male relatives whose “ headstrong habits ” resulted in the
birth of mixed - blood children in the Negro quarters, her husband and her sons who
“ threw away ” family assets and married women of whom she did not approve (337,
339). Revitalized by taking on her son Harry ’ s three motherless children, she begins
“ life again, with almost the same zest, and with more indulgence, ” only to drop dead
suddenly on a visit to the home of one of her sons in far western Texas (339 – 40).
Through the story of Sophia Jane ’ s journey through life, Porter explores the roles and
experiences of women – Sophia Jane is a daughter, belle, wife, mother, and grand-
mother. The story also examines the culture of the American South, with its history
of slavery, miscegenation, defeat in the Civil War, and postwar poverty. Finally the
story explores the subjects of death and sexuality, the universal concerns to which
Porter returned again and again.
Miranda is the central character in “ The Grave, ” the fi fth of the Old Order stories
in the 1934 manuscript. In it, sexuality and death, the unstated “ fathomless terrors ”
that “ subjugated ” Miranda in “ The Circus, ” are overtly linked ( Collected Stories 347).
Although narrated in the third person, “ The Grave ” depicts a remembered incident
from Miranda ’ s life, specifi cally 1903, when she was nine years old. Walking in “ a
market street in a strange city of a strange country ” “ nearly twenty years later, ” the
“ episode of that far - off day leaped from its burial place before her mind ’ s eye, ” evoked
by the heat and smell of “ mingled sweetness and corruption, ” like that on the day of
the remembered epi
sode (367). The main action of the story takes place on the day
on which Miranda and her twelve - year - old brother Paul took a break from hunting
rabbits and doves to explore the empty graves of their paternal grandfather and other
“ oddments ” of Kentucky relatives in what was formerly the family cemetery on their
grandmother ’ s fi rst farm (362). Miranda fi nds a silver - colored screw head for a coffi n
in her grandfather ’ s grave, while Paul unearths a “ thin wide gold ring carved with
intricate fl owers and leaves ” (363). After the children trade their fi nds, Miranda loses
interest in shooting after she places the gold ring on her thumb. Contemplating the
glittering ring, Miranda becomes aware of the confl ict between the mores of the “ old
order
”
and her father
’
s
“
simple and natural
”
common sense (365). Corncob
-
pipe
smoking old crones had chided her for breaking the “ the back country ” “ law of female
decorum ” with her “ summer roughing outfi t ” of overalls, shirt, straw hat, and sandals,
Katherine Anne Porter
271
attire that her father had defended as utilitarian and economical (364). Her feelings
turning against the masculine clothing, Miranda wishes to return to the farmhouse
to bathe and “ put on the thinnest, most becoming dress she owned, ” experiencing
“ vague stirrings of desire for luxury … founded on family legend of past wealth and
leisure ” (365).
Her reverie is interpreted when Paul shoots a pregnant rabbit, and they examine
it together. Seeing the rabbit fetuses, Miranda understands, “ what she had to know, ”
that she, like the rabbit, can bear young, and that knowledge makes her “ quietly and
terribly agitated ” (367). Her brother ’ s subsequent actions also worry her and make
her unhappy
–
he hides the rabbit carcasses and swears Miranda to secrecy. The
unstated lesson is that female sexual activity, which may result in pregnancy, is some-
thing she “ ought not to do, ” “ an important secret ” to be kept between herself and
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 59