Question

Katherine Anne Porter chooses to leave some critical elements of the story uncertain, including the name of the disabled son. What other elements of the story are ambiguous? Provide three specific examples from the story ("He"). Explain why the author purposely leaves things unclear.

Answer 1

Answer:

Porter purposefully leaves out many elements from the story in order to underline the theme of reality versus appearance. Mrs Whipple is obsessed and even paralyzed with fear that other people from the village might look down on the family or even pity them. By investing so much energy into hiding their perceived "dirty laundry" from other people, she has started hiding the truth from herself too. That is the root of all ambiguity in the story; the reader has to do a detective work to unearth the truth and figure out the true relations between the family members.

Explanation:

Here are three other examples of uncertain or ambiguous elements.

We never get to hear the proper voices of Adna or Emly, the other two children. How are they coping with their brother's incapacity? Are they angry with their mother for favoring him at the dinner table even at the price of their being hungry? We don't get to hear any of that from them. Their mother is the main myth maker in the family, and the only tension is between her vision of the family and the truth that the reader is trying to fathom.

Another ambiguous element is how He came to be that way. Was He born "simple-minded" or did something happen that affected His capability? In this story, we have to work with what Mrs Whipple has given us - and that's a twisted story full of little lies that even she fails to catch up on.

The reader also has to face the question why Mrs Whipple constantly exposes Him to dangerous situations while still acting overprotective at the dinner table. For example, she sends Him to snatch a piglet from its mother when Adna refuses to do it. A mother who truly cares for her disabled son would have done it herself, or had her husband do it. Another such situation is when she sends him to bring the bull.