F 04-Sept Cambridge / Narrative Chapter 6 plus
Katherine Anne Porter: “Theft” (1929)
Online Discussion — required (attendance/participation credit)
See instructions below and post replies in comments here.
Reminders / Other Tasks:
- Request Discussion Dates (by 04-Sept)
- First Blog Entry (“reading journal”) — Due Friday (on your blog)
- Discuss any of the 5 short stories from this week;
and/or any concept(s) from Abbott (first 6 chapters), illustrating with narratives of your choice.- General Suggestions
- “Tech Support” entry
- General Suggestions
- Read The Great Gatsby over long weekend.
- (discussing through Chapter 4 on W 09-Sept)
- Read Abbott Chp. 6 closely for Gatsby discussion.
- First Blog Entry (“reading journal”) — Due Friday (on your blog)
operating principle:
Narratives “don’t tell us what to think but cause us to think. Narrative…is a ‘machine to think with’.” (Abbott 63)
Friday 04-Sept Online Class Discussion
(required for attendance; recorded as double participation credit)
Porter’s “Theft” & Cambridge / Narrative (Chps 4-6)
Part I: post comment by class time (late penalty applies).
1) Identify a specific example from “Theft” of one narrative concept from Abbott:
- Normalization of Sequence/Events (pp. 44-5)
- Causation (cause/effect), series (p. 41)
- Constituent / Supplementary events (pp. 23; 230-1)
- Closure or Absence/Closure (pp. 63-4)
- at level of expectations (pp.58-9)
- at level of questions (pp. 60-1)
- in terms of resolution (pp. 56-7)
- at level of questions (pp. 60-1)
- Narration (pp. 25; 40; 55; 68-9; 238-9)
- “Voice” (pp. 70-3; 243)
- “Focalization” (pp. 73-4; 233)
- In/direct discourse (69-70; 77-8; 234)
- “Focalization” (pp. 73-4; 233)
- Causation (cause/effect), series (p. 41)
Note: Ideally, everyone will try to identify a particular concept without repetition of examples; although, varied examples of a repeat concept are perfectly fine (and even productive for Part II).
2) Briefly describe the “function” of your example, as a narrative “device” in the text (review class notes and Abbott on this).
– in other words, describe the significance or consequence of the author’s decision for narrative discourse, the role/factor of this device in the text; for example, the influence/impact upon your reading/interpretation.
Part II: briefly reply to one classmate (by 4pm), in a comment here.
–flexible options / suggestions; prompts (choose one; remember, replies can be brief):
- Compare/contrast the function that your classmate has described, e.g. how your readings differed, and how this changes our understanding of the short story.
- Compare/contrast classmate’s example with another narrative — either one we’ve read this week, or one you’ve recently encountered elsewhere (in any medium or form: e.g. short story, TV episode, video game, news account, spoken narration / anecdote, etc.). Ideally, focus upon same/similar concept from Abbott, to discuss examples.
- In response to classmate’s analysis, describe any new insights (e.g. what you’ve learned, what you see differently) about the particular text and, more importantly, about the narrative concept from Abbott.
- Compare/contrast classmate’s example with another narrative — either one we’ve read this week, or one you’ve recently encountered elsewhere (in any medium or form: e.g. short story, TV episode, video game, news account, spoken narration / anecdote, etc.). Ideally, focus upon same/similar concept from Abbott, to discuss examples.
Prospective: Key concepts from Abbot Chp. 6 for Gatsby
(to discuss in class and in your blog entry next week; review closely):
- “Distance” (pp. 74-5; 232)
- Diegetic narration (see Genette and Phelan, p. 75)
“Reliability” (pp. 75-7; 243)
Indirect discourse/style (pp. 69-70; 77-8; 234-5)
plus (earlier, review):
- Frame (pp. 28-30)
* “Masterplots” (pp. 46-7); “Type” (p. 49); “cultural narrative” (Phelan p. 53)
“Normalization” (sequence, continuity) (pp. 41-5)
Narrative Discourse (sjuzet) & Time (pp. 16-9)
Katherine Anne Porter’s narrative, ‘Theft’, is written in an atypical style of narrative discourse called the embedded narrative. In the opening lines of the narrative we are introduced to a woman who appears to have just gotten out of the shower only to realize that her purse is missing. She “[surveys] the immediate past and [remembers] everything clearly”, retracing her steps of the previous day in order to discover what has happened to her purse. Porter’s representation of the embedded narrative is unique in that while the story does eventually come out of the embedded narrative once again into the framing narrative (unlike in ‘The Affair at Grover Station’ by Willa Cather), it is a very smooth transition that almost seems to blend in with the entity’s recollection of her day. “She came out of the bathroom to get a cigarette from the package in the purse. The purse was gone. She dressed and made coffee, and sat by the window while she drank it.” Somewhere in that period of time occurred the scene that we are introduced to in the first paragraph of the novel, wherein Porter describes the entity when she first discovers that her purse is missing: “Standing in the middle of the floor, holding her bathrobe around her and trailing a damp towel in one hand, she surveyed the immediate past and remembered everything clearly.” The story seems to progress from there, introducing what we initially believe to be the main conflict: the entity believes that the janitress has taken her purse. Once that conflict is resolved, however, we are introduced to the true conflict that marks this story– the entity’s inner feelings of loss and despair. Unlike the first, this conflict is not resolved and once it is introduced, it rather abruptly changes the pace of this novel and the supposed masterplot from the “whodunnit” to the mental struggle of one who feels that she has lost everything important in life through her own missed chances. Unfortunately for the reader, the narrative ends soon after this abrupt change and without any major satisfactory answers to the questions that have now arisen. (Does this have anything to do with the letter she was reading? What will become of her? Does this mean she will now take a chance that she has been pushing aside?) In this way, the ending is somewhat inconclusive, unless you count her statement of self-depreciating resignation as conclusion, that is.
“She laid the purse on the table and sat down with the cup of chilled coffee, and thought: I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.”
2) Briefly describe the “function” of your example, as a narrative “device” in the text (review class notes and Abbott on this).
– in other words, describe the significance or consequence of the author’s decision for narrative discourse, the role/factor of this device in the text; for example, the influence/impact upon your reading/interpretation.
The subtle transition of the embedded narrative back into the framing narrative almost made me forget that Porter even used that style of narrative discourse, until my second review of the text. The dramatic change of pace and masterplot in the story brought me down into a more philosophic mood, as I tried to put myself into the position of the character. It caused me to ask some questions of myself, such as: “What have I lost in my life?” “What chances have I missed out on?” “Do these experiences still affect me today?” And the lack of proper closure left me wondering what will become of the girl, especially in relation to the other men in the story such as Camilo, Roger, and whoever wrote her that letter. It made me wonder if she will ever change or if she will continue to feel that way forever, as she predicts that she will in her closing thought.
I agree that the ending left me in a philosophic mood. It was interesting how the potential loss of her purse makes her very sensitive to the things she has lost throughout her life. The purse must have been a treasured gift because she thought back to her discomfort with the ownership of things. Whoever gave her the purse must have been important (possibly the person who wrote the letter?) for someone who never locked her door to be flooded with a “landslide of remembered losses” and get so worked up about a purse.
1.In the short story “Theft” the voice is in third person, and the narrator is our focalizer, we are seeing most of the story through the narrator’s eyes. However, at the beginning of the story when the girl is walking to the station with Camilo, the readers get to see how the girl views Camilo’s hat. The story is still written in third person but we are looking through the eyes of the girl. It’s in this paragraph were the focalization changes from the narrator to the girl who’s walking to the station. “He was wearing a new hat of a pretty biscuit shade, for it never occurred to him to buy anything of a practical color… and he would lose his spirits over it”. The girl thinks that Camilo’s hat is too colorful she compares it to Eddie’s hat which looks like it’s been out in the rain and worn out. She does not say anything to him about it, because she felt he would take it badly. The focus then shifts back to the narrator when they are leaving Thora’s house.
2.I think that the narrative device which is the change in focalization is important to the story because we get to see in the girl’s point of view of how she feels about Camilo. She obviously cares about him because she does not want to hurt his feelings and tell him how she feels about his hat. But she also walked with him to the station in the rain and refused for him to pay for the fare because she knew he was poor. Reading the story from the girl’s point of view made me think that it was him who gave her that purse, and the reason why she loved that purse was because she secretly loved him.
On the contrary, reading your review of the story brought me to a very different conclusion. You brought to mind the character of Eddie, and while on the surface it appears that her reference to him is merely a negligible supplementary event, I would argue that it is quite important to the story. It is my conjecture that the girl is rather fond of Eddie, or at the very least she finds him attractive in some way. The way she described the dirty hats fitting on him with an “incidental rightness” brings to mind the stereotypical good-looking guy, who with his nonchalant attitude can pull off almost any look; perhaps even a dirty hat. She compares him to Camilo, who has to wear nice things in order to look nice– “If he wore a shabby hat it would be merely shabby on him.” Also, the fact that she abruptly thought of Eddie to compare Camilo to suggests that he is perhaps on her mind often, for we all tend to bring the people we think about up in relation to the things that are going on in our present lives. Therefore, it is my theory that perhaps Eddie wrote her the letter that caused her to “make up her mind.”
I don’t quite agree with Audrey’s assumption because although it can be probable that they have a friendly attitude towards each other, its a bit far to assume that there is something more than a friendship going on with both characters. If there had been something going on between both characters, I think that there would have been more tension between them. Perhaps even an argument.
I was referring to Eddie, who doesn’t even appear in the story. She just thinks of him. So it would be impossible for them to have argued in the space of that day because she didn’t even see him that day.
1. Porter’s Theft uses our natural desire for closure to heighten the short story’s suspense. The story begins with the main character retracing her steps, trying to remember the events for the night before. We expect the events from the previous evening to unfold for us, as the framing in the present time states that she remembers clearly. However we are left with several questions like what her relationship to Camilo, Bill and Rodger is all about. What did the letter she received say? Once she arrives home and reads the letter again, readers expect to find out how the letter made up her mind for her. We are able to read little bits of the letter, which builds the suspense, but when she tears the letter up, readers are left questioning. And there is a lack of closure regarding the purse. We find closure when it is discovered that the janitress took the purse, but still don’t know why it is so important? While it was a birthday present, who was it from? Why does losing it bring on a flood of other memories of loss?
2. The author uses narrative discourse so that readers believe that the main character remembers the previous night clearly, though she had drinking. She could have easily messed up the night’s events in her head and would have been wrong about the location of her purse. The narrative discourse leads us to expect an answer to the questions the night’s events brought up. While we are satisfied that the purse is found, little else is solved, giving readers the discomforting feeling of an absence of closure.
In reply to Laura hampson’s. I agree with this, the story was very much lacking closure on her relationships with the men in the story. It left us wondering who wrote the letter, who gave her that purse, why is she so passive with everything exept for when she looses her purse. The janitress even said something like -I didn’t think you would noice when I took your purse because you always leave things behind.- also when she goes to ask for her advance from bill, he says that he has no money and she leaves it at that, knowing that he just bought a rug for eighty five dollars. And when she looses her purse and she begins to think about things she has lost or been robbed of she thinks of things she’s wanted to say but never does. This shows that she is verry passive and people take advantage of her but when the janitress took her purse she decides to do something about it. Why then not before? From reading the story I did not expect her to say something to the janitress about her purse at the end of the story.
I totally agree with Laura Hampson, about our desire for closure being unfulfilled heightening the suspense. This was an example of the absence of closure at the level of questions. We have all of the questions: who is the person that wrote the letter, why was he so upset with her, why didn’t she reply to the letter, what did the whole letter say? Using some of your examples, what is her relationship with Camilo, Bill, and Roger? We want these questions to be answered, but they never are. Which leads me to wonder, why Porter put these events inside the story? Are these supplementary or constituent events? I am not really sure. I believe that there is a reason why she put these events in the story, I am just not sure why. According to Abbott, not all narratives have to have closure. The absence of closure makes us think. I believe that that is what Porter wanted us to do. But truthfully, it is kind of frustrating.
I absolutely agree with this position in stating that there are many unanswered questions posed by this work that one expects to find the answers to. The mysterious relationship between the woman and these two men, Camilo and Roger, will be my focus for the moment.
When contrasting this question to that posed in the short story “You Were Perfectly Fine” that we had previously read in class, we notice the same lack of closure in regards to this issue. In Porter’s work, the story focuses more intently on the woman’s loss and the philosophical sense of “loss” she felt in regards to the world, leaving us no clue as to whether or not a relationship with Camilo or Roger was existent, or even viable. This can also be seen in “Perfectly Fine”, a short story in which the author focuses on previous events to solve a more significant question for the young man: what happened the night before? Leaving us the unanswered question as to his relationship with the young woman and what happened during their mysterious taxi ride. In conclusion, the absence of closure for the reader, and the lack of expected answers can be seen in both works.
The assumption that the author uses narrative discourse to allow for the expectation of answers to the readers’ questions is interesting, though I believe the author implemented this style for purely emotional reasons, allowing the reader to gain a greater sense of sympathy for the character, and allowing us to ascertain a view of the woman’s thoughts and emotions without interruption by purely constructive tools such as quotation marks and commas.
According to Abbott closure/absence of closure, at the level of resolutions, deals with conflict. And In Theft there is one clear conflict, which is the theft of the main characters purse (I don’t think that her name is said), by the janitress. At the end of the narrative, this conflict is resolved by the janitress, giving her back her purse. However, another conflict arises. Even though the janitress gives her back her purse, they still have an argument over the purse (the janitress wanting her, the main character, to give the purse back to the janitress so she could give it to her niece). But this causes her to have a conflict within herself. At the very end of the narrative, she talks about her being afraid of herself, because she is the thief who will leave herself nothing. This conflict is never resolved. I want to know if she will ever come to terms with herself. And that is absence of closure at the level of resolutions. That conflict is never resolved. However, there is closure, with the conflict over the purse. There are other instances of the absence of closure at the level of expectations, and at the level of questions, but that I will not delve into. Truthfully, I am not sure of the function of the example of the conflict over the purse. However, I do believe that the conflict that arose in herself, over the purse, is a conflict that we all deal with. I believe that this was presented in the short story, to express how we all feel about ourselves. How we might believe that we are the only people that are robbing ourselves. That we are robbing ourselves of experiences, relationships, success etc. And that nobody has a hand in the deficits of our lives, but us. And to go even further, that it was presented, to make us think about this conflict, so that in a way, we might face it, and try to resolve it. That might be digging a little too deep, but that’s my opinion☺!
I like your usage of “rob ourselves of an experience” and I completely agree with you. I think that is main conflict that the character is experienceing. It seems like she has let many opportunities pass and let others take advantage of her. An example would be Bill owing her the money and rather than being persistent, instead settles.
I completely concur with Tahara and Hillary that the actually theft of the purse has little to do with the actual theft the name of the story is referring to. I would even go so far as to say the only reason I would consider the theft, and later returning of the purse, a constituent event is to lead into the actual theft that has occurred referring to something else. Perhaps a lost or broken relationship causing her inner turmoil. Maybe she is referring to her inability to be assertive?
I also agree with the fact that “theft” as a title has little to do with the missing purse. Rather, I believe the theft to have occured in the janitress’s assertion that the purse is more rightly her niece’s because “it’s from her [she's] stealing it” with reference to her future rather than the purse. By implying that the woman is no longer worth such “pretty things” due to her age and lost chances, we see the true nature of the theft: the woman’s loss of self-deservedness, just as we saw when she insisted to pay for her fare and again when she let the matter of her payment pass with Bill.
1. I think that there is definitely an absence of closure in the story “Theft.” Although the main character appears to realize that she herself is the thief in a different sense, there are still many questions lefts unanswered. In the narration, the author fails to mention the association of the characters with the main character. Although the main character interacts with them, we as the reader are left confused as to their association. Is Camilo a love interest or simply a friend? Who exactly is Roger? Does the main character work in the entertainment business? Who sent that letter? Is the person who gave the character the purse the same person as the one who sent the letter?
The sequence of events in the story also does not follow a definitive pattern. Like the other stories that we have read this week, it almost appears to be flashback of the events of the night before. In “You were perfectly fine,” the events of the night before were recounted but in the present state. However in “Theft,” the narrative starts in present time, then retraces the events before realizing the purse is missing. This gives an interesting perspective for the reader but at the same time opens up all the questions left unanswered.
I definitely agree. Even to add on to that, how does her ( the young woman) flashbacks even related to her finding of the purse? They almost feel like they were added to the story and yet the story can’t do without them. Perhaps the main character’s mind wondered back in time to, as we do sometimes before we take on the task at hand. Interesting how the author incorporated the characters i the story with ties to the main character.
In “Theft” by Katherine Porter, the author implements a third-person point of view that is not omniscient, for the reader only glimpses the woman’s thoughts. I believe that instances of free-indirect style can also be seen throughout the story, primarily when direct citation is not used to display the woman’s thoughts. For example, “She laid the purse on the table and sat down with the cup of chilled coffee, and thought: I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.”
This choice by the author to implement free-indirect style while writing allows the woman’s voice to take over the narrative voice without noticeable constructive interruption such as quotations or commas, allowing the reader to obtain a truer feel for the woman’s emotions and actions, while also gaining a more sympathetic reaction to said thoughts. The woman has been fought with and broken down, and is now questioning her own means of existence, and we can directly feel this through her uninterrupted thoughts alongside the narrative voice.
I agree with Jessica, although I also found the point of view a little bit confusing because it wasn’t completely omniscient. The author limits how much the reader gets to see into the characters head, which makes the reader wanting to know more and not satisfied with the information given.
As Abbott states, readers have a hard time believing something is true unless we see it as a story. This refers to normalization. I personally don’t think that this piece is a good example of normalization when it comes to events and sequences. While reading Theft, I tried to follow along with the events, but I found the sequences a little scattered. Although, the events do go in order as she recalls the events of the previous night, you find that her thoughts jump around, as any persons thoughts normally do. There also seems to be some random distractions, such as the boys crossing the street while the characters were in the taxi. These types of events distracted me from the sequence of events. I think the lack of normalization also creates the lack of closure that others have mentioned and leaves the reader with a lot of questions.
To a point there is closure, but there’s also an absence of it. The main conflict of the story was the fact that the main character had her purse stolen from her. My expectations fluctuated very much as I was reading. At first, I thought she’d just forget about the purse since it would be too much trouble for her, but then she decides to go ahead and get it. She goes to the janitress and the woman denies taking it, and I wasn’t too surprised when she just told the janitress to just keep it. I wasn’t expecting the janitress to actually return it, much less then claim to the owner that she was stealing it from her niece, who didn’t own the purse. I got a sense of closure because the main conflict was resolved and she got her purse back, but I still had unanswered questions. “Why was the purse so important to her?” She claims it was a present. “Did it have any connection to the letter that she burned?” “Did any of the men she had seen that day write the letter?” All we can do is make assumptions about it. Another point is that she finally stuck up for herself at the end, which also gave me some closure about the woman because now I know that’s she taken the first steps in learning how to defend herself because if she doesn’t, then she’d be robbing herself of her dignity, possessions, and just self-perception.
I think that the purpose of leaving her readers with these unanswered questions leaves it up to the reader’s imagination, which is a very smart narrative “device”. My reasoning for this is because not everyone would agree with one possible resolution. Plus, by leaving loop-holes the reader is left in suspense and actually ponders over the story and takes time to think about it. If she had answered all of my questions I don’t think that I would have been satisfied or appreciated the story like I did.
I dont know if I think that the end of the story is left unresolved so that it will be more interesting. I think that the story is left unresolved or at least not clearly defined so that we will assume that this new self-realization will provide the narrator with the ability to enact change on how she deals with people and situations in her life. To provide resolutions to all the questions would have been to limit a character who has spent much of her life limiting herself. I believe Porter’s purpose at leaving everything open is a sort of symbolism for the many opportunities and open-ending of her narrators life from here on forward.
I do agree that closure is lacking at the level of questions, however I was satisfied with the climax of the story. The trigger for the main character moving to confront her perceived “landslide of remembered losses” was the purse and that section of the story combined with her closing quote certainly brought a level of emotional clarity. Granted, on a more practical level, large gaps in information exist especially in the relationships between her and then men mentioned in the story.
Her landslide of loss also stated a series of lines (quoted below) that could directly be correlated to romantic relationships thus hinting at the gaps in information that I had mentioned earlier.
“words she had waited to hear spoken to her and had not heard, and the words she had meant to answer with; bitter alternatives and intolerable substitutes worse than nothing, and yet inescapable: the long patient suffering of dying friendships and the dark inexplicable death of love”
I’m going to attempt to evaluate Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “Theft” through the narrative concept of Causation. This is not a reference to the janitress’ justification for her crime. Moreover Porter utilizes her indirect style to convey the cause of the crime.When the narrator describes how “she remembered how she had never locked a door in her life, on some principle of rejection in her that made her uncomfortable in the ownership of things, and her paradoxical boast before the warnings of her friends, that she had never lost a penny by theft;.” This excerpt is an example of how Porter transforms her narrator from the role of helpless victim to the role of someone who is at least in some way responsible. By relating the unlocked door to a character trait and bad habit she is indirectly suggesting that her narrator is culpable for her apartment’s insecurity. If she is culpable then they cause of the theft reverts back to her. The crime was entirely preventable and due to a stubborn habit, occured anyway.
You bring up an interesting point. I never thought about – as you mentioned- how Porter transforms her protagonist from the role of helpless victim to the role of someone who is at least in some way responsible. As you said, if the protagonist is in some way responsible and “culpable, then the cause of the theft reverts back to her. The crime was entirely preventable and due to a stubborn habit, occured anyway.” If this is true, then I can’t help but wonder if the protagonist ever stopped being a victim. Ultimately the story ends with the protagonist thinking, “I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.” If she’s culpable for the crime, then wouldn’t the protagonist still be a victim of herself?
To me, Catherine Anne Porter’s story “Theft” illustrated alot of the concepts in Abbot’s chapter 6. The one that I am going to focus on is the issue of closure, or lack there of in the narrative. First their were several questions raised during the course of the story that I thought should have been addressed that never were. First, what type of relationship does she have with Eddie? It is obvious he goes far out of his way to be around her so what is wrong with Eddie to where she won’t reciprocate? Next, Eddie leaves her with Roger, whom she later refers to as Bill? Why does she start to refer to him by a less formal name? Is this a reflection of her becoming angry because Bill/Roger (if they are in fact the same person) is unable to pay her at this time? I also had certain expectations about the short story that were not met. Why was she so upset and not more grateful about getting her purse back at the end of the story? It was written that the janitress was fairly gracious in returning her purse, which was returned with scorn from the narrator. This brings me to still further questions of wether she was actually upset about the purse, or possibly more upset of the foregone relationship with the person who gave her the purse? I really felt a connection at the end of the story in the sense that the narrator communicated her feelings in a very human manner. I could really feel her dispair by relating it to my own experiences. To me, “Theft” raises far more questions than it actually answers, leaving me with a lack of closure. Theft, as the name implies, is a story of a woman who had her purse stolen, and eventually recovered. There are no questions there. The way the woman feels about the recent events in her life however, is what the short story is actually about and tends to pose far more questions about her current state than it answers. So I ask the question, is anything really resolved in Theft? To me not really. The narrator is left feeling terribly, after having got her purse back, and I am still unclear as to the source of her angst.
I definitely agree that we are left with many questions upon finishing this story. I feel like there are a lot of confusing relationships presented in this story, very similar to those in “Last Tea”. The authors allow us to witness conversations between characters, yet never informs us as to who these people actually are or what their history together is. If we were given more information about who these characters are and their associations with one another, we may be able to more clearly understand the reasoning behind the protagonist’s anger and angst.
And about Bill and Roger being the same person, they are not. Roger is the man she rides home in the taxi with and Bill is the man that lives in her building that hears her coming home and invites her in for a drink.
I think you got a bit confused with the characters. We never meet Eddie in person. Camilo is the one who walks with her through the rain to the Elevated, and she mentions Eddie to compare their tastes in hats. Roger rides with her in the taxi and then she leaves him and goes to her apartment, where one of her neighbors, named Bill, asks her to stay with him for a bit to hear his bad news. So she meets three different men and mentions Eddie, but I agree with you in that we have no idea about her relationships with them. I do think that there is a little closure because she got her purse back, but we still don’t know why she felt so strongly about it. As to her reaction to the purse at the end, I think it was just a combination of conflicting emotions that the purse brought. She wanted to stand up for herself, the purse had a lot of meaning to her, and she was also fighting her own faith which she mentions. She was brought up with a sense of morals and she somewhat felt she was going against them by finally defending herself, but at the end she realizes that it was the right thing to do.
Katherine Anne Porter’s “Theft”, is told mostly in flashback/recount. She begins with a young woman looking for her purse after her shower. Then she recounts events that occurred from the previous day, to determine the location of her purse, to discover it was taken by the janitor, only to find out that she no longer wants it. In terms of absence of closure, “Theft” is left open and filled with questions. Initially, it was hard to follow because, after realizing her purse is missing the young woman recounts a series of events in her life that seem to not relate to her missing purse, until the end of the story. It seems like Porter portraits the story in two sections connected by flashbacks of the individual. The first part is left in question, where is the young woman’s purse? The second part illuminates on the location of the missing purse. I expected for the young woman to want her purse back, but that wasn’t the case. The janitor’s reasoning for stealing it deters her from wanting it back. Closure is lacking. Porter gives no sense of closure. She leaves the reader wondering why recount all the previous events, only to no want the purse?
1. Katherine Anne Porter’s “Theft” is narrated by a “distant” (as mentioned by Abbott) narrator, who plays no role in the actual story. The story is told from what seems to be a third person omniscient point of view– in the sense that the narrator is not involved within the story yet knows and informs the audience of the thoughts of the characters. For example, at the end of the narrative when the narrator says, “She laid the purse on the table and sat down with the cup of chilled coffee, and thought: I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing,” it becomes clear that the “voice” telling the story is one that is “distant” (third-person) and aware of the character’s thoughts and feelings. As for the focalization of the narrative, the story is told through the lens of the narrator and at some points in the narrative the narrator, through direct and indirect discourse, uses the character’s thoughts and words to tell the story. For example, the use of direct discourse is present in the narrative in such an instant: “At the foot of the platform stairway she staggered slightly — they were both nicely set up on Thora’s cocktails — and said: ‘At least, Camilo, do me the favor not to climb these stairs in your present state, since for you it is only a matter of coming down again at once, and you’ll certainly break your neck.’” The use of indirect discourse – as previously mentioned- is present at the end of the narrative in its final sentence. These elements allow the narrator to fully tell the story by using the thoughts and emotions of the characters.
2. Porter’s “Theft” used the style of narrative discourse in a very subtle and unusual way. The story starts off in present tense (the protagonist realizes she has lost her purse), to then looking back in time trying to figure out what she had done before and where her purse is, and finally having found her purse and the person who stole it. Ultimately, the plot, as well as the way in which the story was told, made me wonder more about the character and ask questions like, “Does she feel like she’s lost her life, maybe even herself?” and “Who gave her the purse, and why is it so important?”
The short story “Theft” is centered mainly on an incident in a woman’s life: the loss and recovery of her purse. I believe that in Porter’s presentation of these series of events, the protagonist’s reclaiming of her purse is the only true closure we are given. In the process of recalling the whole incident, we are given a brief insight into her life and into a few of her relationships. The interactions between the protagonist and the other characters leave the reader with many unanswered questions and expectations. In reading “Theft”, I expected to find out who the letter was from and what her relationship was with that person. She stated that the letter helped her to make up her mind about something and I expected to find out what the letter had helped her to decide. Also I had expected to discover what happened later to the janitress- was she fired or did she continue to work there? Upon ending this story I found myself somewhat confused and asking several questions. What was the protagonist’s relationship with all of the men in the story? Who was Eddie? He was referred to several times, yet we never got to witness any of her interactions with him. Also, who was the purse from? She said that it was a present and the janitress made a refence to it being from a man. Was the man who gave it to her a character mentioned in the story? As earlier stated, I do believe that there was one resolution and that the purse incident did come full circle. Yet nearly everything else remains unresolved, leaving the reader with an absense of closure.
On the topic of constituent and supplimentary events, I want to call attention to the beginning of the story where the main character compares Eddie and Camilo based on what they wear and how they wear it. In her mind she states, “She compared it with Eddie’s hats that always seemed to be precisely seven years old and as if they had been quite purposely left out in the rain, and yet they sat with a careless and incidental rightness on Eddie. But Camilo was far different; if he wore a shabby hat it would be merely shabby on him”.
I related this text to the confrontation with the janitress who claimed to have stolen the purse for her niece who is young and needs “pretty things”. One could possible juxtapose the main character and the niece with Eddie and Camilo. When the main character dismisses the janitress’ rationale for taking the purse but offers it to her anyways, the janitress states that her neice is pretty enough and doesn’t need such things – just as Eddie could look good even in old clothes. The main character’s explanation for wanting to keep the purse is that it was a gift from a friend that she doesn’t want to lose; however, she offers the purse to the janitress seemingly to save face (at the idea of competing with the young niece) – just as Camilo keeps his hat on while he walks away for the sake of appearance, yet tucks it under his coat once he thinks he is out of sight.
Without the main character’s relationships with Eddie and Camilo, as well as her analysis of their dress, I wonder whether or not the confrontation with the janitress would have gone the same way.
2. I believe that the author provided an ending to the incident with the purpose of giving the reader with some closure. I believe the whole intent of the story was to examine the series of events before, during, and after the purse went missing. Therefore, the closure that was most important was that of the purse. And the questions of the men and the letter were less important, and so went unresolved.
On the note of constituent and supplementary events, Porter contrasts the mannerisms of Camilo and Rogers based on how they take care of their hats in relation to appearance vs. care of property. Camilo does not remove his hat, and she comments that he will probably sadly notice the state of its ruin come morning. Rogers, however, secures his hat inside of his coat to protect it from rain damage in the downpour. The details are meant to show the woman’s preoccupation with money and material, adding to the later confrontation between herself and the janitress over her stolen purse. Bill spent an impractical amount of money on a rug purely because of its discounted price from a famous former-owner. Materialism and monetary value are played out through out the short story to contrast with the janitress’s reason for stealing the purse for her impoverished niece.
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