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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 10 page analysis of the role that setting plays in Katherine Anne Porter's short story 'Old Mortality,' The writer argues that setting plays a crucial role as it provides the backdrop that defines and motivates the development of the characters. For this story, setting is not just the physical environs in which the story takes place, but also the cultural and social attitudes, customs and mores that create and define attitudes and feelings in the late nineteenth century. By portraying the action of the narrative through the eyes of two little girls, Maria and Miranda, Porter demonstrates how culture serves to sculpt the expectations and personalities of women. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
10 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_90porter.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
just the physical environs in which the story takes place, but also the cultural and social attitudes, customs and mores that create and define attitudes and feelings in the late
nineteenth century. By portraying the action of the narrative through the eyes of two little girls, Maria and Miranda, Porter demonstrates how culture serves to sculpt the expectations and personalities
of women. Because the story is primarily about how the female persona is formed by societal expectations, the setting comes close to assuming the role of a leading protagonist.
Porter shows the reader how societal pressures caused Amys downfall while she is simultaneously showing how similar pressures are working to form the character of the little girls. Add to
this mix the ways that society and culture have affected cousin Eva and three very distinct contrasts of female character are shown by contrasting them with each other and the
societal norms. The exact physical setting is left ambiguous, one assumes because it doesnt really matter beyond indicating that the structure of the views toward female gender are shaped
by a Southern perspective. The family appears to live somewhere in Texas and the girls go to school in New Orleans, but again, it can be emphasized that it is
the psychological landscape that matters, not the physical one in this use of setting. Porter begins her story by introducing the reader to a character who will only be
shown through remembrance?the beautiful "Aunt Amy" of Maria and Miranda. Her old-fashioned picture is one of the objets in the setting that fascinate the little girls. She is a "motion-less
image in her dark walnut frame with silver oak leaves in the corners, her smiling gray eyes following one about the room" (Porter 173). The people in the story
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