"Violence" in Katherine Anne Porter''s Short Fiction

• Main Authors: Joyce Yun-hua Yang, 楊韻華
• Other Authors: Daniel J. Bauer
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/62929113018494828969

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 英國語文學研究所 === 83 === In Katherine Anne Porter''s fiction, violence is an important theme. This thesis starts from violence to Porter''s premonitions of disaster in order to elucidate the causality of human failures. I classify the thesis into three main chapters with respect to its different forms of violence. The first chapter is on corporal violence, which stems from a very impulsive human instinct and some dark passion. In "Maria Concepcion" and "Noon Wine," the characters take violent actions with a simple desire of defending themselves from offensive outer forces so that they can sustain their original state of life. My second concern is about marital violence. Porter believes that love and hatred are the edges of a knife, but love needs to be learned, while hatred is instinctive. The marriage relationships in Porter''s fiction are mostly failed ones, which to some degree reflects Porter''s marriages in reality. The latent hatred within the couples generates conflicts and violence that eventually damage the relation- ships. The last chapter deals with political (institutional) violence between authority and subject. Family and social government are both the insidious institutions to viciously manipulate the inferior subject people. Readers shall be expected to receive instructions from Porter''s unique sense of violence and her premonitions of disaster.