Behind the Mask: Katherine Anne Porter's Reportage of the Female Experience
Date of Graduation
Summer 2000
Degree
Master of Arts in English
Department
English
Committee Chair
Jane Hoogestraat
Abstract
This study explores the life and fiction of Katherine Anne Porter and uses the tools of feminist critical theory to expose her subtle revelation of the female experience behind culturally imposed masks. Explicable in this light, the enigma of her life and writing dissolves as she lifts the masks, validating the communal experiences of women and revealing the oppressors that silence their voices. By exploring the identity development of the autobiographical protagonist, Miranda, and analyzing the hidden consciousness of the adult female characters of Ship of Fools, this thesis presents a unified picture of Katherine Anne Porter's works--reportage by her own admission--as an expression of a woman's potential for an independent identity in a dictatorial patriarchal society. When Porter's protagonists shed their disguises, they simultaneously present the inner lives and outer masks of women to reveal the supreme fiction--woman.
Subject Categories
English Language and Literature
Copyright
© Jimmie D. Huffman
Recommended Citation
Huffman, Jimmie D., "Behind the Mask: Katherine Anne Porter's Reportage of the Female Experience" (2000). MSU Graduate Theses. 2418.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/2418
Dissertation/Thesis
