Pale Rider Foreshadowing

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Katherine Anne Porter uses foreshadowing and allusions to portray a theme of death in her 1939 short novel, Pale Horse, Pale Rider. The title itself is a reference to death from Revelation 6:8. The lead female, Miranda, has ominous feelings the day preceding her illness, but refuses to acknowledge death as a possible fate. The theme of death is reinforced in the setting of World War I and the influenza pandemic, a time with an enormous death toll. Porter intertwines a playful love story between Miranda and a soldier, Adam, preparing for his official orders of deployment. This relationship gives both Miranda and Adam a false sense of hope for a happy ending because neither concedes the possibility of his death overseas. The denial of death is befitting of Southern writing as it alludes to Southerners denying the Old South is may be dead. Porter’s language is so vivid and descriptive that she forces readers to put themselves in Miranda’s place and reflect on the situation. Pale Horse, Pale Rider, …show more content…

She goes so far as to tell Chuck, a colleague from the newspaper, he can have her drama beat for the day and write a review of the show. Chuck is of course excited about this, but Miranda can feel the influenza starting to set in and tells him to enjoy the write up since she is going to leave soon anyway. Not understanding what is going on with Miranda, Chuck believes this means she is about to leave the paper. Miranda, however, is thinking she will leave the review column to him in her last Will and Testament that she believes shall be read soon. This is one of the strongest examples of foreshadowing in the novel because Miranda has an internal feeling, “Something terrible is going to happen to me. I shan’t need bread and butter where I’m going” (215-216). The rest of her day involves her attempting to get her affairs in order before she even knows what is

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