Modernist Implications In Katherine Anne Porter's Works

Modernism is considered to be one of the most influential trends in the modern West.Modernist literature began late in the nineteenth century and can be traced back even to avant-gardes in the late eighteenth century.It is normally seen as a response to the tremendous social upheaval and is characterized by a rejection of the conventional subject matter and technical method.Although different modernist writers have expounded modernism in their works differently,they show similar characteristics in their emphasis on the need to present a pessimistic picture of the modern life and the cultural dislocation.Among them,Katherine Anne Porter(1890-1980) is one of the most significant figures in American literature in the twentieth century.Though it is mostly for her realistic and stylistic writing that she takes up an important place in American literature,her works bear the distinct stamp of modernism in both the subject matter and the writing technique,which is rarely noticed and yet to be analyzed by critics.This thesis is an attempt to probe into the modernist implication in Porter's short stories,short novels,and long novel,consisting of an introduction,four chapters and a conclusion.Porter was born in the last decade of the nineteenth century and was cultivated intellectually and culturally in the twentieth century.Modernist tints have manifested both in her literary reviews and writings.As a critic,she comments favorably on the modernist masters like Virginia Woolf,James Joyce,and applies both modernist themes and strategies in her writings.In the 27 short stories,6 short novels and one long novel,Porter discusses many of the modern concerns,in which the theme of alienation,of paradox,and of death particularly reveals Porter's modern consciousness. In the course of her literary creation,she applies the strategies of symbolism,of stream-of-consciousness narrative and innovatively tries the non-plots writing skill. This thesis examines all these and thus illuminates the modernist implications of Porter's works and her modernity as a writer.