On The Symbolic Imagery In Miranda Saga

Katherine Anne Porter ranks among the most celebrated writers of the 20^th Century American literature. Miranda saga is one of the most brilliant works in Porter's writing career; it portrays Miranda's rite of passage which actually is her initiation to a brave new world.Porter applies various symbolic images in Miranda saga, ranging from symbolic figures, animal imagery, tree imagery and imagery of feminine object. They create great subtlety in Porter's art and become a crucial access to the ulterior meaning of Miranda saga. Being a writer from Southern America, Porter's adoption of symbolic images reveals profound local features concerning about Southern American society, tradition, morality and religion. More significantly, although Miranda stories appear to be pieces of fragments, they are connected organically by the theme of searching for truth, the final meaning of life. By adopting the symbolic imagery, Porter achieves her goal in engaging in the mysterious truths about human life: the heaven and hell, truth and mendacity, love and hatred, life and death.Miranda saga presents extremely complicated symbolic imagery and subtle ulterior meanings, which matches with Charles Baudelaire's theory of correspondence, and perfectly demonstrates its delicate symbolism strategies, such as horizontal correspondences and vertical correspondences. This thesis attempts to decipher the symbolic imagery in three chapters. Chapter 1 is a brief introduction of approaches to symbolic imagery in Miranda saga: the correspondences theory and Porter's experiences; it aims at emphasizing the three components of a complete symbol: a concrete symbol, its ulterior meaning, and the spiritual background, which is called the Supernaturalism state. Chapter 2, based on the features of Porter's symbolic imagery, classifies major symbols appearing in Miranda saga and interprets their symbolic meanings from the vertical correspondences perspective by combing Porter's personal experiences. Chapter 3 is thematic interpretation of the symbolic imagery, and aims at revealing the truth Miranda strives to seek.