Looking For Home In Foreign Lands

As one of the20th century American southern writers, Katherine Anne Porter enjoys high prestige in American literature because of her excellent short stories. Among Porter’s23short stories, the Miranda Stories set in her native land, the Deep South, represent her superb artistry.Porter left her homeland when she hadn’t yet come of age, and never returned to it again. However far she rambled from her homeland, the influence of her native land is indelible in her personality and her literary works, which may embody into two aspects. First, the Miranda Stories, her most excellent works, are based on her childhood experience in her native land. In the Miranda Stories, by rummaging through her deep memory, Miss Porter reshapes a "Home" with an exquisite and refined style. The Home is haunted by the lingering mood of reminiscence and the entrenched idea of male superiority to female; the members of the Home have a great affection to their land. The stories occurring in the old decaying southern Home reflect the reality of19th century Southern American society. The second aspect is Porter maintained ties to her homeland by writing to her family members and her friends while she stayed far away from home. In these correspondences, she talked about what she had experienced and suffered with her family members; she also discussed her ambivalence toward her family and her native land. Porter’s Miranda Stories and her letters reveal her home complex:she had a deep love for her homeland while trying every means to keep her distance from it; she chose to return to it in her spiritual world instead.This paper focuses on the analysis of the Home presented in Porter’s Miranda Stories and the letters Porter wrote to her family members and friends to keep ties with her homeland; and explores the deeper reasons for why she exiled from her native land so as to demonstrate the effect of her escape from home and her home complex upon her and her artistic creation.