The Grave Analysis
Analysis of The Grave by Katherine Anne Porter In the short story “The Grave” by Katherine Anne Porter, there are two preteens named Miranda and Paul that venture into the family cemetery. The two young juveniles were on their way to go hunting when they decided to set down their rifles, climb the fence, and explore the now empty grave plots. The bodies were moved to a public cemetery due to the current land being sold to supply a little income to other relatives. Miranda and Paul decide to jump into the plots, oblivious to the once remaining filled coffins, and dig around the dirt. Upon digging they both find little treasures, Miranda finding a dove screw head and Paul, an engraved gold ring. They end up bickering for a short moment and decided to trade their small treasures. The juveniles then continued on their journey of the hunt. Paul goes on for a short while on how the first creature to cross his path is his for the taking, and Miranda is off in her own world dreaming of frivolous lady activities. Paul’s rifle goes off and he was able to make a kill and a pregnant rabbit laid right before their eyes. Miranda could not put a word on what she was feeling from seeing the bloody heap of babies from the corpse of the rabbit. After that, Paul told Miranda to forget what she had seen there and to never speak of it to no one. After several years pass, she was reminded of the scene of when she was a young girl looking at the small sac of baby rabbits. There was an Indian vendor selling small animal shaped sweets and “was like the mingled sweetness and corruption she had smelled that other day in the empty cemetery at home” (Porter 979). The central idea of the short story is the reality of life and death as a continuous cycle. Katherine Anne Porter starts “The Grave” with a totally omniscient point of view and is able to describe the inner thoughts of all the characters within the story. Miranda is the primary focus of the short story and she
Cited: Porter, Katherine. ""The Grave"." Short fiction: classic and contemporary. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006. 976-979. Print.