The Grave by Porter covers many themes of the southern literature we have discussed. The importance of family and family unity is once revisited. When the Grandmother’s land was donated for charity, they made sure that their family graveyard would be moved to the main family plot as to keep everyone together. I also think that the Grandmother was the one person holding the family together. There was not much mention of any of the other family members, and at the end of the story, it seems as though Miranda and Paul also ended up going their own ways. She says how she was in a “strange city of a strange country” and that what had made her think of the day when her brother Paul killed the rabbit, it also made her think of her brother and how he used to look when he was a boy. This seems like she has not thought of him, or seen him in a long time. The Grandmother was a connection to the old south, and its beliefs, one of these being the importance of family and with the death of the grandmother, the importance for them to stick together seemed to go as well.
Porter also once again touches on gender Roles. Miranda was a tomboy growing up; this may be because the family was not very well off. She wore clothes like her brother; “She was wearing her summer roughing outfit: dark blue overalls, a light blue shirt, a hired-man’s straw hat, and thick brown sandals.” She also likes to go hunting, do what her brother does and jump in graves. This brought up a lot of controversy and scandal in their town, since it was believed that girls should not be wearing such clothes or acting in such ways. The town gossiped how wrong it was for a girl to be acting this way and blamed it on the father since they new the grandmother had “discriminated against him.” Chopin also wrote about women rebelling against the gender roles. Calixta was very sexualized, not so much into settling down and having a family as she was to having fun and flirting with men out of her social class.
I also think that this was a coming of age story for Miranda, like in Barn Burning and Oder of Verbena. She follows her brother for most of the story, but then she starts to want to go do her own things and be girly. She also is struggling with the knowledge she gains when her brother kills the pregnant rabbit and what this means to her. “She understood a little of the secret, formless intuitions in her own mind and body, which had been clearing up, taking form, so gradually and so steadily she had not realized that she was learning what she had to know.” With this, the story also steps into the family theme again. Her brother killed a family of rabbits and this is terribly upsetting to them, another set of family bonds are broken.
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I liked your comparison of Miranda to Calixta. Both did challenge gender roles, albeit in different ways. They also both were gossiped about, which I think is another theme in Southern literature. The town members keep a watchful eye on the actions of seemingly everyone and any aberrational behavior is noticed and discussed.
This presence is felt in at least Chopin’s, Faulkner’s, and Porter’s works. In Chopin’s work, gossip is used to draw distinctions between people and keep them in their place. Calixta is not a high-class woman because she is Cajun and has fought on Church steps with another woman. Faulkner uses town members to keep social order. They pressure other town members into lynching Will Mayes in Dry September and make Bayard feel that he must avenge his father’s death in The Odor of Verbena. I think that town members in The Grave try to maintain conventions and conformity. Although Miranda feels ashamed for shocking the town women, I don’t think her creativity will be stifled. I think that she and Faulkner’s Bayard are stronger characters than those involved in the lynching in Dry September. I doubt that Miranda conforms to Southern expectations in the later stories.
I like that you compare Miranda to Calixta. I find that these women, both in their lives challenged gender roles. I like that Miranda was so independant that she was out in the world by herself away from her family and the things that were in her childhood. But then again, it brings you back to the fact that she had seen things as a child that many children should not see and understand at the young age of nine. I find that she matured faster and became like Calixta knowing things that were not of her station in society.
It does seem like the Grandmother was the link that held the family together. I didn’t really think about her flashback of her brother possibly showing that they haven’t seen each other in a while, but it does make sense. It also made me think of the way that she was dependent on her brother, and his influence was able to comfort her. Since she now seems to be alone, she may be thinking of when she had someone for guidance.
It also makes me wonder if the rest of the family split like this as well or since the father was “discriminated against” if it occurred only with his immediate family. The Grandmother was a controlling figure that made sure that the family ran according to her plans. Once the family no longer needed to do as they were told, it seems as if they possibly rebelled and finally did what they wanted to do. Unfortunately for the Grandmother’s ideas the kids no longer wanted to abide by the “Old South” way of life. Apparently the thought of family was no longer as important as it once had been, and since the Grandmother was no longer around to hold everyone together they all began to live their own life.
I think that you made a really good point by comparing Calixta and Miranda as both being young girls rebelling against their gender roles. At the time of both of these stories, this was virtually unheard of. I think this shows a great deal of strength in both the women characters, and the female authors who wrote of them.
This is defiantly a good story to relate to the common themes of Southern Literature. I think you did a really good job at that by comparing it to other stories such as those by Faulkner and Chopin.
That was also a really creative point about Miranda and Paul also having gone their own ways by separating from the family after the grandmother was no longer there to hold it together.
I think the grandmother was what kept that family together and once they lost her there was no common ground for the family, but death. This is why the family graveyard is so prominent in the story. The father lets the children basically run wild after Grandmother passes away and in a sense Grandmother does too when she gives the family land away, along with the family graveyard. I think that if the family graveyard were still left intact the children’s lives would have been different. I think that their father lets them go wild for spite because his mother was so admit that they be brought up properly that when she did not give him much in her will he decided why bother.
I have to agree with you this and “The Circus” shows extreme character changes for Miranda. In “The Circus” she no longer wants people to be mad at her, laugh at her or leave her and In “The Grave” she decides that maybe its not so bad to be a little like her Grandmother wants her to be.
I think you're definitely right about the grandmother holding the family together. I made the connection of Miranda being a scared "girly girl" if you will in The Circus, when the grandmother was alive, to a crazy tomboy who was poking dead baby rabbits in The Grave when the grandmother had died. It showed that once the grandmother was out of the picture the children sort of went wild- which is what you pointed out.
I really liked how you brought Calixta into your post, because that was a definite connection I made.
So you made some really good points in this post. First off i think that you really made a good comparison with Calixta and Miranda and the fact that they both rebelled against their "role" of the female. I also think that we have seen this connection throughout the stories. Also family unity has been a big factor and the grandmother really was the key to the family and holding it together. I mean the grandmother would never have let Miranda run around in overalls. But we still do see a little rebellion with the grandmother though too. So it's funny the connection we see here.
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