Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale horse, pale rider”

Miranda’s journey toward self‑knowledge

Abstract

This paper discusses Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “Pale horse, pale rider” as the protagonist Miranda’s journey toward self-knowledge through a symbolic descent into hell, caused by the feverish delirium when she is taken ill with influenza, through a brief passage by purgatory, represented by the whiteness of the hospital and through a visit to paradise during the coma to which the disease takes her.