Pale Horse, Pale Rider

by

Katherine Anne Porter

Paleness Symbol Icon

Paleness, or grayness, symbolizes death in the story. The Pale Horse in the story’s title is a reference to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse described in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, in which the pale horse also symbolizes death. The pale horse appears twice in Miranda’s initial dream: in the horse, Graylie, that Miranda decides to take on her journey to “outrun Death and the Devil,” and in the horse of the familiar stranger who rides alongside Miranda. In the biblical interpretation of this myth, the Four Horsemen (four riders on white, red, black, and pale horses) symbolize pestilence, war, famine, and death—four ills that would ravage humanity in the final days of life on Earth. When Miranda sees a pale horse in her dream in the beginning of the story, thus, the reader may assume that she has death on her mind. The same symbolic association exists when Miranda describes certain objects or ideas as pale, gray, or ashen in color. For example, when Miranda dreams “oblivion” in her final hallucination, she sees “a whirlpool of gray water turning upon itself for all eternity.” As gray is typically associated with paleness and a lack of vitality or blood, thereby connoting death, Porter’s choice to describe the water as gray saturates the image in lifelessness. In contrast, Miranda describes Adam as “all olive and tan and tawny, hay colored and sand colored from hair to boots.” Each of these tones evokes warmth and saturation of color—the opposite of paleness. In this notable absence of paleness, Porter demonstrates Miranda’s tendency to avoid thinking about Adam’s mortality.

Paleness Quotes in Pale Horse, Pale Rider

The Pale Horse, Pale Rider quotes below all refer to the symbol of Paleness. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Performance of Patriotism  Theme Icon
).
Pale Horse, Pale Rider Quotes

The stranger swung into his saddle beside her, leaned far towards her and regarded her without meaning, the blank still stare of mindless malice that makes no threats and can bide its time.

Related Characters: Miranda, Graylie , The Stranger
Related Symbols: Paleness
Page Number: 270
Explanation and Analysis:

“Death always leaves one singer to mourn.”

Related Characters: Miranda (speaker), Adam Barclay
Related Symbols: Paleness
Page Number: 304
Explanation and Analysis:

Granite walls, whirlpools, stars are things. None of them is death, nor the image of it. Death is death, said Miranda, and for the dead it has no attributes.

Related Characters: Miranda
Related Symbols: Paleness
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:

There was no light, there must never be light again, compared as it must always be with the light she had seen beside the blue sea that lay so tranquilly along the shore of her paradise.

Related Characters: Miranda
Related Symbols: Paleness, The Color White
Page Number: 314
Explanation and Analysis:
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Paleness Symbol Timeline in Pale Horse, Pale Rider

The timeline below shows where the symbol Paleness appears in Pale Horse, Pale Rider. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
The Denial of Death Theme Icon
The Pain of Living  Theme Icon
...out. The mysterious stranger Miranda recalled earlier materializes, riding off beside her on his own gray horse. The stranger has a “pale face” that is fixed in “an evil trance.” As... (full context)
The Denial of Death Theme Icon
The Pain of Living  Theme Icon
Adam and Miranda both vaguely remember the song “Pale Horse, Pale Rider.” They sing what they can remember of its 40 verses, in which... (full context)
The Denial of Death Theme Icon
The Pain of Living  Theme Icon
...hallucinations, and this time she dreams of death and oblivion. She imagines “a whirlpool of gray water turning upon itself for all eternity.” Eternity is “more than the distance to the... (full context)
Alienation Theme Icon
The Denial of Death Theme Icon
The Pain of Living  Theme Icon
...of skin and eyes,” and “the white walls of her room were now a soiled gray.” (full context)