Alienation Theme Analysis

Throughout “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” protagonist Miranda suffers with the feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and depression that result from a perpetual sense that she exists separately from the rest of the world. For Miranda, love and companionship are not enough to bridge this divide; she walks about in a daze of misery and isolation, and the only moments of comfort and understanding come when she is unconscious—either in the realm of dreams, or in the midst of the feverish hallucinations influenza forces upon her. Miranda’s internal alienation persists even after her external sufferings—war and influenza—have been resolved. At the end of the story, her fever breaks just as the war ends. Her friends and the medical staff who cared for her are overjoyed at her recovery, but Miranda feels hollow and unable to relate to the others and their happiness. In Miranda’s persisting alienation, Porter seems to suggest that an absence of explicit, external sufferings (war, hunger, sickness) does not guarantee a corresponding absence of internal discontent. In the war and illness-ridden setting that Porter portrays in “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” alienation is the default condition.

“Pale Horse, Pale Rider” unfolds across a dreary landscape riddled with war, illness, and death. Such tangible problems have a significant impact on the characters in the short novel and result in real, lasting consequences. Miranda, falls ill with influenza and is institutionalized. Adam, a soldier and Miranda’s love interest, also falls ill and dies before she regains consciousness. Every day the streets of Denver swarm with endless funeral processions for victims of both the war and the influenza pandemic. But at the core of “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” lies a misery harder to pin down or understand: the wretched plight of alienation. In her thematic treatment of alienation, Porter explores the invisible, internal miseries that fester in an environment of heightened external suffering.

Characters interact with each other in “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” but they never quite seem to fully connect and understand one another. Miranda and Adam epitomize this struggle, as they pursue a romantic relationship with one another, but they both have trouble articulating their feelings. When Miranda and Adam are at a bar together one evening, she observes a young couple near them and notes that she “envie[s]” the girl.” The couple sits at a “corner table,” tucked away, “their eyes staring at the same thing, whatever it was, that hovered in the space before them.” Miranda envies the fact that these two separate people could stare into the void “at the same thing” and connect with one another. The girl’s face is “a blur with weeping,” and her date wordlessly, yet knowingly, brings her hand to his mouth and kisses it. Miranda reflects on the significance of the boy’s wordlessness: “At least [the girl] can weep if that helps, and he does not even have to ask, What is the matter? Tell me.” Miranda’s alienation would be absolved if she could make herself heard and understood with simple human gestures (crying, kissing). With Adam, in contrast, she must express herself using clunky words and rhetoric—methods of communication that Miranda finds faulty, inadequate, and ultimately alienating. Love—a force that is so often depicted as the coming-together of two separate souls—is imperfect and inadequate for Miranda, as it fails to rid her of the alienation she feels every day.

In contrast, Miranda’s frequent slips into the unconscious feature idyllic scenes where she is understood without having to speak. This represents the unattainable ideal of comfort and connection she knows she will never be able to achieve in the real, conscious world. While institutionalized for influenza, Miranda feverishly dreams of oblivion (death). The prospect of death is frightening to Miranda: she visualizes oblivion as “a narrow ledge over a pit,” which she compares to “her childhood dream of danger.” She moves away from the pit and towards the sea, where amidst the “burning blue” of the water and the “cool green of the meadow on either hand” she comes across “a great company of human beings.” Without speaking to these humans, Miranda understands, instinctually, that she knows them: “They were pure identities and she knew them every one without calling their names or remembering what relation she bore to them. They surrounded her smoothly on silent feet, then turned their entranced faces again towards the sea, and she moved among them easily as a wave among waves.” To “know” (that is, to connect or relate to) another human without having to speak to them is Miranda’s dream. Miranda “move[s] among them easily” because she understands them effortlessly and completely. In her unconscious mind, Miranda rids herself of her alienation. Ultimately, Miranda must leave this land of comfort and connection behind, as her instinctual will to live surpasses her intellectual need for complete human connection. Yet she feels hollow and unhappy despite her miraculous recovery, lamenting at “the dull world to which she [is] condemned.” Miranda recalls the light, beauty, and connection she experienced in her hallucination and knows she can never achieve it in her waking mind.

Miranda’s unhappiness at the end of the story—despite the end of both the war and her illness—reflects how heavily alienation weighs on her. In her final juxtaposition of joy (patriotic celebration, miraculous recovery) with sorrow (Miranda’s depression) Porter seems to suggest that the alienated life is a life not worth living.