SOURCE: “Miranda's Guarded Speech: Porter and the Problem of Truth-Telling,” in Philological Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 2, Spring, 1987, pp. 259–78.

In the following essay, Stout examines the reticence of the central character, Miranda, and perceives it as evidence of her wisdom.

I loved that silence which means freedom from the constant pressure of other minds and other opinions and other feelings, that freedom to fold up in quiet and go back to my own center …

—Porter, “Holiday”

Katherine Anne Porter is well known as a writer of much in little, who speaks by indirection in a style notably concise. It is no surprise, then, that her central character Miranda, who serves not only as center of consciousness but as touchstone of value as well, should also be a character of few words. Indeed, reticence is perhaps the single most characteristic trait we would associate with Miranda. Like her namesake in The...