When Cousin Eva, the spinster suffragette in "Old Mortality," bitterly condemns the family as a "hideous institution," one that is "the root of all human wrongs" and that ought to be "wiped from the face of the earth," she is somewhat consciously oversimplifying, and overstating, her own attitude. Certainly Eva's remarks alone do not adequately convey Katherine Anne Porter's complex views on the subject.

In her stories, the family is always supported in its evil work by other institutions—social, political, and religious. And in her treatment of evil in the family, just as in her treatment of corruption in politics and religion, she always holds an implicit vision of an ideal that has been vitiated, betrayed, or perverted.

But Miss Porter shares with Eva an almost obsessive preoccupation with family life, and with the struggle of the individual to maintain a personal identity—either within the family...