Katrine Anne porter: Born in Indian Creek, Texas, in 1894, a great-great-great- granddaughter of the famous American frontiersman Daniel Boone, Katherine Anne Porter spent her early life in Texas and Louisiana. From her earliest childhood she was educated in convent schools of the South and, after graduation, worked as a newspaper reporter in Dallas and Denver. Illness forced her to give up her career as a journalist. She traveled extensively and lived in New York City, in Europe, and in Mexico, Drawing on her experience and travels, she employed a variety of backgrounds in her fiction. Her style was not to give any explanation to the reader assuming they already know. Theft- didn’t give the name of the main character. She made you do you own analysis and research. Camilo- drop nickels in the machine. When he insisted on a taxi she said it “you it simply will not do.” Does being poor create a bond? He was a very polite man and he cared about her. Even in the rain he was willing to have his hat destroyed by the rain. Was it all an act? The effect of alcohol “the more it skid the calmer I feet”. “This bird is a homicidal maniac, and I could do with a cocktail myself”. Is the bird the taxi? I think Rogers is her friend and his girl is Stella. She had a lot of male companion. Her purse generates so much anger. Can a purse do that to a woman? Or was it the fact that she got it from camilo or its content. The setting for "Theft" is New York City. The heroine is a writer and reviewer, like Miss Porter. The time is the onset of the Great Depression of the l930s. The stolen purse in the story symbolizes all property. Appropriately, it is made of gold cloth. Thus, the stealing of the purse represents the conflict between the "haves" and the "have-nots." But the conflict is never simple in Miss Porter's stories, nor is it easy to arrive at a facile definition of the problem. The young woman who owns the purse has little else. She is in fact close to starving and may really be poorer than the janitress. But, like the purse, she is a symbol of those who possess things other people do not have but want. And at the end of the story, by a brilliant reversal, the janitress has succeeded in making the heroine feel that she has stolen, if not from the janitress herself, then from the janitress' niece. The emotions running through this story are mixed, as are the sympathies of the reader.
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