I. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katherine Anne Porter's reputation as one of American’s most distinguished writers rests chiefly on her superb short stories. She explores the psychology of her characters by revealing their outward actions. Overall Porter is known as a writer of tremendous clarity. Her works have been compared to that of Faulkner and Hemingway in their stylistic beauty. However, she herself creates this unique style and constructs it into remarkable objective pieces full of imagery and symbolism. Porter focuses on the darker side of reality but uses her own sort of humor to lighten her writings. In addition, her works are often focused in such Southern locations as Mexico, Texas, and the Southwest in general.
"Miss Porter tends to write a story by sending the mind of a character to trouble the past, turning facts into myths and myths into mythologies; then to return, freighted and ready... In stories of this pattern, the characters are normally motionless, like statues: their memories move with their desires, but these are the only movements...In Miss Porter's best stories the past is so rich that it suffuses the present and often smothers it, and even when there is nothing more there is enough. But this means that her characters are utterly dependent upon the past for their development." (Donoghue, 1965)
II. ABOUT THE STORY
The story is abstracted from “50 Great Short Stories”(Crane, 1952). The plot of “theft” begins on a frozen moment in which the protagonist, who is “uncomfortable in the ownership of things,” recalls the events that led up to her discovery of the theft of her purse, a beautiful purse made of gold cloth that is not only her property and the container of her money, but is also traditionally a metonym for money. She (or the implied author) looked through the lens of memory and found the truth within experience. The protagonist looks at her immediate past, and discovers meaning in life.
Money is a central motif in “theft”. All the other characters in the story are associated with the protagonist by money. Camilo, who is as poor as she, often pays her fare on the train. She has to contribute a dime to the fare for a taxi she and Roger took. And Bill owes her money for work she has done on his play. By taking the purse, the janitress is demanding that the protagonist had failed to claim or declaim what is rightfully hers. A part of her discovery is that her apathy has contributed to her losses, the moral and spiritual implications of which are illuminated in the religious structure and imagery throughout the story (Unrue, 1993).
III. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE CONVERSATIONS AND CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES
To the surprise of most readers, the protagonist of the story is not designated a name, while the other characters who are related to her one way or another all have names. How old she is, how she looks like and what dress she is in, are all mysterious to the readers. The only material thing connected to her is the purse, the empty purse. Her identity can not so clearly be referred to as the other characters’ can be by names. So we may find that she is distanced from the readers in the physical world. By blurring the physical identity of the protagonist the author brings to the prominence her feeling identity and true thinking identity.
The relationships of the characters in the story are mostly revealed through conversations. Any specific information about her, if there is, is little by little unfolded to the readers through her interaction and conversations with other characters.
The only utterance she made to Camilo is “You know it simply will not do” when he insisted on a taxi. This is a very simple, economical and strong statement carrying something that one is embarrassed to explain. There is no hesitation with “simply…not”. We and Camilo together, sense that there is no room to change her mind. At that time of a raining night, Camilo’s insistence must be understandable, and he was behaving like a gentleman. Maybe he really cares about her but is not able to afford the care. No money things are mentioned in their talks.
Now let’s have a look at her conversation with Roger, who seems to be a close friend of her because “they exchanged a glance full of long amiable associations”. The conversation is initiated by the following:
She said: “The more it skids the calmer I feel, so I really must be drunk.”
The former part of the statement may be true or may not be true. We will rely on the coming up to judge what she really intends to say. If she is stating something in a as-a-matter-of-fact tone, she could have just said: “I’m really drunk” or “I must be drunk”. A word of certainty in combination with a word of uncertainty is implied to reveal her indirect desire to be consoled (for she just received a letter). What is meant is more than what is said. After all, they are acquainted with each other a long time. It’s very natural for a lady to say something like that in seeking comfort from a friend like that.
But Roger filters out the implication part “really”, and keeps the literal part “must be”.
“You must be,” said Roger. “This bird is a homicidal maniac, and I could do with a cocktail myself this minute.”
He probably thinks he is humorous by referring to a certain kind of cocktail wine with a word from the animal category, presupposing that both of them understand “cock” is a bird. This reply is just a reply for it doesn’t carry much care for the protagonist. If his reply is “you really are” instead of “you must be”, the effect and the consequence could be very different. Then it would be inconsistent and unreasonable for him to talk about things concerning himself. In the latter part of the conversation, money things are mentioned first by Roger “I’ve just enough if you’ll add ten cents,” and then his complaint about the “holding out”, which is a metonym for “giving money”. We notice that the protagonist responds, but with indifference. The readers now know more than Roger about what she really wants to talk about. Shouldn’t amiable friends be understanding? If yes, it’s reasonable; if not, then there is the irony. The conversational implicature (Grice, 1989, p24-37) is not successfully taken by another side. In this conversation both the addresser and the addressee superficially are exchanging something as if they know much of each other. There is not much concern for each other even though at the end of conversation Roger presumably makes a note that she should take aspirin …to remind her of his being a friend. It’s too late and means nothing but a sign to end the conversation. What we feel more and more is the indifference to each other, and this indifference is most strengthened in the following conversation with Bill, on whose play, she had a scene.
He said: “For Christ’s sake, come in and have a drink with me. I’ve had some bad news.”
Bad news for him or her?
And this is immediately followed by his comment “You’re perfectly sopping,”
He notices that she just comes back from the rain, but is still determined to keep her in his boring talk about his play being rejected and complaint of his wife’s extravagance because giving her ten dollars every week of my unhappy life is too much for him. And all this makes him on the edge of weeping again.
The conversational implicature leads us to the inference that the bad news must involve her for his insistence on her listening to his complaint at that an hour of that night. We notice that this part takes up a large amount of discourse time. This evidence, on the one hand, shows that he is cruel regardless of the state the protagonist is in. On the other hand, he seems to violate the maxim of relation of cooperative principle in conversation in an attempt to behave like a “gentleman” not to break out the bad news directly that he is not able to pay her. This violation of maxim of relation actually doubles his cruelty in that he prolongs her suffering both physically and mentally. The protagonist’s misery is