The Pain of Living Theme Analysis

Although death appears to be Miranda’s greatest trouble, she ultimately realizes that there is an equal and opposite horror to be found in the pain of living. In “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” Miranda undergoes a journey from healthy to dying and back again. From the beginning of the story, Miranda predicts that all is not well, and that something horrible will happen to her. Her premonition comes true when she falls gravely ill with influenza and is quarantined for a long time. Though her prognosis hasn’t been favorable, she makes a miraculous recovery near the end of the story. Her friends expect Miranda to greet her restored health with gratitude and exuberance, yet she feels strangely hollow and disappointed at the return of her health. Miranda’s disappointment stems from a fresh perspective on what it means to be granted life when so many others have been subjected to death. This is exemplified in the song Miranda sings with Adam while she is sick, “Death always leaves one singer to mourn”—that is, the gravity and tragedy of death is not felt by the dead but by those left behind to mourn them. Through Miranda’s ultimate disappointment in her recovery, Porter shows that the grief and misery one experiences in life is just as destructive as the prospect of death.

Life exhausts Miranda. Her job as a newspaper reporter requires her to keep arduous, inconvenient hours, and she often longs only to catch up on sleep. Miranda and Towney, a coworker, fret that they will be reprimanded (Towney even worries that they will be thrown in jail) for not buying Liberty Bonds. Miranda remarks that getting thrown in jail wouldn’t be all bad because in jail they could “catch up on [their] sleep.” Though ultimately made in jest, Miranda’s remark gets at Miranda’s incessant exhaustion. In another instance, Miranda takes a bath, relishing in this rare moment of peace and “wish[ing] she might fall asleep there, to wake up only when it [is] time to sleep again.” This is impossible, of course. In reality, Miranda has a horrible headache and she must exit the bath and dress quickly to attend to her work. Miranda’s perpetual exhaustion reveals how heavily the simple task of living weighs on her. Miranda frets about death throughout the story, but the pain and exhaustion of life take just as great a toll on her well-being.

In addition to the exhaustion of simple day-to-day existence, “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” explores the weight of death incurred by the living. Porter shows that death is only truly known by the living. Once the dead are dead, there is no more time for contemplation. One cannot realize or grieve their own death—one can only mourn and respond to the death of others. Miranda and Adam sing the song “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” together while she is sick in bed. The song laments the “pale horse, pale rider” that with each subsequent verse takes away another of the narrator’s loved ones (the “mammy, pappy, brother, sister, the whole family”). “But not the singer, not yet,” remarks Miranda, noting that “Death always leaves one singer to mourn.” The song’s theme and narrative technique demonstrate the different relationships to death that the living and the dead hold. Though everybody eventually meets death (the “mammy” and the “brother” alike), only those left behind (the lamenting narrator of the song) may feel death’s full impact.

Miranda’s ultimate disappointment at recovering from her illness and returning to the exhaustion of life brings home the point that life is just as painful as death, if not more so. The last lines of the text are particularly important: “No more war, no more plague, only the dazed silence that follows the ceasing of heavy guns; noiseless houses with the shades drawn, empty streets, the dead cold light of tomorrow. Now there would be time for everything.” The story ends as Miranda leaves the hospital; the war is over, and she is cured of her illness. By conventional standards, this ending should be a happy one. But such details as the “dazed silence,” the “houses with the shades drawn,” the “empty streets,” and the “dead cold light” convey Miranda’s depression and disappointment. She dreads life and the exhaustion, alienation, and sadness she knows it will bring. The final sentence, “Now there would be time for everything,” seems to allude to Ecclesiastes 3 from the Old Testament. The original passage presents a series of opposites: “a time to be born and a time to die […] a time to weep and a time to laugh,” and so on. It’s meant to be hopeful: it’s okay to feel joy as well as sorrow because God will be there in the end, there’s hope, and all will be well. However, it seems that Porter’s allusion to Ecclesiastes 3 is meant to be taken ironically. Miranda’s observation that “there would be time for everything” is not joyous—it is cynical. There will be time for life, yes; but there will also be time for death, and death, and yet more death.

Death is crucial to understanding “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” but the reader must also take into account the critical role that the living play in understanding death. Porter’s treatment of Miranda’s exhaustion, her remarks on the song “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” and the ultimate sadness she feels at her restored health all suggest that people’s  anxieties about death are only a small piece in the larger tragedy of life.