Amanda Polanski

And the task of the artist Porter saw in bringing the order in the chaotic world where the person is left all alone in the cynical, industrial, war-stricken society. She stresses on the necessity of solitude and self-reflection for better understanding of the inner self and getting the right picture of the events. In both stories “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” and “Old Mortality” main heroines have to find their own ways rejecting the old way of thinking and even struggling against death and loosing the beloved person like in “Pale Horse, Pale Rider», analyzing the past experiences and withstanding the family like in “Old Mortality”. In “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” a lot of techniques and devices are united to show an impact of the war on the person and the reflection it gets in the mind. The form of stream-of-consciousness technique is used to create a picture of the emotional state of Miranda framed with the view of the third person. Free flow of thoughts, associations, fears and memories let us penetrate Miranda`s mind and to see the world with her eyes. The mixture of dreams, reality and delirium create one single picture of Miranda`s reality where present past and future are mixed together. The dreams precede the dramatic events which will happen soon in real life. Both war and influenza are metaphoric means in the quest for the sense of life. The survey of the effects of the illness on the mental state and way of thinking is a way show the transformation of the mind. Fantasies and real characters are mixed in Miranda`s mind and the reader has to compare two visions of events – Miranda`s and his own. Deep survey on the thoughts created with the help of stream-of-consciousness and the distortion of time created by the mixture of reality with delirium aiming to broaden the limits of reality are modernistic techniques adopted by the author to fulfill her goal in depicting the inner world of the person.