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He | Introduction

Katherine Anne Porter’s short story ‘‘He’’ was first published in the leftist magazine New Masses (1927), and collected and published in the book Flowering Judas in 1930. Porter struggled for a long time to be recognized by one of the large publishing houses, and only after several of her literary friends wrote letters to Harcourt, their publisher, urging the editors there to read her works, did Porter finally succeed. Although Harcourt eventually accepted Porter’s work and agreed to publish her, she was humiliated by their lack of confidence in her stories. They chose only six stories to include in the collection, and they printed only six hundred copies, a sign that they did not believe her collection would sell. Little did Porter know that that year, the same publisher had turned down William Faulkner’s classic work, The Sound and the Fury, a fact that Porter’s biographer, Joan Givner, states would not have, however, impressed Porter, as ‘‘she was not an admirer’’ of Faulkner’s writing.

The short story ‘‘He’’ exposes another type of humiliation for Porter as it covers a brief stretch of time in the life of a poor but proud family, one that mirrors, in many ways, Porter’s own early memories. Like Porter, who would later become somewhat obsessed with buying fancy clothes and jewelry to erode the early poverty she experienced and to impress upon the world that she was a success, so too is Mrs. Whipple, the protagonist in the story, focused on appearances. For instance, Mrs. Whipple has her husband kill a suckling pig to convince her brother, when he comes to visit, that her family is doing well. Appearances are as important to Mrs. Whipple as they were to Porter. Every one of Mrs. Whipple’s actions is determined by what the neighbors will think of her. That is why she is so distraught, so torn up inside, about her son, who is obviously not like other children. The story revolves around Mrs. Whipple’s struggle to come to terms with her son, to make him appear as normal as possible, and to find some way to love him. Or, read in a different light, the story might be interpreted as being about Mrs. Whipple trying to find some way to forgive herself for not loving him. Either way, the story fits into a pattern of stories that Porter wrote in which characters cannot speak and are left to the whims of people around them to define them.

He Summary

Beginning
The short story ‘‘He’’ starts with a brief description of the poverty in which the Whipples live. Very quickly, the narrator makes it known that Mr. and Mrs. Whipple have two different ways of deal ing with their lack of material wealth. The narrator implies that Mr. Whipple leans toward the pessimistic side of life, bemoaning his fate and seeing no way out of it. Mrs. Whipple, on the other hand, tends to take ‘‘what was sent and calling it good,’’ at least this is her attitude whenever she is in the company of neighbors, or even within ‘‘earshot’’ of them. This clues the reader that Mrs. Whipple is into the appearance of things, working toward the goal of making her family appear to be in the good graces of life, even if she must suffer to do so. Appearances are important to her in part because she cannot ‘‘stand to be pitied.’’

Immediately following this description of the mother and father, the narrator declares that Mrs. Whipple loves her second son, even more so than she loves her ‘‘other two children put together.’’ At times, Mrs. Whipple is so drawn to making sure that everyone understands how much she loves her son that she would also declare that she loves him more than all her family members put together. Mr. Whipple reminds her that she does not have to make such statements so often, not that anyone would... » Complete He Summary