After reading "Magic", I came away with more questions than I did realizations. The biggest question was why is this story told. What is Porter trying to say with this story? What is the reader supposed to come away with? The story is dealing with race and class with the contrast of the characters but I don't know what conclusion can be drawn from it.
Another question I had was who is Madame Blanchard? The story is addressed to her and since she has Madame as a title she is obviously of some class. At first I thought she might be elderly and unable to take care of herself because the woman telling the story is combing her hair and talking as if to fill the silence. However, Madame Blanchard is interested in the story because she asks "[t]hen what?" Why would a woman of class be interested in a story from her servant about another madam that is cast in a violent and evil light?
Although I enjoyed the story I wasn't sure why it was told. I was wondering what everyone thought about this. Why is this story told?
1 comment:
I believe this story was told to cast a light of compassion on prostitutes. Even fifty years after this story was written, the stereotype of the hooker remains constant; she is dirty, infested with illness, disgraceful to the female gender, and less than human. This story, in my opinion, is the "Pretty Woman" tale of Porters time. She lets her audience in on a little secret: for some women, prostitution is sometimes not a choice, but a necessity. Ninnette obviously did not want to stay in the situation she was confined in. She saved up all her money and tried to escape the mental and physical abuse she faced on a daily basis. Her madame beat her until she miscarried. The harlem was an unnatural place for her. But when she found she could not survive on her own, the magic string of prostitution yanked her back into the reality of finding a way to survive. Prostituion, ironically, then became natural; you make money to eat, and you eat to live, right... Poter's portrayal of prostituion of both unnatural and natural most likely softened the light on the women forced to succumb to that lifestyle. Really, their job was a matter of survival, and through Porter's "Magic" we pity them because indeed they are not what Darwin would call "the fittest" in that cycle.
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