The early fiction of Capote usually descends into a subconscious and explores a world of blurred realities and uncertainty whose inhabitants are trapped in unbearable isolation. The short story “Miriam” was first published in 1945 and depicts the psychological deterioration of the protagonist, Mrs. Miller. The sense of captivity and fear overshadow this short story and results from the individual’s inability to respond and accept the reality. Mrs. Miller is given an opportunity to accept someone disturbing and strange and push back the frontier of darkness in the soul and the surrounding world. More essentially, it means that a person refuses to accept frightening and mysterious elements within the self because, in most cases, individuals encountered by the protagonist are viewed as a projection of the inner personae. Besides, the story is basically psychic in its orientation because the border between fantasy and realism is crossed: the things take place, but they are actually impossible. Mrs. Miller hides her fears beneath a scrupulous exterior, the emergence of which is a catalyst that brings the main action of the whole story. Nevertheless, the setting seems realistic, and the reader is kept in a world which is deceptively real but strange, and all the effects are made be manipulations of the consciousness of the protagonist. On the surface, “Miriam” seems to be nothing more than a horror story about Mrs. Miller haunted by a beautiful and weird girl; however, looked at in the proper perspective, the story can be viewed as the hallucinatory projection of a lonely and desperate woman.
A sixty-one-year-old widow, Mrs. Miller lives unobtrusively and alone in her immaculate apartment in New York. The woman’s life is neither deep nor broad. She has few interests, no friends, and her activities are “seldom spontaneous.” Obviously, she tries to insulate herself from the outside world and travels no farther that the little grocery store. It seems that no one in her building notices the woman, and, besides, she has cultivated her appearance as plain and inconspicuous, by means of wearing nondescript and usual clothing, never using makeup, and cutting her hair short. It can be stated that the woman’s self-imposed isolation really helps her to control the surrounding world. Mrs. Miller keeps her apartment clean and prepares the same meals. Possibly, such insularity prevents the woman from dealing with the complexities of human interactions in the real world. Mrs. Miller has escaped into a dull routine, and the author reinforces it by means of repetitive and dry sentence structure, “Her interests were narrow. Her clothes were matter-of-fact, her features were plain” (Capote). Undoubtedly, such predictable structure of the sentences parallels the predictability of the woman’s life.
One day, the woman experiences an unbearable desire to go out for a movie, and this uncharacteristic break from her daily routine forces the woman to confront her fears. Mrs. Miller becomes agitated by the sight of a little and strange girl with long, silver-white hair. The little girl is wearing and elegant dress, a plum velvet coat, and a necklace. Her extravagant clothing contrast with the simplicity and plainness of Mrs. Miller who hides her finery in closets and in a jewelry box. The girl’s name is Miriam, and her intrusion into the woman’s life begins gently and gradually, with a request to buy a ticket because children are not admitted without parents. The fact that Mrs. Miller and the girl have the same name can suggest several things. On the one hand, it may serve as a manifestation of schizophrenia, but, on the other hand, the young and elegant Miriam may represent Mrs. Miller’s longing. She is an aged and faded woman who considers her life intolerable and creates her another self whom she both wants to be and rejects. What is more, some critics put the story into the context of that time and suggest that this doubling represents the split between those who wanted to remain in isolation and the people who could not remain disengaged. Besides, the girl may be the result of the woman’s imagination and psychological state that fed up with loneliness and fears mortality.
Indifferent to the lateness, Miriam comes in wearing a light silk dress. Despite all attempts of Mrs. Miller to disarm this apparition, Miriam continues to examine the woman’s apartment and the jewel box. She finds a cameo brooch which is a gift from Mr. Miller and is extremely fascinated by this trinket. The cameo was presented to Mrs. Miller by her husband who died several years earlier. The author does not provide his description, what makes him seem unreal. He is only mentioned as H.T. Miller that gives an impression of a particular distance between wife and husband. “Miriam’s appropriation of the brooch has the effect of cutting the husband out of Mrs. Miller’s life entirely and of leaving her more alone than ever” (Long 16). Suddenly, the woman is stunned by the understanding that she is alone and helpless. Nevertheless, the brooch is on the girl’s breast, implying the identity of the two females, “The blond profile like a trick reflection of its wearer” (Capote). Miriam pushes her way into Mrs. Miller’s apartment, touches everything, eats ravenously, and destroys paper roses, which symbolize the artificiality of the woman’s existence and her general isolationism. It can be concluded that the girl may also represent another woman’s long-suppressed self who suffers and needs of other people because of her physical and emotional disengagement.
When the girl leaves Mrs. Miller, the woman feels unwell. Besides, she has a bad dream. Mrs. Miller’s dream has also a symbolic meaning. She sees a small girl wearing a wreath of leaves and a bridal gown leads a procession down a mountain path. Possible, the dream may be interpreted as the girl is leading the people to the netherworld. What is more, dreams are the projection of people’s thoughts, fears, and desires. Apparently, Mrs. Miller has this dream because death is one of her strong fears. Later, the woman spontaneously decides to go out shopping and buys the things Miriam has expressed a strong desire: glazed cherries, almond cakes, the vase, and six white roses. The weather turns colder, and clouds cover the sun like “blurred lenses.” Later that day, Miriam returns to Mrs. Miller with the intention to live with her, but the woman begs her to go away but finally she herself runs out the door.
For the next passage of the story, everything seems to return to the real world. Mrs. Miller pounds on the door of her neighbors and tells that something terrible is waiting for her in her apartment: a girl, who does not want to go away. The neighbor man investigates Mrs. Miller’s apartment but finds nothing, and his wife concludes, “Well, for crying out loud” (Capote). Mrs. Miller returns to her apartment but it is lifeless “as a funeral parlor” (Capote). Having lost the understanding of reality, the room for Mrs. Miller begins to transform, “The room was losing shape; it was dark and getting darker and there was nothing to be done about it; she could not lift her hand to light a lamp” (Capote). Then she feels a surge that resembles the feeling that a diver has when emerges from some depth. This feeling is a kind of revelation for her because she begins to realize that Miriam is just an illusion and lives in her head. “In times of terror or immense distress, there are moments when the mind waits, as though for a revelation while a skein of calm is woven over thought; it is like a sleep, or a supernatural trance; what if she had never really known a girl named Miriam? For the only thing, she had lost to Miriam was her identity, but now she knew she had found again” (Capote). Conforming herself with these words, she opens her eyes and sees Miriam.
“Miriam” takes place in winter, and snow imagery connects the fear of mortality with the author’s message about isolationism. Snow also represents the lack of warmth and human contact in Mrs. Miller’s life. The city is covered by snow, and plants and trees are dead. The author states that even the children’s voices were cheerless and lonely. “Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain in the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind ” (Capote). The elaborate language of the author reinforces the association between death and winter. The woman describes her room, ““But this was an empty room, emptier than if the furnishings and familiars were not present, lifeless and petrified as a funeral parlor” (Capote). Mrs. Miller tries to avoid the sense of darkness, death, and loneliness by leaving the lights on, but all her efforts are in vain. “Her regression may also be seen to symbolize the avoidance of the impending reality of death by reversion to a childlike state” (Goad 21). However, death is the thing from which no one can hide.
The woman is so lonely that when she learns about the girl’s intention to stay with her, Mrs. Miller cries but produces only an “unnatural, tearless sort of weeping, as though, not having wept for a long time, she had forgotten how” (Capote). Definitely, she has experienced a great loss – her husband’s death, and this tearless weeping represents her emotional isolation. The color white is repeated throughout the story: Miriam has silver-white hair, wears white ribbons, white dress, and Mrs. Miller buys white roses. Undoubtedly, this color symbolizes purity, innocence, and the beginning of something new. However, it has some negative connotations. It is cold, empty, and isolating like the life of Mrs. Miller. It also implies disinterest and detachment. In addition, in some eastern cultures, white is the color of mourning and death. The woman’s canary also implies her loneliness because the bird was the only companion of Mrs. Miller.
It is absolutely obvious that Miriam exists in the woman’s imagination as the projection of her desire for communication and human contact. “Miriam is a projection of Mrs. Miller’s inner desires, a bright and adventurous child who leads people, in contrast to dowdy and isolated Mrs. Miller” (Goad 20). It has become unbearable for Mrs. Miller to live alone; therefore, she has created the girl to fill the void. Although Miriam stands for what the woman hoped to be, at the same time, she has an urge to destroy what Mrs. Miller represents now. The reason why the woman makes Miriam an unpleasant and demanding child is that she cannot love and accept this destructive impulse. In general, Mrs. Miller has been trapped in a circle of contradictions because she creates a girl who is a reflection of her desires and dreams but Miriam threatens her to take command.
What is more, Miriam stands for the personality that was suppressed by Mrs. Miller, but this double self appears when the woman steps out of her everyday routine and decides to do something out of the ordinary. Besides mortality and loneliness, Mrs. Miller also fears changes and being different. She lives in her own environment in an encapsulated internal world which she longs to escape but cannot do it. That is why Miriam serves as a sort of self-revelation, and the nightmare reveals her defenselessness, loneliness, and helplessness. The girl reminds her of her own childhood and helps to understand what she is and what she wants. The dark tone of the whole story allows the reader feel the grief of Mrs. Miller because she really cannot come to terms with her alter ego and accept her loneliness. Capote depicts the woman’s life as being empty and meaningless because she lives in isolation, and Miriam appears to wake her from a deep sleep and a state of oblivion. Miriam helps Mrs. Miller understand that her life is an empty nest, she does not have children, and even neighbors do not know her that is why she has to introduce herself. The girl disturbs Mrs. Miller’s solitude and peace that were her only friends. Confronting Miriam means to confront her loneliness and reality which scares the woman. However, Miriam is not just a fantasy or hallucination. Capote presents the girl as an allegorical figure who embodies moral and psychological aspects of the protagonist. The ambiguous ending of the story clearly suggests that Mrs. Miller is left alone with her terrors looking at her another self and the reality of the woman’s lonely life.
“Miriam” is one of Capote’s forays into the obscure world where fantasy and reality intermingle. The author does an excellent job portraying the character of Mrs. Miller because he depicted numerous changes she undergoes in her personality. Truman Capote grew up in the South, and his early stories are usually characterized as “southern gothic.” “Miriam” is not an exception and depicts a lonely and alienated woman, controlled by fears and obsessions, an intertwining of fantasy and reality, and a blending of psychological suspense with the macabre and supernatural. The story’s underlying themes are the divided psyche with its fears and terror and the state of loneliness and isolation. “Where many Capote characters are somewhat bizarre figures who wander back and forth across that invisible line that separates the normal from the abnormal, “Miriam” is instead the story of highly distorted perceptions in a woman who is unremarkable” (Heinbaugh 25). Mrs. Miller must face the hidden parts of herself, and in this story, the confrontation happens in bodily form. Miriam is egocentric, demanding, and self-indulging whereas Mrs. Miller is meek and reserved. Undoubtedly, the girl is the woman’s alter ego that fascinates and terrifies her. The announcement of Miriam that she is going to live with Mrs. Miller stands for the insistence that she comes to terms with this alter ego, candid and irreverent part of herself, the one that hates imitations and demands to be cared for.
Works cited
Capote, Truman. Miriam. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1982. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.
Goad, Craig. Daylight and Darkness, Dream and Delusion: The Works of Truman Capote. The Emporia State Research Studies, Kansas, 2012. Print.
Heinbaugh, Nan Shirley. The Study of Psychopathology in the Works of Truman Capote. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1975. Print .
Long, Robert Emmet. Truman Capote – Enfant Terrible. NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. Print.
