Porter and the Circus

Porter and the Circus

In Cathy Days “The Circus In Winter” the main character, Wallace Porter, has the opportunity to buy a circus. Porter already had a successful business and he chose to buy a circus. Porters past experiences in the Civil War shaped him to treat his Wife a certain way; after Porter realized that he was neglecting what his wife actually wanted he makes a hasty attempt to give her the life she has been asking for by buying the circus. It is not just about a man who buys a circus but the journey who goes through and why his experiences conclude him to do so.

The thirty-eight year old livery stable owner we meet is Wallace Porter. Way before he ran his successful business; Porter was a Union cavalry officer in the Civil War. The Civil war had more casualties than World War I and World War II combined. During Porter's regiment, “ he lost 13 in battle, 161 to disease.”(5). This ratio of deaths shows that fighting infections was much more difficult than the actual battling aspect of the War. Porter lost most of his men to factors he has no control over. This has always stayed in the back of Porters mind and is the reason he acts a certain way. Porter is a man who is, “both completely hollow and fully sated.”(4). Because of what happened during the Civil War Porter feels empty. He had no control over the loss of his men and that makes him feel powerless. On the other hand, Porter has a very successful business and can support himself enough to take a trip to New York every summer and live extravagantly for the time being. Porters past experiences definitely shaped who he is and how he treated people closest to him like his soon to be wife Irene, who is the daughter of a banker Wallace does business with.

Irene and Porter immediately hit it off; they get married two weeks after initially meeting at Porters Bankers Fourth of the July swarey. On the night they get married, Porter feels that Irene is,“too lovely for that humble bed in that modest house”(8). This is where Porters obsession to give more to his wife begins and where complications in their marriage unfold. Irene is not interested in any materialistic possessions, she wants to get away from her previous lifestyle and adventure the world. Porter does not yet understand his wife and only sees a woman who he thinks is too good for him. Because of this, porter decides to build, “ a [mansion], a repository of his New York hungers excess and hungers.”(8). Since Irene lived an expensive lifestyle in New York; Porter believed that he should keep on giving his wife the expensive lifestyle she has already been living. Just before the Mansion is about to be finished Irene tells Porter, “ I never wanted it, [...] I wanted to live my life as an adventure.”(13). Porter then realizes that for the past two years he has been trying to give Irene the life she was trying to get away from. Irene has been sick