What chiefly remained in my mind after reading "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" was that, after Miranda survives her challenging battle with the illness, she seems to resent the fact that she didn't die like so many others. She is obviously not happy with her situation in life, nor is she pleased with the situation of the country. We know this is the case, so why does she have that burning will to live which ultimately saves her from an otherwise guaranteed death? I absolutely love the passage where Porter eloquently portrays Miranda's fight for survival,
"there remained of her only a minute fiercely burning particle of being that knew itself alone, that relied upon nothing beyond itself for its strength; not susceptible to any appeal or inducement, being itself composed entirely of one single motive, the stubborn will to live (311)."When Miranda wakes to find that she has survived, while Adam has died, she asks him "what do you think I came back for, Adam, to be deceived like this?" (317). She is making the claim that she fought it out for him, when we know that she was too delirious to consciously do such a thing; she was simply saved because of the value she places on the human life, however abhorrent it may be to her.
I recently read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and found that, although they both find their lives to be absolutely detestable, both the monster and Victor cling to life at any onset of danger. It is a natural reaction of the human species to strive for survival, even in the worst of all possible circumstances. When Miranda wakes to find that, although the war has ended, her Adam is dead, undoubtedly along with many other of her friends and family, she realizes that life is no better than it was before she fell ill. She claims that she has been deceived, but the only one she had deceived is herself because she clung to the unreasonable hope that Adam would survive the war and life would have some glorious ending.