“The Theft”
“The Theft” The story, “The Theft” by Katherine Porter, works primarily as a character study. The author exposes the emotions of the central figures as they play out the conflict, which comes in later in the piece. The conflict arises between the narrator and the janitress in her building. The janitress entered the narrator’s apartment, and stole the narrator’s valuable gold cloth purse while she was taking a bath. The janitress was there on the pretense of checking the heating system. When the narrator realizes that her purse is gone, she knew that the thief was the janitress.