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Alice Munro's Miles City, Montana
The monotony of life has waged war against the narrator in Alice Munro’s “Miles City, Montana.” The author depicts the narrator as a brittle woman in search of a personal identity among a community of conformity. This battle between domestic responsibility and personal satisfaction reeks havoc on the soldier of this mother and wife. Munro is a master of characterization, and through the protagonist she depicts the complexities of human nature.
Now, as the family of four travels across the continent, the narrator is able to slough off all the obligations which society has dumped on her. Almost relieved, “we shed our house, the neighborhood, the city, and…our country” (378). On the road, she is no longer forced to hide from the friendly phone calls or household chores. The narrator has been freed on the highway to Ontario, Canada. The Prisoner of War, held under siege in her own home, is liberated to be “hopeful and lighthearted” (378). This trip becomes a break from the life that she’s is currently leading, a life which society thinks should make her content. With this new bit of freedom the narrator is able to form an identity for herself.
Tragedy, however, almost strikes as the narrator takes this break from reality. As the family reaches Miles City, Montana, the two young children become captivated by the thought of swimming in a refreshing pool. No adults are aloud into the pool area during the lunch break, but the children are still able to take a swim with the lifeguard present. As the narrator steps out of sight, the youngest girl’s curiosity captures her, and she almost drowns in the pool. Meg had nearly submerged before the mother had a vague premonition that something on this afternoon is very wrong. Running toward the pool, the girl’s parents reach her in time, but this incident seeps much deeper as the mother gains wisdom and identity from the experience.
The subsequent section is concise as it provides the depressive historical context of the poem. The usage of factual period of time 1949 and the war / Now four years dead- conveys the suffering of the exiles and their endurance of the lengthy wait to migrate as they weren’t economically or physically capable to leave earlier.
Alice Munro subtle use of contrasting word combinations in “Miles City, Montana” foreshadows the narrator’s realization that human hypocrisy is natural and consistently present in her life. The word combinations Munro uses are atypical, often using words that subtly disconnect (almost oxymoronic). These word combinations allow Munro to saturate the story with what could be called “hypocritical phrases”. These phrases are not aggressive, and by virtue of this trait, they can be uses to form an idea of hypocrisy’s role in nature and daily life without being colored by the usually negative connotations of the word .In “Miles City, Montana”, Alice Munro uses atypical, contrasting or hypocritical word combinations to permeate the theme of hypocrisy
Similarly, the book’s three leading protagonists ultimately possess a common objective, escaping their unjust circumstances in pursuit of seeking the “warmth of other suns.” For this reason, they abandon the laws of Jim Crow and the familiarity of their hometowns as they flee to a better life. In the process, they all assume a level of risk in their decisions to rebel against the system. For example, Ida decides to embark on a precarious journey while in the beginning stages of a clandestine pregnancy. Any number of unpredictable events could have resulted from this judgment, including fatality. All of the migrants shared an unspoken agreement that the rewards would far outweigh the dangers involved.
The main characters of the novel are travelling into Canada. The non-established landscape was full of wild animals, Aboriginal people, and whiskey posts. This story of conflict is entwined tightly to the story of love. Three brothers known for different qualities, an intellect, ex-military officer, and an idealist all form different relationships with their father, Henry Gaunt, an English gentleman. Therefore the theme of the story has men with money and power come to Canada with a purpose which also stays true to the historical facts because men have a commanding influence in this times social arrangement and the treatment of women gets explained in this book as a less powerful position.
This new morality is explained as, “championed self-expression and even self-indulgence, encouraging me and women alike to flout any rule, law, or tradition that might infringe upon their individual liberty” (Mays “Cultural” 696). This morality is also interpreted by Malcolm Cowley, writer of his memoir Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s as, “the idea of liberty, the idea of female equality, the idea of changing place” (717-18) Lorraine is described by Charlie as, “one of a crowd who had helped them make months into days in the lavish times of three years ago” (704). Centered on carefree living, and living in the moment, Lorraine is basically the complete opposite of Marion. Unlike Marion, Lorraine does not have children, a husband, or the responsibility to care for others. At one point she writes to Charlie, “Everybody seems so old lately, but I don’t feel old a bit” (709). Throughout the story, Charlie reflects on different experiences and memories that he and Lorraine have shared together. In a letter she wrote to Charlie, Lorraine reminds him of these crazy memories saying, “like the night you and I [Lorraine and Charlie] stole the butcher’s tricycle, and the time we tried to call on the president” (709). Her carefree attitude, however, causes her to have little respect for what she does for others. Her actions at Marion and Lincoln’s
Through a series of “recorded interviews,” Jenna tells her story of woe in Ilsa J. Bick’s novel Drowning Instinct, weaving a tale of dysfunctional family relationships, traumatic experiences, and adolescent pain that descends further and further into tragedy until readers are left feeling as overwhelmed and conflicted as Jenna herself.
The journey in a novel can be accomplished physically, mentally or both as a character portrays aspects of their physical travel as well as traveling to seek or fulfill a goal. In Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, Naomi Nakane narrates her experiences with her family as they suffer prejudice of being Japanese Canadians while traveling to different provinces in attempts of getting away from incrimination of those injustices. It is shown how the constant movement from one place to another throughout Naomi’s life adds to the lack of communication and language their family faces presenting the theme of silence.
Early in the film , a psychologist is called in to treat the troubled child :and she calmed the mother with a statement to the effect that, “ These things come and go but they are unexplainable”. This juncture of the film is a starting point for one of the central themes of the film which is : how a fragile family unit is besieged by unusual forces both natural and supernatural which breaks and possesses and unites with the morally challenged father while the mother and the child through their innocence, love, and honesty triumph over these forces.
This book teaches the importance of self-expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful of what is going on. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
It has been said of Anton Chekhov, the renown Russian short-story writer, that in all of his “work, there is never exactly a point. Rather we see into someone’s hear – in just a few pages, the curtain concealing these lives has been drawn back, revealing them in all their helplessness and rage and rancor.” Alice Munro, too, falls into this category. Many of her short-stories, such as “Royal Beatings” focus more on character revelation rather than plot.
Hemingway uses details of natural and manufactured setting to foreshadow Nick and Marjorie's break up and to emphasize their differences. Hemingway uses water to foreshadow the ugly events that unfold later in the story. Nick and Marjorie coast along the shore line but then the bed of the lake "suddenly" drops off from shallow water to twelve feet of "dark" water. This means something bad is going to happen and soon. Hemingway describes the ruins of Hortons Bay but they are perceived differently between Nick and Marjorie. Nick sees the town for what it is, a ghost town with ruins. Marjorie sees a "castle". This shows that Nick and Marjorie view their relationship very differently. Marjorie sees a fairytale happy ending where her and Nick get
They voyage and transformation shows how the world if different than it may appear. The theme of the difficulties of growing up demonstrate Annemarie's confusion as she does not know where she belongs. Finally the bravery and courage this all takes and how this courage or bravery can be the buffer between life and death. Moreover, Annemarie journey is different from the rest of the stories told and her determination to overcome her fear just makes her story a little more
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
Sal longed to visit her mother’s grave for quite some time, but her father refuses to take her. She believes that if she makes it to the grave by her mother’s birthday, her mother would miraculously be there for her. Sal takes a road trip with her grandparents across the United States of America. To pass the time she tells a mysterious tale about Phoebe Winterbottom. The main purpose of the trip was to go to her mother’s grave in Lewiston, Idaho. They stop at some of the major tourist destinations along the way, including The Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Lake Michigan, and even Yellowstone National Park. While on the trip, Sal’s grandmother, Grams, suffers from a stroke and they make an emergency trip to the hospital. Sal’s Grandfather, Gramps, tells Sal to drive to Lewiston by herself to finish the trip. On the way, traffic police stop her and explain to her that underage driving is dangerous. Sal explains to the police man that she is taking a trip to see her mom’s grave. The helpful police officer offers to take Sal to see her mom’s grave. On the trip to her mom’s grave, she realizes why her grandparents took her on this trip. They wa...
As Ross argues, Love represents Munro’s return “to earlier material…[but] in a form that is more complex and multilayered” (786). The collection thus “offers her readers eight stories that seize us by the throat.” In so confining itself to “Love,” therefore, the criticism I have cited above has missed the equally multi-faceted enigma that is the volume’s next story, “Jakarta.” Rather than provide three seemingly disparate timelines that eventually centre on a single act, “Jakarta’s” competing narratives significantly examine one major sequence of events — a series of summer get-togethers that a pair of couples share with their friends sometime around 1959. Its four sections move twice between the internal focalization of Kath Mayberry in the years before 1960, and that of her husband Kent as he strives to recall the same summer (though not necessarily the same sequence of events) in the 1990s — at a distance of more than thirty years and a divorce. Thus, while Munro again employs a third-person narrator throughout the story, the reader instead experiences “Jakarta” as two iterations of one unique narrative, focalized through two distinct perspectives that experience the narrative’s key moments either in the present, or by distant recollection. This way, Michael Gorra’s argument that “Munro will not…allow us to see one moment as the background to the other, to say that the story is about one and not the