The collection of short stories by Alice Munro in 2001 reflects the feelings and writing style that is straightforward and precise. The Munro’s stories often conceal the abilities of fiction. These stories openly consider broken trust, death and mental illness. Letting know to the readers a realistic window into the life’s misfortunes and truths.
In the amazing short story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, marriage” the narrator begins with a protagonist Johanna, a simple, poor and single woman who work as the housekeeper for Mr. McCauley and His granddaughter Sabitha’s. Persuaded by the letters that ken will be married to her, uses her savings to travel his remote place in the rural Canada. Ken Boudreau Sabitha’s father lived in a different place in the poverty, frequently, demanding with her father in law for money. It turned out Sabitha’s and Edith her friend who feels tired with her compressing way of life making a joke to Johanna into believing she was object of love for one of the girl’s father’s. Suddenly, Johanna with her dream to get married and have a regular
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A matrimony for the old housekeeper, which her life was complete sincere commotion and full of love forcing the readers to consider why we had expected in particular ending (Munro, 2001p.p #3-54). Additionally, this powerful short story “Comfort” start out with Nina
The fact that the fictional mothers and daughters of the story have unhappy marriages creates a common ground on which they can relate. However, marriage has different meanings for each generation in this book. In the mothers’ perspective, marriage is permanent and not always based on love. Especially with their marriages in China, which was a social necessity that they must secretly endure in order to be happ...
The Story begins with a description of the house. The house in itself is a symbol of isolation women faced in the nineteenth-century. The protagonist describes the house as isolated and miles away from the village, but also described as “the most beautiful place” (Gilman 217). During the nineteenth-century, women were in a sense isolated from society, just like the house. The role of the women was to stay home and tend to the
In her room, Louise sinks into a comfortable chair and looks out her window. Immediately the image of comfort seems to strike a odd note. One reading this story should question the use of this word " comfortable" and why Louise is not beating the furniture instead. Next, the newly widowed women is looking out of the window and sees spring and all the new life it brings.
Alterations: Comparing the Changes Caused by Marriage of the two Bessie Head Short Stories, “Life” and “Snapshots of a Wedding”
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
That is not to say that nothing happens in Munro’s short-stories. Instead, multiple scenes take place in “Royal Beatings.” The narrator, Rose, tells us of her life as a child growing up in Hanratty, Ontario; of her stepmother, Flo’s, stories and work in the store the family owned, of her father’s habit of isolating himself in his furniture shed, of being beaten and then indulged. However, the plot is secondary to the story. The scenes created by Munro are not based in action, but emotion and character revelation.
In “The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the unnamed female protagonist is going through a rough time in her life. (For now on, this paper will refer to this unnamed character as the “the narrator in ‘Wall-paper,’” short for “The Yellow Wall-paper. The narrator is confined to room to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two heroines of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters.
Immediately, the narrator stereotypes the couple by saying “they looked unmistakably married” (1). The couple symbolizes a relationship. Because marriage is the deepest human relationship, Brush chose a married couple to underscore her message and strengthen the story. The husband’s words weaken their relationship. When the man rejects his wife’s gift with “punishing…quick, curt, and unkind” (19) words, he is being selfish. Selfishness is a matter of taking, just as love is a matter of giving. He has taken her emotional energy, and she is left “crying quietly and heartbrokenly” (21). Using unkind words, the husband drains his wife of emotional strength and damages their relationship.
In the article, “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love” author Stephanie Coontz argues that love is not a good enough reason to get married. People shouldn’t marry just because they love one another, Coontz suggests that perhaps marriage should be based on how well a couple gets along and whether or not if the significant other is accepted by the family. One will notice in the article that Coontz makes it very clear that she is against marrying because of love. In the article is a bit of a history lesson of marriage and love within different cultures from all over the world. Coontz then states her thesis in the very end of the article which is that the European and American ways of marriage is the
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” there is a time line in a young girl’s life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind to become a woman. The story depicts hardships in which the protagonist and her younger brother, Laird, experience in order to find their own rite of passage. The main character, who is nameless, faces difficulties and implications on her way to womanhood because of gender stereotyping. Initially, she tries to prevent her initiation into womanhood by resisting her parent’s efforts to make her more “lady-like”. The story ends with the girl socially positioned and accepted as a girl, which she accepts with some unease.
In Aunt Hetty on Matrimony and The Working Girls of New York Fanny Fern depicted a story of sadness and morose conditions that women had to deal with in order to have a parallel recognition to that o...
Marriage can be seen as a subtle form of oppression, like many things which are dictated by social expectations. In Kate Chopin’s The Story of An Hour, Louise Mallard finds herself in distress due to the event of her husband’s death that makes her question who she is as a person. The author cleverly uses this event to create the right atmosphere for Mrs. Mallard to fight against her own mind. As the short story progresses, we see that Mrs. Mallard moves forward with her new life and finds peace in her decision to live for herself. This shows that marriage too is another chain that holds oneself back. Not wanting to admit this to herself, Louise
Edna marries her husband, not out of love, but out of expectation of society and her family’s dislike of him. She is a young woman when they marry; she has never had a great romance. The closest thing to passion she
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
"All of it is clear to a person who has understanding and right to those who have acquired knowledge." (Proverbs 8:6-9)