Alice Munro

http://www.moodyscollectibles.com/pixfiles/15014.jpg

“Miles City, Montana”

http://www.moodyscollectibles.com/pixfiles/15014.jpg

Alice Munro

b. 1931 in Wingham, Ont., to a farming family

published first short story while at university at U of Western Ont.

winner of two Governor General’s awards

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/images/munro.jpg

11 collections of short stories

Lives of Girls and Women: series of inter-linked stories

strong regional focus: many stories set in Huron County, Ont. — “Alice Munro country”

common theme: coming of age in a small town

focus on female characters

raised three daughters

“next-door language”

spare, precise

http://files.list.co.uk/images/2007/08/09/AliceMunro.jpg

“Munro's writing creates what amounts almost to an empathetic union among readers, critics most apparent among them. We are drawn to her writing by its verisimilitude—not of mimesis, so-called and... 'realism'—but rather the feeling of being itself... of just being a human being.” MacKendrick and Thacker, “Some other reality: Alice Munro's Something I've been Meaning to Tell You,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Summer 1998)

“ I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don't obey the rules of progression for novels. I don't think about a particular form, I think more about fiction, let's say a chunk of fiction. What do I want to do? I want to tell a story, in the old-fashioned way—what happens to somebody—but I want that 'what happens' to be delivered with quite a bit of interruption, turnarounds, and strangeness. I want the reader to feel something is astonishing—not the 'what happens' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.”

Alice Munro, interview, http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/read/goodwoman/munro.html

Southern Ontario Gothic

“Southern Ontario Gothic is generally characterized by a stern realism set against the dour small-town Protestant morality stereotypical of the region, and often has underlying themes of moral hypocrisy. Actions and people that act against humanity, logic, and morality all are portrayed unfavorably, and one or more characters may be suffering from some form of mental illness.” (Wikipedia)

“the complexity that underlies the domestic” (Broadview, 182)

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/aaposter/mtpostcard.jpg

Miles City, Montana

The Progress of Love (1986)

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c2/c13591.jpg/fish-710280.jpg

Point of view

https://www.playle.com/pictures/HEM21429_2.jpg

Settings

http://fieldwoodhs.ednet.ns.ca/slim1938card-at.jpg

Timeline

Jumps (184, 188, 195): what is the effect?

http://cartophilia.com/blog/postcards/montana1.jpg

Questions

Why is the narrator disgusted with her parents at Steve’s funeral?

What does she mean when she says, she’s “a watcher, not a keeper”? (185)

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-montana/BigSkyMontanaPostcard.jpg

What does she mean, in the final paragraph, about trust and forgiveness?

http://www.thenotedcollector.com/Postcards/Harlowton1905.jpg

http://www.cardcow.com/images/cats/MT.jpg