Alice Munro

She published her first story,

 in 1950 in the student literary magazine «Folio».

During university she worked as a waitress, a tobacco

 picker, and a library clerk.

First Marriage



1951 – She left the university to marry James Munro and move

 to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Her daughters Sheila, Catherine, and Jenny were born in 1953,

 1955, and 1957 respectively; Catherine died 15 hours after birth.

Her writing progressed very slowly during these years.



“I never intended to be a short story writer. I started writing them because I

didn’t have time to write anything else – I had three children. And then I

got used to writing stories, so I saw my material that way, and now I don’t

think I’ll ever write a novel.”

1963 – They moved to Victoria and opened the bookstore

 Munro's Books.

1966 – Their daughter Andrea was born.

 1972 – Alice and James Munro divorced.

 First Collections



Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario.

 1976 – She married Gerald Fremlin, a geographer. They moved to a

 farm outside Clinton, Ontario. Dance of the Happy Shades.

1968 – First collection of stories, It won

 the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s highest literary prize.

of Girls and Women

1971 –Lives

 – Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You

1974 , a collection of

 interlinked stories published as a novel.

Who Do You Think You Are,

1978 – a collection of interlinked stories.

 This book earned Munro a second Governor General’s Literary

Award.

1979-1982 – She toured Australia, China and Scandinavia.

 1980 – Munro held the position of Writer-in-Residence at both the

 University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland.

Recent Years



The Progress of Love

1987 – gave her her third Governor General’s

 Award.

The Love of a Good

1998 –

 – Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

2001

 – Runaway

2004

 2002 – Her daughter Sheila Munro published a childhood memoir,

 Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up With Alice Munro.

The View from Castle Rock

2006 –

 Too Much Happiness.

August 2009 – Latest collection,

 At a Toronto appearance in October 2009, Munro indicated that she

 received treatment for cancer and a heart condition, the latter

requiring bypassing surgery. At that time, she indicated that her

next work would involve a theme of sexual ambivalence.

Munro’s Stories



A Short Story Writer



She said she began writing things down when she was

 about twelve, and at age fifteen she decided she would

soon write a great novel, “but I thought perhaps I wasn’t

ready so I would write a short story in the meantime.”

Her stories frequently appear in publications such as «The

 New Yorker», «The Atlantic Monthly», «Grand Street»,

«Mademoiselle», and «The Paris Review».

They had previously appeared in Canadian literary

 journals, such as «Tamarack Review» and «Canadian

Anthology,

Forum» and on the CBC radio program whose

producer, Robert Weaver, played a major role in the

acceptance of her early work.

Main Features of Munro’s

Stories



The setting: Huron Country, in southern Ontario.

 Strong regional focus.

 Omniscient narrator. The way she narrates reflects the outlooks

 of her simple characters.

Characters appear before us as if we had bumped into them in

 normal places. Their everyday experiences reveal deeper

meanings.

Ordinary outsiders: people who in small and crucial ways don’t

 fit, who need a better life than the one being offered to them.

Women. In her early stories, she often talked about girls dealing

 with their families and the small towns they grew up in. In

recent works, middle aged women and the travails of the

elderly.

Revelation. Her characters’ revelations give meaning to their

 experiences.

“Our Chekhov”



The American writer Cynthia Ozick called Munro "our

 Chekhov."

In Munro stories, as in Chekhov's, plot is secondary and "little

 happens."

"All is based on the epiphanic moment, the sudden

 enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail.“ (Garan

Holcombe)

Munro's work deals with love and work, and the failings of

 both.

Time is very important.

 There is the same penetrating psychological insight; the events

 played out in a minor key; the small town settings.

They are both connected to the land.



Southern Ontario Gothic



It is a sub-genre of the Gothic novel genre.

 It is a feature of Canadian literature from Southern Ontario.

 Eleven Canadian Novelists

Graeme Gibson coined the term in

 (1973) to describe the tendency of some writers from Southern

Ontario to include some elements of Gothic novels in their

writings.

Southern Ontario includes Toronto, Windsor, London,

 Hamilton, St. Thomas, Oshawa, St. Catharines and the

countryside.

Southern Ontario is the setting of these woks.

 Writers: Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies,

 Jane Urquhart, Marian Engel, James Reaney and Barbara

Godwy.

Southern Ontario Gothic

and Southern Gothic



Southern Ontario Gothic has something in common

 with American Southern Gothic (William Faulkner,

Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty).

Analysis and critic of the social conditions: race,

 gender, religion and politics, but in different

contexts.

Stern realism set against the religious morality,

 which is stereotypical of both regions.

Moral hypocrisy.

 Some writers of Southern Ontario Gothic use the

 supernatural.

Munro and O’Connor



Many compare Munro's small-town settings to

 writers of the U.S. rural South.

Munro herself recognizes Flannery O’Connor among

 her models.

What writers have most influenced you and who do you like to read?

When I was young it was Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Katherine Anne

Porter, Flannery O'Connor, James Agee. Then Updike, Cheever, Joyce Carol

Oates, Peter Taylor, and especially and forever, William Maxwell. Also William

Trevor, Edna O'Brien, Richard Ford. These I would say are influences. There are

dozens of others I just like to read. My latest discovery is a Dutch writer, Cees

Nooteboom. I hate doing lists like this because I'll be banging my head soon that I

left somebody wonderful out. That's why I speak only of those who have

influenced, not of all who have delighted me.

Munro and O’Connor



Both authors have a strong regional identity.

 The titles of many short stories of both authors are

 simple and taken from everyday language.

The hero is usually an outsider.

 After a negative event, there is a revelation for the

 character. In O’Connor, it is often the Grace which

allows the discover of the truth.

Miles City, Montana



It was published in «The New Yorker» on the 14 January 1985 (pp.30-40)

th

 The Progress of Love

It was collected in in 1987

 The Progress of Love won the Governor General’s Award (Munro’s third).

 Stories:

 The Progress of Love

 Lichen

 Monsieur les Deux Chapeaux

 Miles City, Montana

 Fits

 The Moon in the Orange Street Skating Rink

 Jesse and Meribeth

 Eskimo

 A Queer Streak

 Circle of Prayer

 White Dump

 The Plot



The narrator remembers a childhood calamity. Her young

 playmate Steve Gauley had drowned in the nearby river.

Steve’s mother had left Steve and his father to fend for themselves.

 Steve’s father was “a drinker but not a drunk” and, “the fact that

the child had been left with him when the mother went

away…seemed accidental”. The narrator felt it was a shame that

people, especially her parents, felt this way, but it was the truth.

Steve Gauley’s life was somehow accidental just like his death.

Twenty years later, in 1961, the narrator, her husband Andrew and

 her children, Cynthia (6) and Meg (3), are leaving their house in

Vancouver to go to Sarnia, Ontario, the place where they were

born and still call “home”, to visit their parents.

Travelling, the narrator reflects on her two children and on her

 almost failed marriage.

The Plot



During the trip, the scenery is flat and uninviting and the weather

 is hot and sticky. When they get to Miles City, Montana, the oldest

daughter whishes there is a beach. There is a pool, instead, but it is

closed. The narrator begs the lifeguard, who is eating near the pool,

to allow the children in and she accepts, while the parents wait in

their car.

Suddenly, the narrator, who is looking for something to drink,

 feels a mother’s intuition for her children, she runs back to the pool

and at first does not see her youngest daughter. Her daughter has

fallen into the deep end of the pool, trying to find a comb.

Although the little girl does not drown, the mother is still shaken.

At this point, the narrator finally discovers what the realities of life

 are. She also discovers deep within herself the reason for her

feelings toward her parents at the funeral of Steve Gauley.

Themes



Travel short story

 Home

 Death

 Memory

 Realism

 Travel Short Story



Detailed descripition of the places they visit.

 The map: the first day, the narrator shows the

 children their trip on a map, explaining them that

they will pass through Washington, Idaho, Montana,

North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, will take a

ferry to cross Lake Michigan and get to Sarnia,

Ontario.

In the end, there is a reference to the next travel, the

 one that will take them back to Vancouver, in which

they will visit Kalispell and Havre, that they have

missed during the first travel.

The Trip



Starting from Vancouver, they turn east at Everett and

 climb into the Cascades. They go to Wenatchee,

Washington, where they spend their first night. Then,

they go to Spokane, taking Highway 2, and they decide to

leave this way and take the interstate and go through

Coeur d’Alene and Kellogg, getting to Montana. They

spend their second night in Missoula. Going towards

Butte, they then decide to detour, in order to visit Helena.

After it, they pass Bozeman and Billings and get to Miles

Cit