Key Issues
Alice Munro is considered by many individuals to be one of the greatest contemporary short story writers. Some individuals would even go so far as to say that she is one of the greatest North American writers. One reason that many critics find Munro to be such a great author is her ability to portray complex ideas about life in simply written stories that focus on the daily lives of women. In Alice Munro’s writing, the key issues of feminism, survival, and Canadian life are what cause Munro to be considered one of the greatest short story writers.
A first key issue found in Munro’s writing is feminism and the feministic search. In her stories, females are the protagonists. Munro takes her readers through a portion of a character’s life in order to see how she is able to develop into a confident and re-assured woman. Many of the characters in Munro’s stories go from being unsure individuals to re-affirmed women who are convinced of their place in society and life. In order to highlight this idea of feminism, Munro relies heavily on using juxtaposition in her writing. Munro does this in order to draw attention to the reality that they characters know and understand versus the reality that the reader if familiar with. When Munro combines a fantastical idea with the realistic life of Canadian citizens, her readers are able to think for themselves what is reality and how they can better understand the world that they live in. Critic Malcolm Jones Jr. sees feminism in Munro’s work in the protagonists of her stories. Jones explains “The main characters in Alice Munro's mesmerizing stories, mostly women, are an unprepossessing lot: librarians, eccentric spinsters, seamstresses, all of them denizens of small, drab, Canadian towns. But invariably, Munro pulls a switch, something like that old movie cliche where the mousy heroine removes her glasses, undoes her hair and reveals herself a beauty” (63). Through Munro focusing her stories on the change in self-perception of women, she is able to portray feministic views that captivate her audiences.
The issue of feminism is seen in the short story “A Real Life.” Dorrie is seen to be a more confident and feministic character in that she is secure in her own ways and does not need society’s approval. During a conversation between Dorrie and Millicent when Millicent is trying to get Dorrie to conform to holding a wedding that members of society would approve of she tells Dorrie that “marriage takes you out of yourself and gives you a real life” (Munro 75). To this comment Dorrie replies “I have a life” (Munro 75). This conversation shows how Dorrie is confident in her abilities as a woman to not need the approval of others which demonstrates Munro’s idea of feminism.
Another major theme that Munro writes about is the idea of survival. When characters in Munro’s stories are going through their initiation into life, they are often faced with many problems and conflicts (marriage, death, poverty, etc.). At times the characters that Munro writes of think about giving up because it is the easy way out, however, by having her characters persevere through the struggles of everyday life, Munro is able to evolve her women into confident and successful individuals. In his article “Unraveling the Mystery of Reality: Typical Canadian Elements in the Short Stories of Alice Munro,” Aleksander Kustec is able to show how the theme of survival is essential to Munro’s stories. Kustec writes “Before Munro’s characters achieve the goals to which their effort or ambition has been directed to, they usually have to “suffer”, for they live their lives simply, directly and often painfully” (Kustec 111). This statement means that Munro’s characters always suffer because that is the life that they are supposed to live. Without having her characters suffer in the stories, the realizations and changes that they make in the ends of the stories would not be as powerful as Munro makes them to be.
In “The Jack Randa Hotel,” Gail chases her former lover from Canada to Australia in order to find out his relationship with another woman. The story concludes with Gail telling Will “Now it’s up to you to follow me” (Munro 189). This passage demonstrates survival because Gail was no longer willing to live her life waiting for Will to decide if he could love her. Instead, Gail is able to survive the turmoil that arises from being in love with someone who does not love her back and evolves into an independent woman.
The majority of Munro’s stories take place in Canada (Ontario, Jubilee, and Carstairs). For this reason, Munro is considered to be a regional writer. In her stories, Munro tries to capture the behaviors of the people that live in the given areas. Munro attempts to mimic the actions and language of the people that she is writing about in order to make her stories more realistic so that her readers are able to better relate to what they read. For this reason, Munro is often compared to Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty. Refering back to Aleksander Kustec, the importance of the Canadian setting is important to Munro for one main reason: “her imagination is stimulated by [the southwest Canadian] region. She uses the rhetoric of her people, and speaks in an easy conversational voice. It is close to the speech that is found on the streets, but maintains a language that expresses the matter-of-factness of everyday life” (Kustec 112). Maintaining the personalities of the people she is writing about is important in Munro’s work in order to make them realistic. By dedicating her works to one setting, Munro is able to zero in on a group of people and portray them as they really are to make her literature more meaningful similar to what other writers such as O’Connor and Welty do.
This regionalism is seen in all of Munro’s stories. The only stories in Open Secrets that do not take place entirely in Canada are “The Albanian Virgin” and “The Jack Randa Hotel.” These two stories however do revolve around a longing to return to Canada and reflections upon time spent in Canada. Even when the story does not take place in Canada, Munro’s strong patriotism for the country is able to shine through.
Jones Jr., Malcolm. “Ordinary People: In Alice Munro’s Tales, Drab is Mesmerizing.”
Newsweek (124.13) (1994) : (63).
Kustec, Aleksander. “Unraveling the Mystery of Reality: Typical Canadian Elements in
the Short Stories of Alice Munro.” Acta Neophilologia (31) (1998) : 105- 114.