“How I Met My Husband” by Alice Munro is a short story about Edie, a fifteenth year old girl, who works at Dr. Peebles and Mrs.Peebles house taking care of their children, cleaning the house, preparing the vegetables and occasionally baking desserts. One day they heard a plane pass by, and they ran into the yard to look. Their neighbor Loretta Bird mentioned that the plane was close to hitting their house and began to talk about the plane. She also specified that the pilot received permission to use the fairgrounds and give residents rides to see the neighborhood from above. The next day when Edie finished her tasks early, she sometimes would look at Mrs. Peebles’ clothes and even tried on a dress and put makeup on. She headed to the kitchen to drink ginger ale and gets startled by a man, named Chris Watters, standing outside the door. He mentions he 's the pilot of the plane and asks if he can obtain some water from the pump. He complimented and thanked her and left to the pump. After she rushed to take off the dress and wash her face before Mrs. Peebles arrived to the house. Mrs. Peebles commenced to ask questions about the man, but Edie contemplated on becoming fired if the man revealed how she dressed. After the Dr. and Mrs. Peebles departed to the theater, Edie ensured the children were sleeping then headed outside. She desired to talk to Chris to make sure he wouldn 't say anything about her dressed up. He assured he wouldn 't reveal anything and offered her a
Fay Weldon’s ‘Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen’ (1984) through the form of an epistolic novel, serves to enrich a heightened understanding of the contemporary issues of Jane Austen’s cultural context. In doing so, the responder is inspired to adopt a more holistic appreciation of the roles of women inherent in Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813). Due to the examination of the shift of attitudes and values between the Regency era and the 1980s, the reader comes to better understanding of the conventions of marriage for a women and the role education had in increasing one’s marriage prospects. Weldon’s critical discussion of these issues transforms a modern responder’s understanding of the role of a woman during the 19th century.
Alice Munro is a Canadian short story writer and Nobel Prize Winner. In her article “What is Real”, Alice Munro discusses the difficulty many of her readers seem to have in telling fact from fiction as she writes about her own fictional works. Her readers, she recounts, often ask her if she writes about real people, or real events, apparently unable to comprehend “the difference between autobiography and fiction” (Munro). However, by the end of her article on the subject, “What Is Real?” Munro admits that the imagination is one she herself often blurs. “Yes,” she writes, “I use bits of what is real, in the sense of being really there and really happening, in the world, as most people see it, and I transform it into something […] in my story” (Munro). In other words, Munro sees her work as a kind of fiction because she uses both reality and fact. This makes her work honest but yet not real at the
Alice Munro’s “How I Met My Husband” is a short story that takes the role of being a poignant tale. Munro 's story is told from the perspective of an older woman, Edie, overlooking a time in her life when she was about 15 years old. Munro purposely writes the tale this way to depict that the narrator has learned much from her experiences from when she was 15 years old. Munro does this to allow the reader to have deeper insight of the theme. In “How I Met My Husband” Alice Munro portrays the theme of "delusion and self-deception" by using an abundance of literary devices such as various forms of irony, characterization, and point of view. Munro is able to craft the emotional complexity of the story by utilizing the literary devices that are important to the creation of the short story.
Alice Munro’s “How I Met My Husband” uses the themes of secrecy and love just about throughout the entire story. In this story Edie is a fifteen year old girl who is employed by the Pebble’s family. She initially succeeds at
Now the story, “Day of the Butterfly” was written by Alice Munro and had a clear theme. The theme of this wonderful story was friendship. It showed how the main character became friends with a girl named Myra. In fact, we never learned about the main characters name but we do learn a lot about Myra. In the story, Myra is a lonely girl who has to hang out with her younger brother all the time because he doesn’t get along with the other boys. This is what separates Myra and her classmates. One day our main character confronts Myra and they quickly become friends. The main character of this kind-hearted story gives a Cracker Jack prize to her new friend. It was a glass butterfly. Now when you first read this story you immediately
Alice Walkers "Roselily" is a short story about a woman who is about to be married, but is having second thoughts about the marriage. She is also looking into the past and the future trying to make sense of what is happening. Roselily is being torn between choosing between her current or possible future Economic status, Societies view of her, her religion and her freedom. All these thoughts go through her mind as the wedding ceremony takes place, and she begins to wonder if she has made the right choice is marrying this man.
The story, “Runaway”, written by Alice Munro, suggests how human beings try to escape from their problems when they cannot manage them. The story tells how a girl in a bad marriage who unable to deal with it runs from the situation but later came back, refuses a chance of escape from her abusive husband. Even the goat Flora who cannot be fully tamed as an animal runs away and Carla is described as a girl who wants the attention from her husband that she does not get and runs away from him. Carla’s nature is like the goat Flora because they both escape from their situations. Munro shows parallels between Flora and Carla, which argues that Flora’s behavior mirrors Carla’s relationship with Clark.
In Alice Munro’s short story, Runaway, we are introduced to the main character Clara from the start. Through the introduction of the story, the reader may begin to notice the sadness that runs in Carla’s life. The exposition reveals the troubled marriage Carla is in. Munro demonstrates this by the characterisation of Clark, but most importantly, by Munro describing Carla’s actions when she’s with Clark. Carla would act joyful, walking into the living room “with a brisk step” and try her best to display affection towards Clark, but it never works out. When hugging him from behind she begins to cry. By Munro adding this detail into the story, one can assume that Carla’s sadness might be based upon Clark. However, Munro adds Carla’s denial to
Still Alice (Genova, 2009) is a captivating debut novel about a 50-year-old woman’s sudden decline into early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The book is written by first time author Lisa Genova, who holds a PH.D in neuroscience from Harvard University. She’s also an online columnist for the national Alzheimer’s association. Her other books include Left Neglected and Love Anthony. She lives with her husband and two children in Cape Cod.
Alice Bradley Sheldon, known under her pseudonym James Tiptree Jr., was an important contributor to science fiction literature in the 70’s. In her 1973 work “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” Tiptree examines a futuristic society with superficial obsessions and advanced technologies. In this society, traditional advertisement is forbidden. Companies found loopholes in this ban, using celebrities dubbed “gods” to promote certain products to the crowds with their stardom. They had significant influence, whatever they used, the people desired (Tiptree 213). These gods are conceived in an elaborate manner, using lab-produced bodies (Tiptree 207) known as Remotes to keep up an aesthetically sound image while real people act as the brain controlling
Alice Walker who wrote “The Welcome Table” had issues of race and gender that was the center of her literary work and her social activism. She participated in civil rights demonstrations. (Clugston 2010). This short story has a theme of life and death. It shows the plot of the story, the point of view and has symbolism used to show the death of the old woman and what the church members thought of her as a black woman. (Clugston, 2010, Section 7.1 and 7.2) Later in the story, she is walking up the road with Jesus, who came to get her and take her to The Welcome Table that she always
Alice Walker's short fictional story, "Nineteen Fifty-five", revolves around the encounters among Gracie Mae Still, the narrator, and Traynor, the "Emperor of Rock and Roll." Traynor as a young prospective singer purchases a song from Mrs. Still, which becomes his "first hit record" and makes him rich and famous. Yet, he does not "even understand" the song and spends his entire life trying to figure out "what the song means." The song he sings seems as fictional as certain events in this story, but as historical as Traynor's based character, Elvis Presley.
Every individual struggle with self-acceptance at some point in their life, furthermore, every individual chooses to exemplify their struggle to accept themselves in different methods. In the short story “Boys and Girls” Alice Munro focuses on the narration of a girl, in which girls are underappreciated in the society. The protagonist in the story cannot accept who she is, and it makes it harder for her as other individuals do not accept who she wishes to be. The author demonstrates this through the character’s external motivations. As the story is written in third person limited readers understand the girl’s personal thoughts and how she is internally conflicted about who she is. She feels underappreciated for the work that she provides which influences her to be disobedient to others around her. Alice Munroe’s short story “Boys and Girls” demonstrates to readers that individuals struggle for self-acceptance through the expression of their external and internal motivations. Because of their motivations, individuals feel rebellious against their self-conscience.
In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use” she creates a conflict between characters. Walker describes a family as they anxiously await the arrival of, Dee, the older sister of the family. When Dee (Wangero) comes home to visit Mrs. Johnson and Maggie, right away the readers see the differences in the family by how they talk, act, and dress. Dee has changed her name to an "African" name and is collecting the objects and materials of her past. Dee thinks that since she is in college she knows mores then the rest of her uneducated family. She is more educated and looks down on the simple life of her mother and sister. When Dee asks for a beautiful family heirloom quilt to hang on her wall, Mrs. Johnson finally denies her of this task. Mrs. Johnson finally sees that Dee does not want the quilt for the same purpose as Maggie does. Instead, Mrs. Johnson will give Maggie the quilt to keep her and her husband warm. The theme of the importance of heritage becomes clear at this point of the story. This theme is shown by Walker's use of conflict, irony, and symbolism. All throughout her short story she incorporates heritage. She describes it as a background feeling between family members, and African heritage to heirlooms that have been in the family line for generations. Dee the older sister takes her heritage for granted by only wanting her heirlooms for her educational purposes.
ven though the article is a difficult read and hard to comprehend at some points, the article is a valuable resource because the article is supported by a mountain of evidence, organized and Lynn Blin understand Alice Munro’s writing style. Lynn Blin understands the way Alice Munro’s writing style works with the underlying dark or “naughty” concepts of “Friend of My Youth”. The article does not only analyze the story itself but the writing techniques and the deeper meanings, or as the writer, Lynn Blin says the different narratives. Throughout the article itself, she goes into detail about the different narrators and how each narrator sees how the world works and the situations that the characters face. Blin mainly focuses on the words