DIMENSIONS

Critical Analysis:

DIMENSIONS 

 About Author Alice Munro

Canadian author Alice Munro is known as the ―master of contemporary the short story‖ (Wikipedia). She is the creator of contemporary short stories and has changed the definition of short story. Known as ―Canadian Chekhov‖ Munro won many literary awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.She won Canada’s Governor eneral’s award thrice in her life and received Man Booker Prize in 2009.

“Dimensions” was first published in The New Yorker on June 5, 2006. The story is about a young Woman Doree, who was always dominated by her husband and was unable to explore her individual identity, but who moves towards emancipation in an epiphanic moment.

Alice Ann Munro was born Alice Laidlaw on 10 July 1931 in Wingham which is located in the Canadian province of Ontario. Most of Munro’s stories are set in Huron Country in southwestern Ontario. Strong regional focus is one of the key features of her fiction.

Southwestern Ontario, surrounded on three sides by Lake Huron, is mainly an agricultural land. In the 19th century many large and small towns started to flourish there because of accessible boat transport and water- power driven mills (Atwood). The Donnelly’s Massacre1 in

Ontario had great impact on the people of this region. Violence, crime, subdued emotions – all these were part of south-west Ontario’s people’s lives and Munro’s stories were greatly influenced by these real life experiences.

Alice Munro has been writing fiction since she was in seven or eight grade. Her initial inspiration was the ―dreadfully sad‖ ending of Hans Christian Andersen’s story ―The Little Mermaid‖(Popova).So, when she finished reading that story, she decided to write another story with a happy ending. Because Munro thought that the little mermaid deserved something other than the death. As Margaret Atwood has noted, becoming a writer from a small town like southwestern Ontario, was really an unusual idea in 1930s and1940s.After all, even in the 1950s or 60s, there were only few text book publishers in Canada. Nevertheless, Munro never felt unsure of herself as a writer. As she notes, she was always an extremely devoted artist who knew her goal perfectly.

Summary:-

When I read Alice Munro’s ‘Dimension’ I feel like I’m standing at the edge of an ice shelf in Antarctica that is about to break apart and collapse into the icy waters, taking me along with it. I gather ominous signs; I hear deep rumblings, I feel the ice underneath my feet sway slightly but I have no idea what is about to happen until the very last moment when it happens.

 In this story, Munro deploys her formidable story-telling abilities to create and sustain a sense of foreboding right from the get-go to the climax of the story about halfway through the story (more on this unusual structure later). As a reader, I feel myself dragged inexorably along with the narrative arc of the story, reeled in inch by inch by Munro’s prescient ability to reveal just the right amount of information about her characters and their circumstances to sustain my interest in the story.

The main structure of the story is a little unusual in that the climax occurs approximately halfway through the story with the denouement taking up the final half. Given the length of the denouement, we can surmise that what Munro really wants to explore is not so much the events leading up to the climax but the aftermath of the climax. The climax in this story is a tragic event that involves the lives of the members a working class Canadian family; Doree, the wife, Lloyd the husband and their three children. Munro opens the story in the aftermath of the tragic event and very skillfully weaves in the events and circumstances leading up to the tragic event by intermittent flashbacks. Immediately following the climax of the story, when the tragic event is revealed, the story shifts to how the protagonists (Doree and Lloyd) deal with the fallout from their actions (or non-actions, as the case may be) that resulted in the tragic event. It is this exploration of how the protagonists deal with the consequences of their actions that is the emotional underpinning of the story. One of the things I’m amazed by with Munro’s story is her ability to condense the complex inner lives of her characters. Instead, we can sense Doree’s nervousness by the word games she plays in her head on the bus trip to the prison showing the description of the  inner psychological state of her characters. We also learn about Lloyd’s insufferable arrogance by the way he talks about medical professionals and the way he talks to Doree.

In the next paragraph, Munro introduces Mrs. Sands without really telling us who she is and her relationship to Doree but we can glean from the description of their interaction that she is acting as a counselor of some sort to Doree. Everything we’ve read up to this point seems to confirm that Doree must have done something wrong in the past and is trying to turn over a new leaf. At the very end of the paragraph, Munro deftly insinuates ‘death’ into the discussion and all of a sudden, the ante is upped. We know that someone, likely Doree had done something wrong, and a life had been taken. The foreshadows lengthen.

The next paragraph, the first of many flashbacks, fills in the backstory of Doree’s family mainly how she met Lloyd and married him. In this paragraph, we see early inklings about Lloyd’s character by the opinions he holds about medical professionals.

The end of this paragraph is where we see Munro’s genius at work. At first glance the last line of the paragraph, ‘Sasha was born’, seems to and does follow naturally from the description of Doree’s family life. But, given the ominous foreshadowing already at play and given what we know at this point, the fact that Munro ends the paragraph abruptly with that stark sentence and reverts to the aftermath narrative of the story leaves us deeply unsettled. The ante has just been upped again. We know that a. someone, possibly Doree had done something wrong b. a life was taken and now c. that life could possibly be a child’s.

The next paragraph finally dispels any suspicion about Doree’s culpability. We know that it is this person that Doree is spending hours on the bus for that is the guilty one (The first two times I never saw him…He wouldn’t come out.) We can probably already guess at this point that that person must be Lloyd. Throughout the story until the climax is reached, Munro continues to alternate between the present time frame in the aftermath of the tragic event and the time frame leading up to the tragic event. She also continues to fill out Lloyd’s character as an arrogant, controlling, chauvinistic know-it-all who detests people in authority especially if they are in the medical profession and especially if they are women.

Munro continues to turn the reader against Lloyd by leaking more and more details about his paranoid nature, going through Doree’s dresser looking for birth-control pills, berating Doree for spending time with Maggie. Munro also shows us Doree’s role in her marriage, as a long-suffering wife who has no other plan for her life than to be a good mother and supporter of her husband. She is willing to put up with his paranoia, his put downs, his criticisms, his smug pronouncements because she is scared of losing him, scared of losing the one thing in her life that held any meaning for her.

As in the following paragraph’s, Lloyd’s paranoia increased to a great extent, as he killed his own children.And may be for the first time in life Doree wanted him to be wrong, both emotionally and mentally, proving him, that he is the crazy one.

The story would of course not be complete without an exploration of Lloyd’s state of mind in the aftermath of his crime. Munro accomplishes this through a letter he sends to Doree. This is the point where Munro unearths perhaps the central irony of the story; that this monster, this pig of a man who murdered his own children, should be the one who receives the privilege of inner peace when Doree the long-suffering wife whose life was devastated by him is still in deep turmoil. As if that wasn’t enough, the irony continues in the second letter, when Lloyd becomes her savior as it were by showing her a way out of the morass of her emotional pain.

But thankfully, Munro gives Doree a way out. In dramatic fashion, she has Doree witness an accident and (thanks to Lloyd’s training) was able to save the life of the victim. Doree realizes from this experience that ‘she was put on earth’ not to just ‘be with him and try to understand him’. No, she has another role, to keep the boy alive. Yes, it is because of Lloyd that she is able to perform this heroic act but in this small act of saving his life, she stumbles on an alternative track for her emotional train that had Lloyd as a distant, magical destination that she will never arrive at.

Bibliography:
Bosman, Julie. “Alice Munro wins Noble Prize in Literature”, nytimes.com. The New York
Munro, Alice nytimes.com. The New York, npage. Web<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/06/05/dimension>
Panday, Dr.Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality”. The Achiever’s Journal 1.1(2015) npage. Web < theachieversjournal.com>

By Subham Dhar

Reg. 11204485

VOICES

Critical Analysis:

Voices

‘Voices’ is a short story by Alice Munro published in her collection of short stories- Dear Life. It is one out of the four stories in this collection that Munro describes as ‘not quite stories’. They are, she writes, "autobiographical in feeling ... the first and last – and the closest – things I have to say about my own life”.

Munro, a Noble Laureate has been titled by the Swedish Academy as the ‘Master of Contemporary Short Story’. Her works explore the tangles of relationships between men and women, small town existence and the fallibility of memory and deeply reveals human tendencies and flaws. She is also a winner of a number of prestigious awards in which International Man Booker Prize and PEN/Malamud Award are notable mentions.

‘Voices’ offers the reader a tiny crevice to peep into the life of the writer as a child with subtle references to her family life, the society and culture in the times of the Great Depression. The larger focus is though on the child’s inner network of thoughts, her innocent aspirations, her expectations from society and, quite possibly, her first experience of acute consciousness of the opposite sex. The story significantly focuses on her brief encounter with the notorious women of the city and her feelings of awe for the ‘bold as brass and yet mightily dignified’ woman.

The first person narration of the story allows the reader to enjoy a firsthand account of the writer’s life and to live the events of the story from writer’s perception. This also at some points helps the reader to identify with the writer, her instincts, her behavior, her experiences. The inception –

“When my mother was growing up, she and her whole family would go to dances…”

is suggestive of the reminiscent quality of the story and prepares the reader for a short stroll down the memory lanes of the writer. The first mention in this autobiographical work is of

the writer’s mother and her substantial interest in the dances that held in ‘schoolhouse’ or ‘farmhouses’. Munro’s description of her mother is exactly like a child would describe her mother – raw, authentic and honest with no embellishments or biases. She admits that her mother was not much liked by the people. The description of her mother gives a glimpse of the life of middle-class women in the time of Great Depression. Driven by desire, aspirations and a taste for life that is lavish, social and elite but restricted by financial meagerness, most women found themselves living an ordinary life with no or little interests to pursue. “She was living in the wrong place and had not enough money, but she was not equipped anyway. […]Like any other woman with washtubs to haul into the kitchen and no running water and a need to spend most of the summer preparing food to be eaten in the winter, she was kept busy.”

The story enlightens the reader not only about the condition of women but also the general condition of the society, of common people who dwelled in an ‘odd situation’. The story takes the reader back to the black period of world economy, namely – the Great Economic depression, a period of 1929-39 ,deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world, when millions of people lost their savings and their means of livelihood. As sources were meagre and incomes deficit, people reveled in the simple rustic means of enjoyment like dances ‘held in one of the altogether decent but not prosperous-looking houses on our road’. Also, people worked hard even in old age. It was a ‘disgrace’ to quit working and living on ‘old age pension’. The specific mention of ‘Doctor’s bills’ is also suggestive of the financial meagerness of the times and the plight of common people as it could ‘dreadfully fall upon a family’. These are some ‘questions that come to her mind’ about life in those times. She wonders why it was only her mother who she would accompany to the dances and why her father was left behind. But she quickly assumes some explanation putting an end to the presumed ‘puzzle’.

In the detailed layers of the story; the myriad list of things she describes in this memoir, Alice Munro- the child - stays centrally staged, almost alone and inwardly bent: an admission that is made many times during the telling of the story. Munro’s writing and her choice of words hint at the child’s loneliness and her supposed awkwardness in school. Her mother’s disappointment with her for ‘not bringing the right kind of friends, or any friends at all, home from the town school’, her ‘shying away from Sunday school recitations’ indicate Munro’s aloofness and introversion in her childhood: the qualities most writers in their childhood tend to exhibit. The child’s abhorrence towards and reluctance to go to the dance wearing ‘long sausage-like ringlets’ - which she disheveled on her daily commute - and her subsequent agreement because she ‘thought that nobody from school would be at the dance so it didn’t matter’ shows that ‘it was the ridicule of school fellows’ that she had most feared, again hint at the quite, solitary nature of the child.

The story advances to the main plot i.e. young Munro’s visit to the country dance with her mother. Again while reminiscing that time, Munro finds herself perplexed with many questions. She wonders if there had been a payment for attending that dance, or if people brought the refreshments even after paying as they were so poor. As the story progresses, the reader learns that Munro will keep hearing these ‘voices’ from the past throughout the course of the story, yet unaware about that one most significant reminiscence that she’ll cherish the most. Also these ‘voices’ from time to time recount the conditions of common people during that time and the reader learns how the normal life of people was in difficult straits after being hit by the economic crisis.

One major encounter takes place at this point which is a key juncture in the story – young Munro’s brief encounter with ‘a woman in that room you couldn’t help noticing’ ,the notorious woman from the town, supposedly a prostitute. Munro describes her superficies- a sight she calls ‘a startling sight’- with a keen eye embellished with awe-inspiring details about her attire, her hairstyle, her demeanor and her mannerisms. The young child is quite bewitched by the woman’s appearance and wonders how ‘somebody could look both old and polished, both heavy and graceful, bold as brass and yet mightily dignified’. Munro’s statements astonish the reader and offers an avenue to observe the simplicity of a child’s mind which is oblivious to the societal norms of morality and immorality. What would have seemed ‘brazen’ to an adult evoked feelings of awe in a child who better describes the woman as ‘stately’. Her admission of finding the woman ‘disgusting and dangerous and exciting and bold’ shows the kind of impact the woman had on her mind. The multiple use of ‘and’ shows child’s heightened amazement as she speaks with great fervor.

Another encounter follows which is the most important juncture in the story as well as in young Munro’s childhood through which the reader is offered an important insight into a child’s perceptions and aspirations. On her way upstairs, young Munro finds sitting on the stair steps two men and a girl, older than her-Peggy. Peggy is crying as she seems to be hurt by something and is being consoled by the two men in uniforms.

Munro recalls numerous occasions to show her lachrymal tendency at even trivial misfortunes- . I cried when chased and beaten with shingles on the way home from my first school. I cried when the teacher in the town school singled me out and thus is able to identify with the crying figure – Peggy. But what captures her attention is not the sight of Peggy, - So it wasn’t Peggy I was interested in, not her tears, her crumpled looks. She reminded me too much of myself- but the men consoling her- It was her comforters I marveled at. How they seemed to bow down and declare themselves in front of her.

Munro, who at several instances of the story, declares herself starved for companionship and warmth, is instantly fascinated by the kind, warm gestures of the men towards Peggy. She is almost surprised at their display of generosity, which is clearly expressed by the lines – ‘Such

kindness. That anybody could be so kind’. It also shows how emotionally deprived childhood the writer had experienced.

Munro also brings forth the general behavior of men towards women in those times and culture. Her confession - I had never in my life heard a man speak in that way, treating a woman as if she was so fine and valued a creature that whatever it was, whatever unkindness had come near her, was somehow a breach of a law, a sin’, clearly establishes the fact that the household in which Munro was brought up, women were not much valued by men who were not disposed to treat them with kindness and make them feel loved.

Munro is so touched by the warm, kind and generous words of the men, the way they try to assuage the crying girl, that she finds herself envious of her and longs to be the one to receive such a treatment to be “someone who rightfully should be petted, and pleasured and have heads bowed before her”, an admission made clearly in the story – ‘how wonderful to get on the receiving end of it, how strangely lucky and undeserving was that Peggy’.

The closing lines of the story provide an appropriate justification to the title of the story –Voices. Munro, a forlorn and lonely child, keeps the memory of those ‘voices’- the kind, affable words of the men- close to her heart to comfort her and mollify her at times she feels down in the dumps. In the cold dark of my bedroom they rocked me to sleep. I could turn them on, summon up their faces and their voices

She dismisses Peggy as ‘an unnecessary third party’ and emulates the voices to be directed towards her to pacify her. She imagines her own skinny thighs being blessed by the hands of the men. The use of words- In the cold dark of my bedroom, highlights her deep feelings of despair and loneliness but young Munro finds a temporary refuge in the warm bliss of the benevolent ‘voices’, something that ‘rocked her to sleep’ and assured that she, too ‘was worthy of love’.

Hence Alice Munro by this poignant narration of her own childhood reveals the intricate psychology of a child, her longing for attention and love. Her language and choice of words are successful in bringing the right mood and tone to the story. The flow is seamless and binds the interest of the reader who at many events is able to identify with her life experiences and in the end is left teary eyed at the child’s innocent confession of being deeply touched by the kindness of the two men and imaging herself as the one to receive their kindness. The story pulls at the heartstrings of the reader with its heartwarming descriptions and innocently conveys the message that it is love and kindness that a child needs the most.

Bibliography:

Munro, Alice. Dear Life. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2012. Print.
Munro, Alice. Runaway. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2004. Print.
Jones, Josh. “Read 19 short stories by Noble Prize winning writer Alice Munro”,
Openculture.com. Open Culture, 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2017
Bosman, Julie. “Alice Munro wins Noble Prize in Literature”, nytimes.com. The New York
Times, 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2017
Panday, Dr.Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality”. The Achiever’s Journal 1.1(2015)
npage. Web < theachieversjournal.com>

By Anukampa Sharma

Reg. 11404511

WENLOCK EDGE

    Critical Analysis: 

 Wenlock Edge

I remember “Wenlock Edge,” for it is one of those stories we have talked about before that seem to haunt us—especially that strangely unsettling scene when the narrator calmly sits in the nude and has dinner with an elderly man. Sandy asks if anyone can comment on the narrator’s emotion when she says she is on a course discovering her own wickedness. I think Sandy is right that an important element of the story is the narrator’s concern with what is real in life. For me, the issue has to do with a common theme in the short story as a genre—the blurring of the edge between reality and unreality—and a common short story technique of exploring this question in terms of the reality of unreality. The narrator is a student of literature. In fact, I suspect that only an English major would have willingly taken her clothes off for dinner with a strange old man primarily as a challenge to the charge, “So you’re just a bookworm. That’s all you are.” And indeed, she is a bookworm, that is, she primarily lives in books and makes adverse judgments on those, such as the two English majors who live downstairs, whose conversations and preoccupations seem hardly different from those who work in banks or offices. The narrator believes that one who studies literature should see reality differently than others. However, the narrator admits at one point that, except in examinations, she gets many things wrong. And the main thing she thinks she may have gotten wrong is, as Sandy points out, her notion that what she is doing—reading literature—is what is real, or at least teaches us how to see the real. The other characters in the story, she comes to realize, see reading literature as only a game. The narrator gets many of her ideas and expectations from reading. Her own experience with reality other than what she reads is sparse. For example, Nina’s story of her children, the death of one child, her life with Mr. Purvis, makes her feel like a simpleton. Still, the narrator thinks that Nina has no pegs on which to hang anything because she has not read about Victorian, Romantic, Pre-Columbian,

that she could not find on the map the many countries she has visited, and that she wouldn't know whether or not the French Revolution came before the First World War. When Mrs. Winner comes to pick her up for dinner with Mr. Purvis, the woman’s platinum hair certifies to the narrator a hard heart, immoral dealings, and a long bumpy ride through the sordid back alleys of life. When Mr. Purvis takes her to his library, she has a notion of the sort of story that few people ever get a chance to read, about a room called a library turning out to be a bedroom with soft lights, puffy cushions, and downy pillows. Obviously, the narrator’s knowledge includes not only high literature, but also pulpy, soft-core porn. When she is asked to read Housman’s “Wenlock Edge,” she feels comfortable, at peace with the familiar rhythms of the poem. She lives in fiction more easily than in phenomenal reality. So why does she willing take her clothes off? Because, as she says, it is a challenge, a sort of Bohemian dare, a gesture to show that she is not just a bookworm, but as daring as the women in the books with which she is familiar. She tries to assume the liberal, well-read, view that we are all naked under our clothes. For the moment, she sees herself as a liberated fictional figure, and does not worry that anything will happen to her. The fact that Plato is her favorite philosopher and that she likes his allegory of the cave is significant, for “Wenlock Edge” is filled with issues about what is real and what are misunderstandings, mere shadows, of reality. The fact that the narrator sends Mr. Purvis Ernie’s address, knowing that he will go round and fetch her away from Ernie, is less a wicked act than it is a tampering with the lives of others as if they were not real, but rather characters in a story that she feels free to manipulate around, as if they were puppets, shadows cast on the wall of Plato’s cave. The narrator, that is, the creator of the story we are reading, is wicked in the way that all writers of fiction are wicked—creating fictional characters, pretending they are real and then manipulating them mercilessly as merely fictional characters. At the end of the story, the narrator says she keeps learning things, such as the Uricon, the Roman camp, is now Wroxeter, a town on the Severn River. But such knowledge, although historically accurate, and what some new historicist critics nowadays would called “context,” is not as important as the more subtle, inchoate knowledge that the short story in general and Alice Munro in particular make their own.

Bibliography:

Pandey, Dr. Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality.” The Achievers Journal 1.1. (2015) .pag. web <theachieversjournal.com>

By Rahul Torlapati

Reg. 11401675

TRAIN

Critical Analysis:

Train is a yet another short story by Alice Ann Munro. She is a renowned

Canadian contemporary fiction writer whose splendid work is appreciated

from around the world. She is a Nobel Prize winner in Literature for her work

as “master of contemporary short story”. Her stories have revolutionized the

architecture of short stories. Her stories have said to “embed more than

announce, reveal more than parade”. Much of her work often exemplifies the

literary genre known as Southern Ontario Gothic.

The story Train basically revolves around the protagonist of the story,

namely, Jackson. It starts in a very unusual way as Munro’s stories are mostly

quite straightforward. It begins with Jackson jumping off a train and though it

was moving quite slowly, it ended up hurting him more than he expected.

After his disappointed landing from the train, he picks up his bag and starts

walking back in the direction he just covered on the train. He then realizes that

he is closer to a civilization then he realized, indeed, there is a woman out

milking a cow whose name is Margaret Rose. The woman turns out to be

Belle.

Their first interaction goes pretty well even though there were so many

different ways their interaction could have gone wrong. Instead, it is not even

all that awkward because Belle is a sweet, almost naive, woman.

Belle lives by herself, although that is a recent development. Her mother

passed away a few months ago after decades of needing a lot of physical help.

Her father has been dead for many years because he was hit by a train. He

used to take care of Belle’s mother, but once he died, the responsibility was all

hers.

She was also more or less supported by the Mennonites who live up the road.

The introduction of them is wonderful, as it is how Jackson sees them: “Over

the hill came a box on wheels, being pulled by two quiet small horses…. and in

the box sat half a dozen or so little men. All dressed in black with proper black

hats on their heads.”

Of course, these little men are the Mennonite children who look after her.

Jackson pities Belle, although she neither seeks it nor really deserves it. She

seems quite content with her situation. He decides to stick around and fix up

her house for her which is in bad need of repair. He imagines that he can work

for her for a few months and then maybe help the Mennonites a bit and then

continue on his way.

After several years, Jackson and Belle have settled down like brother and sister

which is pretty much a purely Platonic relationship. Interestingly enough, we

don’t really learn all that much about either of them. Although we certainly

learn more about her as she is the more talkative of the two, but there is

virtually no explanation of Jackson’s past.

Then, Belle finds a lump. Jackson convinces her to have the cancer taken out.

And they drive together to Toronto. On their way, Belle freaks out by the

highway and all of the city changes, from the time she used to live there, and

even Jackson is surprised by how much has changed since he was there last.

Someone tells him they ought to see Chinatown! Belle is nervous about the

operation, but he sits with her and tries to take her mind off of things which

works for a while.

But when she wakes up after the surgery, she seems different. No doubt it is

from the medication, but she is a little less proper, her reserve is down

somewhat. And she tells him what she believes is the real reason for her

father’s death.

This moment of bareness freaks Jackson out. And the rest of the story shows

just how much of a coward Jackson really is. The jump to the next section is

practically unfathomable as Jackson begins to make a new life in the city. It is

true that Jackson and Belle never had any kind of formal agreement and he

always planned to leave her, but it is shocking that he considers it.

After about two third of the way into the story, a new character is introduced.

And it almost feels like a new story. Until, that is, Munro links this new story

with the main story and it flashes out Jackson’s past and gives the whole story

an amazing amount of depth.

The story is really wonderfully told. It is a really strong short story. And the

title, which seems a little generic, really play a large role in the story overall.

Bibliography:

Pandey, Dr. Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality.” The Achievers Journal 1.1. (2015) .pag. web <theachieversjournal.com>

By Rudhir Shubhro 
Reg. 11406011

THE GRAVEL

Critical Analysis:

“THE GRAVEL” by ALICE MUNRO

The first part of the story recounts the narrator’s memory of her mother’s starting to dress like an actress and then telling her husband that the child with which she is pregnant belongs to Neal, an actor she has met. The mother’s motivation for leaving her insurance-salesman husband seems related to her desire to have a “freer,” more Bohemian, life than she has had in her conventional home. The central incident occurs after heavy rains have filled up the gravel pit and Caro tells the narrator to run back to the trailer to tell Neal and her mother that Blitzee has fallen in the water and she has jumped in to save the dog. The narrator runs to the trailer, but sits down outside before going in. When she does go in and the mother tries to get Neal to go to the gravel pit, he fails to do so. In the third part of the story, Neal does not attend Caro’s funeral. The mother gives birth to a child named she names Brent. In the final section of the story, the narrator learns that Neal is living near where she teaches, and her partner, Ruthann, convinces her she should go see him to help “rout her demons.” She discovers that Neal lives in a semi-respectable dump and buys his clothes from the Salvation Army—all of which he says suits his principles. He tells her how it happened—that he was stoned at the time and is not a swimmer and thus would have drowned also if he had tried to save Caro. She asks him what he thinks Caro had in mind on that day, as she has asked two others before. Her counselor has told her that perhaps Caro wanted attention to how bad she was feeling; Ruthann has said it was to make her mother go back to the father; Neal says it doesn’t matter, that maybe she thought she could paddle better or that she did not know how heavy winter clothes could be, or that there was no one close by to help her. The story ends with Neal advising the narrator not to waste her time, not to try to get in on the guilt for not hurrying up and telling that day. He then says:

“The thing is to be happy. No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It’s nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn’t believe how good it is. Accept everything and the tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens anyway, and you’re just there, going along easy in the world.” He then says goodbye.

In the last paragraph, the narrator says:

“I see what he meant. It really is the right thing to do. But in my mind, Caro keeps running at the water and throwing herself in, as if in triumph and I’m still caught, waiting for her to explain to me, waiting for the splash.”

Bibliography:

Pandey, Dr. Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality.” The Achievers Journal 1.1. (2015) .pag. web <theachieversjournal.com>

By Onkar Singh

Reg. 11407515

VOICES

Critical Analysis :

“Voices” by Alice Munro

In “Voices” by “Alice Munro’’ , the basic plot of the  story revolves around  Munro attending a local dance with her mother and coming across a female prostitute and one of her girls. Two men from the air force were seen comforting the girl and stroking her thigh on the stairs. At this point, the story has a tantalizing description of a young 10-year-old Munro’s adolescent introduction to the world of sexuality.

“Voices” was more like the mind simply thinking of an incident in the past, describing it and then leaving it for the thought of another. We feel in the beginning that the story deals with the relationship that Munro shares with her mother. Munro’s mother has been shown as a character who was never really happy with her position or status in the society. She tried all her methods to appear higher that what she originally was.

            “She said things like ‘readily’ and ‘indeed so’. She sounded as if she had grown u in some strange family who always talked that way. And she hadn’t. They didn’t. Out on their farms, my aunts and uncles talked the way everybody else did. And they didn’t like my mother very much either.”  

It is only later in the story that we realize that it was the introduction of Alice to the sexual world and her emergence from her innocent phase.

In the story, when she encounters a prostitute, she has no idea of what a prostitute is, yet she senses that there is something scandalous in the way everybody was behaving, especially her mother. Her mother asks her to leave immediately but when she goes upstairs to get her coat she sees the girl sitting with two Air Force men trying to comfort her. This is a memory that she senses and carries with her through her life.

            “Their hands blessed my own skinny thighs and their voices assured me that I, too, was worthy of love”.

Munro ends the story at an unexpected note wherein she talks about the young men who left the town for war. Some of them even died and those were the ones who were gone forever. This moment is the key to the story.     

            “And while they still inhabited my not yet quite erotic fantasies they were gone. Some, many, gone for good.”

Bibliography:
Munro, Alice. Dear Life. New York: Vintage, 2004. Print.
Pandey, Dr. Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality.” The Achievers Journal 1.1. (2015) .pag. web <theachieversjournal.com>

By Akanksha Sharma

Reg. 11405093

FICTION

Critical Analysis:

FICTION (Alice Munro)

1. The beginning of the story portrays a fascinating and optimistic appeal

to the audience through the understanding and comprehensive

relationship of Jon and Joyce. The hard working nature of both the

partners shows the struggle and intensity to utilize their life to live to full

extent.

2. The union of the couple was quite an immature decision to see off their

college and start a living. Not having a fixed job, deciding to get married,

was certainly childish. This very act also shows the lack of involvement

of the families in the personal life of their kids. Had there been a

emotional touch with the family, they would have thought many a times

before taking such decision.

3. The so called fairy tale ‘LOVE’ between Jon and Joyce turned out to be

mere infatuation which is common in college days. Jon being impressed

by a lady, Edie, his apprentice shows the weaker part of relationship

between Jon and Joyce. Love is sacrificial. If there would have been love

between the two, absolutely no chance of the third person coming in,

would take place. It reflects the momentary shift of attraction can cause

a life changing decision.

4. Some do drugs, some live a plain life and some may be different, but in

the end we look up for a tiny space, may be a hole, which hides us from

the terrible world’s reality. Joyce tried to do the same. After rejection

from her husband she tried various ways to get her life back to normal

or make herself busy as to get over the past, but couldn’t. Finally, she

marries Matt to stabilize her life and cherish some better moments in

her life. Here as well, the relationships are made a joke. Matt, having

married thrice and their sons and daughter mixing up as who belongs to

whom creates a satirical situation. The whole situation is based on

‘instability of thoughts’.

5. ‘Fiction’ by Christie O’Dell was read by Joyce very curiously and with full

interest. This shows that, still a part of her mind and her heart belongs

to her past. Joyce never knew that the girl she dropped each day teaches

in the school, was the daughter of her husband’s girlfriend. She spent

time with her at ice cream parlour and during the returning hour. After a

long time and having read the story, Joyce was emotionally touched and

greeted Christie with fascinating present.

Bibliography:
-Munro, Alice.Runaway. New York: Vintage, 2004. Print
-Pandey, Dr Sanjay Prasad. ”Beauty: Illusion or Reality”.
The Achievers journal 1.1(2015) n.pag.web
<theachieversjournal.com>

By Aman Kaushik

Reg. 11405643

TO REACH JAPAN

Critical Analysis: 

In the story “To Reach Japan” Alice Munro writes the story of a married woman named Greta including very little details of her life. She goes on describing about the works and expectations of a female poet at that age.

In this critical analysis I will analyse the setting of the story, the characters, their decisions and consequences and the vivid depiction of the overall story along with the quotes from the story.

The story starts with a departure and ends with an arrival. In the story Alice starts with Greta’s present and work on Peter (her husband) ,Peter ‘s mother and her past as well, continuing to tell about her desire to explore more for herself and she commits adultery and suffers guilt. The write leaves the reader in wonder and amazement at the end of story as well.

The story starts with “Once Peter had brought Greta’s suitcase on board the train he seemed to get himself out of the way.”, telling the reader that Greta and young daughter Katy are on the train, heading to Toronto for the summer looking out to husband and father Peter as he waves and smile. I find out that Peter is one of those slightly wavers type who avoid intimacy if it also means avoiding a potential, spontaneous problems, even minor ones. I loved how Peter is described as loving his child: “as if he believed that she would continue to be a marvel to him.” Peter was born in Soviet Czechoslovakia, his mother has carried him to west as a baby. Munro tells: “She bought up Peter on her own and sent him to university and now he was an engineer.” This shows the love and devotion of Peter’s mother for her child and “That was her way. She carried not noticing to an extreme. Not noticing, not intruding, not suggesting, through in every single household skill or art she left her daughter-in-law behind” shows that she had a different nature. This also tells that she is better than Greta in household chores but she likes very simple life and is not noisy. This is last appearance of Peter’s mother in the story. As Peter is going up north, and there are no accommodations for his family. Rather than spend the summer alone Greta decides to go to Toronto to housesit a friend’s house who will be spending the summers in Europe but Greta’s choice to go to Toronto is based on more than a desire for a change of scenery. Greta’s personality is a puzzle because it doesn’t fit into the life she has. She’s a poet but is not very famous, but for her Peter is bland husband. She holds herself back in front of Peter and Katy. She desires more than herself. In fact it was Greta’s role an s a poet-coupled with her unit’s insecurity that saved the seeds for this trip. A few years earlier she had been invited to a party for a Toronto based magazine that has published two of her poems. Greta attended the culturally elite party where she doesn’t fit in. She takes public bus where all other having cars. She is not even warmly welcomed to the party: “greeted was the wrong word.” Greta flounders at the party. She reacts by getting smashed and she flounders even more. “People’s eye slid around her and then they went on with their conversation. They laughed. Everybody but Greta was equipped with friends, wolves, half-secrets, everybody appeared to have found somebody to welcome them.”  Both anxious to be seemed and frightened by the idea of being seen, Greta doesn’t feel any more satisfied by her life as a poet/poetess than she does by her life as wife/mother. In the party Greta gets drunk and is helped out by a totally stranger who is named Harris Benett. He is a column writer and son in law of the person who invites Greta in the party. Before dropping Greta to her door Benett says that he is married and that he wanted to kiss Greta but he decided not to do so which puzzles Greta very much. “She thought he was saying that there was something about her that didn’t quite measure up to being kissed. The mortification was like being stopped clean back into sobriety”, this shows that Greta isn’t happy with Benett’s decision of not kissing her and in the coming year she can’t stop thinking and dreaming of him, during the coming fall and winter and spring there was hardly a day when she didn’t think of him. There really wasn’t a day. “She had a husband and a child but she still wrote a letter addressed to Harris Benett writing.” Writing this letter is like putting a note in a bottle and hoping it will reach Japan. Greta thinks that it will be a very thin chance of the letter to reach to Benett and him coming to see her at the station. As Greta gets drunk without thinking about consequences it seems that she’s quite irresponsible and desperate.

In the train, the next day morning after breakfast they go to dome (Greta and Katy) and their they start reciting stories. There they meet Greg and Lausie, unusual sleet and lean. These two people are very charismatic and in display of their charisma, they began to caw, warble and do strange sing songs to entertain Katy. After this they find the train’s children’s playroom and entertain all the children they can find. First drawing attention to himself, Greg turns the attention of the children to each other as he is encouraging role playing exchange games. Lausie says, “He doesn’t save himself up.” Greg is always giving himself out and collision of such a character with insular Greta makes her getting attracted to him.

After the play session, Greta takes Katy to their compartment so child can nap. Greg comes along. Greg and Greta get drunk and they start touching and kissing each other. Greta forgets all about Peter, Harris Benett and she first goes with Greg and involved with him. They both know that this is just one time thing. Also Greg is younger than Greta, in her lust she forgets about Katy until she goes back to berth and finds that Katy is gone. She then suffers with the guilt, “She went stupid, she yanked the pillow as if a child of Katy’s size could have managed to cover herself with it.” She loses her control and become emotional thinking of consequences of little Katy.

“And there, between the cars, on one of those continuously noisy sheets of metal-there sat Katy. Eyes wide open and mouth slightly open, amazed and alone. Not crying at all, but when she saw her mother she started.” –Greta finds Katy alone and her expressions frightened her. She consoles Katy and takes her back to seat. “This is so terrible, her thoughts of what might happened so terrible.”- Greta realizes her mistake and for first time she sees Katy with that much motherly love. She finds rest of time stuck with Katy, never leaving her. When Greg gets off the train he is received by his parents and Greta waves his bye and Katy doesn’t wave at all. Greta thinks may be Katy is upset with Greg for leaving them. Anyway the journey comes to an end and Greta comforts Katy that they are going to be safe and fine. Greta feels that she has been a traitor of Peter and Katy by just thinking of herself, her poetry and her fantasies. She decides to stop being stupid-“That work stuck her now as traitors-to Katy, to Peter, to life.” “A sin, the inattention cold hearted foraging attention to something else that the Child A sin.”

They arrive to Toronto in the middle of the morning and as they get off the train, they watch other people receiving people getting off the train. “To be claimed by the people who

 were waiting and who called out their names, or who simply walked up and took hold of their suitcases.” Both Greta and Katy are surprised when “As someone now took hold of theirs. Took hold of it, took hold of Greta, and kissed her for the first time in a determined and celebrated way.” It’s revealed that it is Harris and that he has received the letter and has come to take Greta with him.

“She was trying to hang on to Katy but at that moment the child pulled away, she got her hand free”, this shows the shock faced by Katy and her reaction to her mother being kissed by another man. Greta and Katy both are transfixed at their positions, just not to able to think of their future. “She didn’t try to escape; she just stood down east, waiting for whatever to held next.”-these ending lines leave the reader in amazement as to what could have happened next.

The title of the story “To Reach Japan” is justifies as in the climax of the story Harris actually shows up, which means that the letter actually makes to him, it seemed difficult but it happens all the same.

On analysing the story it seems that in her desperation Greta does an unfair deed to Katy and Peter. She goes adultery when travelling with daughter. And just after this she meets Harris again. Her character shows the real life dilemma of middle class women, very nicely depicted by Alice Munro .Greta cannot make her mind about men. On one hand she wants to rescue by them, but she shies away from anything that smacks of a conventional relationship whereby she might get trapped.

In the whole story we do not come across the past of Greta expect one party in which she meets Harris, this leaves us wandering about Greta. Also her decision shows that she is unable to take her stand and at the very end also she’s just waiting for someone to take action. In all of her fantasies, she forgets about real life and her responsibilities. Overall a story worth reading and thinking about

Life and women, their desires and consequences by Alice Munro.

Bibliography: 
1. Anonymous. Book Reviews. < http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/2012/11/13/alice-munro-to-reach-japan/>

2. Munro, Alice. Runaway .New York: Vintage, 2004.Print

3. Pandey,Dr.Sanjay Prasad.”Beauty”.Illusion or Reality. The Achievers Journal1.1 (2015) n.pag.web<theachieversjournal.com>

4. Alice Munro. Dear Life. New York: Vintage, 26th 2004.Print

By Deepa Paikar

Reg. 11401920

FICTION

Critical Analysis:

Alice Munro is a well known Canadian short story writer. She is also a noble prize winner. She was born on 10 July 1931 in Wingham, Canada. Alice Munro’s father was a mink farmer. Alice Munro’s mother was a school teacher. Alice Munro had a passion of reading and collection of stories and she began writing short stories in her teenage. She studied journalism at university of western Ontario, and while studying she wrote her first book named as “The Dimesion Of Shadow”. She studied in the university under a two year scholarship program. Her financial condition was not good at that time so she used to work as a waitress, a tobacco picker and library clerk. After completing her college she married to a friend of her and moved to Victoria. There they opened a book store named as Munro’s books. Munro is the thirteenth women to win noble prize for literature. She had raised her work in a variety of ways. Many of her stories have been republished with variations. Also her books have been written in many other languages. Most of the stories written by Alice Munro has been set in her native place Ontario and a story named “Fiction” is one of them. Her writing skills is so effective that readers gets influenced and see the stories through the perspective of the author.

Summary:

“Fiction” by Alice Munro revolves around Joyce’s life dealing with her past events and situations. Jon and Joyce met each other at an urban high school in Ontario. Jon was the most intelligent guy amongst all his classmates. Joyce had a keen interest in music and she was expected to be a good performer in violin. In the first year of college Jon and Joyce

fall in love with each other and ran away. To earn their livelihood and satisfy daily needs money became an important issue. Also finding a job was difficult for both of them as they were not much qualified that is required for a good job. They started working at minimum wage which was disappointing for them. They had to travel across the continent for job but still there was money issue and had to compromise with their living standard. They lived a very simple life, dressed conservatively, drink homemade wine. Going through such phase of life they both became tierd and had to borrow money from their families. Jon learned carpentry and wood working. Joyce studied music and got a degree that made her eligible to teach music. Joyce got a job as a music teacher in Rough River School. They both entered a new phase of their life. Apart for their jobs they decided to plant gardens and they started making bead necklaces and herb sachets to sell in order to have extra earning. They also tried to build a friendly relation with their neighbours. Joyce also enjoyed a lot teaching music to the children. It almost becomes dark everyday for Joyce while returning home from. Joyce enjoys each and every moment. While returning home Joyce used to drive her car across the forests. There were people living in every quarter mile or so. Some people lived in rental houses and some have build their own houses but Jon a Joyce were still renovating their old farmhouse which had unfinished kitchens, uncurtained doors and windows. Jon was tall, dark and bright eyed, egoistic but had a calm nature to listen and respect people. It was a time when people were just getting used to computers and had an urge to understand about new technologies. As Jon was the most intelligent guy so all his neighbours would come to him and want Jon to make them

understood. Jon also patiently explains each one. Jon worked all day in his shed and when it began to get dark, he would send his apprentice and start working. Jon disliked people saying about his work with woods and carpentry. Jon and Joyce were living a normal happy life. They cooked together and talked about all the frustations and comedy of the day. Jon was not much talkative. A turning point came in their life when Jon started liking Edie. Edie is john’s apprentice. Day by day Jon was attracted by Edie. Her physical appearance and character made Jon crazy. Edie was not at all talkative and was very much focused to her work. She quickly learned what she was taught about wood working. Edie was also recovering from alcohol and drugs. Edie was doing all these just to provide a good life for her child. Jon was falling in love with Edie, knowing all these Joyce tried to convenience him but Jon was not in a mood to listen and her efforts were in vain. Both of them decided to move on separately. Now Jon was living with Edie and their children in that house. Joyce moved to an apartment in town. Joyce married Matt. Matt is a neurologist and also a very good violinist. Joyce was Matt’s third wife. Matt lost his first wife in a car accident as she had a brain damage. Matt and Sally had a son named Tommy. Matt’s second wife was Doris. After sally’s death Doris was there to take care of Tommy. Matt and Doris failed to continue their relationship and separated in less than a year. Her life was completely changed. She laughed at everything and flirted with everybody in music school. There was a competition in music school and Edie’s daughter was there to perform and Joyce expected Jon and Edie to come and watch her daughter’s performance. Christie O‘Dell was Edie and Jon’s daughter. Christie did her graduation from UBC

Creative Program. Christie O’Dell is married to Justin. Tommy liked Christie. Christie is a book writer and she has published a book named How Are We To Live. Joyce kept herself busy with the children to relax herself. She used to spend time with them.

Bibliography:

Panday, Dr.Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality”. The Achiever’s Journal 1.1(2015)

npage. Web < theachieversjournal.com>

By Nil Kamal

Reg. 11408871

DEEP HOLES

Critical Analysis:

Alice Munro is a Canadian writer considered the modern master of short stories who had won the Nobel Prize in literature this year.She wanted to write novels like all the people wanted in that years, but she didn’t had enough time because she had little child who took the most part of her time. She notice she wouldn’t have enough time to write a novel so she started writing short stories in her free time. She started writing as a teenager in Wingham, Ontario, the place where she grew up, and she was able to finish her stories in 1 month or 6 weeks because she had to do what a mother is supposed to do. She was married to James Monroe for 25 years had two daughters and moved to Victoria DC and won three awards. When her first marriage ended she moved back to Ontario, where she get married again and continued writing short stories. Her stories are about the life and the relationship between a mother and her daughter because when she was young she had a strong bond with her mother, who had an illness which is probably the responsible of that strong relationship.

Summary:

Deep Holes is the story of a family who went camping in Alex honour because of publishing his first solo paper. They went to Osler Bluff and they found a place to park cars with no cars in these moment in which were a sign with “Caution. Deep Holes.” They walked into a forest where they found deep chambers. Once they had already eaten, the kids, Kent and Peter went to pee, and after a few minutes, Peter returned crying because Kent had fallen into a hole. When his father could take him out, they drove to the hospital because Kent had broken both his legs. He couldn’t go to the school

the next six months so he made some Extra Projects. In one of them he had to write about one

place. Sally, his mother told him about some remote islands that nobody talked about. Before

the accident he seemed to be more mature than other kids of his age. When he got to high school the relationship with his father improved. But after six months he left school and went working to a Canadian Tire in a suburb. His parents told him to

go back school but Kent refused. One day he left and didn’t said where he was going to. After three

years he sent a letter from California in which he said that he didn’t want to get stuck into a

job and that he want to see world.

Sally thought that Kent was in one of the islands that she mentioned to him, and she realized that she didn’t known so much about them, so she started to investigate. One day Alex went to the hospital for an operation, but when he was supposed to go home he died.

One day Savanna, Sally’s daughter, called Sally and asked if she was watching TV because she had just seen Kent helping in an accident. Savanna started investigating and she discovered that Kent had been living in Toronto for years. They get in touch with him and Sally decided to meet him. When he finally met they went to Kent’s house and talked about what have been doing since he left home. Sally realized that Kent had another way of seeing things.

Here author showed his willingness about the relationship that is there with every

family. Yes, Kent turned into a mature person that quite interesting cause as we know ‘Experience comes with bad decisions and good decisions comes with bad experience.’ Here as like that Kent changed a lot, for him it is totally different from others to see the world while other have a different corner for seeing the world. The story is quite interesting for describing a complicated relationship and hardships came to Sally while living her life with her daughter but the ending of story came up with a happiness of finding the Kent and leading happy life.

Bibliography:
Panday, Dr.Sanjay Prasad. “Beauty: Illusion or Reality”. The Achiever’s Journal 1.1(2015)
npage. Web < theachieversjournal.com>

By Partha Sarathi Padhi

Reg. 11404568

Let Go...

According to Steve Maraboli - "Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny."

It's always easy to say, "Let it Go" , but the person who always let it go, feels the real depth of his or her feelings or sadness.We generally try to overcome or ignore our emotions which is really quite hard for us. But it is really required to move on for being normal.We suffer, even I suffered many times from the sorrow of our emotions & deeds.

Telling "Let it Go...", is just like taunting others,that you cannot be hurt by any sorrows which is an Universal Lie.Because no human in this world is inevitable of Sorrow or Happiness,Love or Hatred.

So Friends instead of saying someone just "Let it Go...", just listen to him/her their problems, if possible tell some solution, otherwise explain them about the good things, so that they could really "Let it Go..." & if possible, just give them Hug or be affectionate (if possible).

Give Time to Yourself for "Letting It GO"

Guys, those who are suffering from any sadness, just don't allow others to taunt it,just don't remain silent among the Bullies/taunting, because you only have some choices against these taunting,

• Either react hard (both Violent & Non-Violent) -> Has great effect upon our & others LIFE...resulting in uncertain Death/Depression/Frustations.
• Ignore -> It also has great effect in our & others Life,most of the time (Sadness/Loneliness/Suicide),

So Guys just confront it, ask the guy/girl what is his or her problem with your emotions, but in a non-violent way.And ask him in such a manner that they Guy/Girl should think more than one time before taunting others.

So, Friends just a Piece of Advice:

"Be a DILIGENT Guy", 

before doing any Above Act, because lastly 

"The choice is Ultimately Yours..."