Different Aspects of Life
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.
To begin with, “At first she had been Clark’s pet entirely, following him everywhere, dancing for his attention. She was quick and graceful and proactive as kitten, and her resemblance to a guileless girl in love had made them both laugh” (Munro 434) shows that when Flora was young she was close to Clark, follows him everywhere. Thereby situating the behavior of Carla which is like Flora when she was young and first left home. Carla was “giddy delight” (453) on spending “more authentic kind of life” (454) with Clark and decided to run away with him from her parents as “she had fallen in love with him” (449). She was impressed by his good looks and the works he had done in his life. Clark suggested that “Flora might have just gone off to find herself a billy” (439). Similarly, Carla’s escape with Clark indicates parallelism between Flora and Carla as they both escape to find a partner for them.
Furthermore, “Goats are unpredictable, Clark said. They can seem tame but they’re not really. Not after they grow up” (460). According to Clark not only animals but human beings also cannot be fully tamed. Flora was “Clark’s pet entirely” (434) “but as she grew older she seemed to attach herself to Carla, and in this attachment she was suddenly much wiser, less-skittish- she seemed capable, instead, of a subdued and ironic sort of humor” (434). Similarly, at the very first Carla was impressed with Clark. “Clark was very smart but he hadn’t waited even to
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
Fitting in is always an issue in the world of teenage girls and some girls have better outcomes than others. “Snow White” by Grace Hu is a story about a teenage girl named Mary who is an albino. Mary struggles to be accepted because of her scary white exterior. Also she has low self confidence from being teased by her peers. Mary also only has one true friend that begins to drift apart from her. Another story that deals with the issue of acceptance is the story “Red Dress”. “Red Dress” by Alice Munro is a story about a teenage girl entering her first year of high school. She fights to be accepted and decides to go to the school dance with her one friend Lonnie, despite her terrible clothes put together by her crazy
Equality between men and women is not always accepted in society. In the previous era, men were seen as the person who had the rights to rule over others and who could work outside the home. But the woman was seen only as a woman from home, she had the responsibility of taking care of the children, doing all household chores and her opinion was never considered. In Alice Munro story “Boys and Girls “, the narrator of the story is a girl who lives on a fox farm with her parents and a younger brother but her character is seen between the conflict with society and her desires because the difference of role that plays each genre.
Flannery O’Connor introduces her reader’s too unique short stories. They are “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, having too similar characters in different setting, but with the same symbolic meaning. The comparison between Hugla from “Good Country People” to the grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to find” is interesting, because they both suffer the same fate. In every short story O’Connor has created a intellectual individual who comes to a realization that their beliefs in there ability to control their lives and the lives of other are false. They enviably become the vulnerable, whereas they assumed it would be different. O’Connor has placed two misguide characters, that deem themselves to be manipulative and compulsive. At the end up of each short story they become vulnerable. Hugla from “Good Country People” and the grandmother from “A Good
In “Departures,” Storm Jameson depicts her isolation as a child and its continuation into adulthood. Behind the cold barriers that Jameson builds around herself in both her child and adult life, an unending cycle of fear continues within her. This cycle is reflected in the narrative structure of the anecdote. Jameson’s authorial choices to employ Labov’s elements in a disjointed fashion and have a brief complicating action reinforce her social detachment both as a child and an adult. Along with the disjointed narrative elements, an omitted coda and resolution convey that the detachment continues throughout her life in a cycle of fear and isolation.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story of a young girl’s journey down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world where there seems to be no logic. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice experiences a variety of bizarre physical changes, causing her to realize she is not only trying to figure out Wonderland but also trying to determine her own identity. After Alice arrives in Wonderland the narrator states, “For this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 12). This quotation is the first instance that shows Alice is unsure of her identity. The changes in size that take place when she eats or drinks are the physical signs of her loss of identity.
When we are adolescents we see the world through our parents' eyes. We struggle to define ourselves within their world, or to even break away from their world. Often, the birth of our "self" is defined in a moment of truth or a moment of heightened self-awareness that is the culmination of a group of events or the result of a life crisis or struggle. In literature we refer to this birth of "self" as an epiphany. Alice Munro writes in "Boys and Girls" about her own battle to define herself. She is torn between the "inside" world of her mother and the "outside" world of her father. In the beginning her father's world prevails, but by the finale, her mother's world invades her
“Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a slowly progressive disease of the brain that is characterized by impairment of memory and eventually by disturbances in reasoning, planning, language, and perception.” (Howard Crystal) In Health 1000 we were asked to read the book Still Alice. I have never dealt with or have done any study on Alzheimer’s disease before reading this book. After finishing this book it has really opened my eyes to how bad of a disease and how it cripples the mind. I never imagined the effect of this disease on a patient and the patient family. This book is about a upper middle aged lady named Alice who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and how she and her family learn how to deal with disease. One of the things this book
Many themes are explored when reading Lewis Carrol’s, Alice in Wonderland. Themes of childhood innocence, child abuse, dream, and others. Reading the story, it was quite clear to see one particular theme portrayed through out the book: child to adult progression. Alice in Wonderland is full of experiences that lead Alice to becoming more of herself and that help her grow up. It’s a story of trial, confusion, understanding, and success. And more confusion. Though others might argue that the story was distinctly made for children just to get joy out of funny words, and odd circumstances, the tale has obvious dynamics that confirm the fact of it being a coming of age story.
Outside forces do not have any long-lasting influence on how someone perceives themself. This is a notion that some individuals may choose to believe. However, through the events of one story, we come to realize that the prior statement is false. The nameless protagonist of Boys and Girls (1964) showed that as people, we can be created as somebody other than ourselves at our core because we fall back on the opinions of people whose views we regard too highly. Canadian author Alice Munro’s short story displays how an individual’s identity and realization of self is molded by the prominent role adversity plays throughout the course of their life because the contrasting values and ideologies of those around them conflict with their own moral compass.
I read How I Met My Husband by Alice Munro. This is a short story told in the first-person narrative. The theme of this story is a simple, but good one. The theme is love. Or to put it in broader terms, the theme could be described as while sometimes it may come from heartbreak, fate can bring is to the person we are meant to love forever.
“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why” (Vonnegut 76-77). There are notable depictions of a sense of entrapment among protagonists in works such as Alice Munro’s Dimension and Train. In these short stories, the central characters, Doree and Jackson suffer from a sensation of feeling trapped, due to their life experiences, which ultimately leads them becoming motivated to go onto the next chapter of their lives. There are overlapping themes and writing styles in each story, therefore accentuating the similarities between the experiences of Doree and Jackson, and bring the two stories closely together, evoking strong emotions and pathos within the reader. Thematically, Munro shows parallel ones in both Dimension and Train, with the most prominent ones being isolation, and relationships with family members and its affiliation with sexuality and gender. Munro’s writing style rings identical in both stories as well, as each one incorporates the use of flashbacks, once again implementing a way to compare the characters, as the flashbacks provide explanations for being emotionally confined. Lastly, a prominent technique used is the way in which each story ends abruptly, stimulating a response in the reader of wanting more to the story, as the endings both foreshadow a start to a new life, although Doree breaks free whereas Jackson seemingly follows his cycle as a result from feeling trapped.
In Alice Munro’s feminist story, “The Shining Houses”, she portrays that in society, straying from social norms and ideologies will distort the communities’ perspective conflictingly causing marginalization of nonconformists. Specifically, domesticity and the need for masculine protection are two critical criteria she uses to convey her theme.
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.
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