scholarly journals Before I Say Goodbye

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Iris Melanie Lucio-Villegas Spillard
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Alice Munro

Alice Munro published in 2012 her last collection of short stories, Dear Life, which includes “Finale”, a quartet of stories introduced by the author in semiautobiographical terms. The relevance of the themes addressed is, as may be inferred, significant in relation to her life and previous work. In fact, they echo her first two collections of short stories —Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) and Lives of Girls and Women (1971)— not only in motifs and events, but also in style. This paper analyses and compares this last section —Munro’s conclusive contribution to the literary world— with her early work to establish joint features and similarities in order to support and extend the often-claimed autobiographical dimension of Munro’s fiction from this unexplored perspective. In addition, this process of analogy has recognised the author’s literary and emotional closure in relation to her mother, a hitherto elusive endeavour in her work.

“The emotional housekeeping of the world”: Affect in Alice Munro’s and A. L. Kennedy’s post-millennial short stories

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-325
Author(s):  
Pilar Somacarrera
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Scottish Literature ◽  
New Humanism ◽  
The World

In his introduction to Scottish Literature and Postcolonial Literature, Michael Gardiner argues for bringing together these two separate bodies of texts which are intimately joined. Within the context of the “‘postcolonial’ spaces of Scotland and Canada” (Gittings, 1995: 135), in this article I offer a comparative reading from the standpoint of Sara Ahmed’s affect theory of the post-millennial short stories of A. L. Kennedy and Alice Munro, based on their shared belief in a transatlantic new humanism which privileges emotions.

scholarly journals Family Bond and Traumatic Pathology in Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 103-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Family Relationship ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Mental Depression ◽  
Different Types

Alice Munro (1931—), Canadian author and winner of the Man Booker International Prize in 2009, has written a number of short stories. “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” is a story of love, romantic affairs, family relationship, enigma of romance and psychological disorientation. The story reveals family bond through mental depression and physical inability, which, to a large extent, are traumatic. Munro’s presentation of human relationship and family bond gets a new dimension from psychopathological point of view. The story reveals a bizarre relationship between two unacquainted families, members of which suffer from two different types of trauma: psychic hysteria and physical immobility. Munro shows the effect of such frenzy on individuals as well as on societal connection. This paper attempts to illustrate, from psychoanalytic point of view, the nature of traumatic pathology and its testimony in the lives of individuals and how its outcome can be a major device in understanding human relationship. Stamford Journal of English; Volume 6; Page 103-113 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/sje.v6i0.13906

scholarly journals THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTICSIC DETAIL AS A FACTOR OF PROSE POETICALNESS IN THE SGORT STORIES OF THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AND CANADIAN WRITERS

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-24
Author(s):  
O. YEMETS ◽  
A. ZAKHARCHUK
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Flash Fiction ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Emotional Effect ◽  
Poetic Function ◽  
Final Text

The article considers the role and functions of artistic detail in the contemporary short stories. The investigation involved the flash fiction stories by the American writers written after the year 2020 and several short stories by the outstanding Canadian writer Alice Munro. The aim of the research is determining the major devices of prose poeticalness in these texts and revealing the role of artistic detail in creating poeticalness.Prose poeticalness is defined as such property of a prose text which involves the priority of poetic function and envisages the introduction of poetical features into prose – stylistic convergence, phonetical repetitions, parallelism, rhythm. Stylistic convergence can be considered the most foregrounded device of poeticalness as it involves the accumulation of different stylistic devices which add expressiveness to each other (M.Riffaterre). Our investigation shows that convergences function in strong positions of texts- the initial or final text fragments. Artistic detail is the object or some feature of the object which acquires special importance in the literary text (V.A.Kukharenko). Artistic detail is usually associated with metonymy or synecdoche, but unlike these tropes, it embraces the whole text. In the flash fiction stories and the short stories by A.Munro the major artistic details are objects like a coin (L.Wilson), a brooch (A.Munro), a glove (D.Shea) or a feature of appearance like a bruise (S.Dybek). These details characterize people’s behavior, their dreams and aspirations. Therefore, they symbolize love, friendship, sympathy and give polysemantic character to the narration. Another result of our investigation is determining the metaphoric detail (G.Paley) in the description of the woman, the mother of the defendant. Thus, the emotional effect of the artistic detail is realized in the metaphoric similes comparing the woman to the faded flower. These artistic details in combination with stylistic convergence create the impression of the texts as modern parables. The theoretical novelty of our research lies in the analysis of artistic details from the viewpoint of poeticalnees as well as in revealing the significance of emotional effect for prose poeticalness.The prospects of further research lie in the investigation of poeticalness in other genres of modern prose.

scholarly journals Theme of Isolation and Child versus Adult Feelings: Stylistic Analysis of Alice Munro’s Short Story “The Eye”

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-494
Author(s):  
Fozia Chandio ◽  
Zia Ahmed ◽  
Akbar Sajid
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Analysis of the stylistics features of any author has been very interesting technique to explore themes depicted by him/her. This paper examines a short story of Alice Munro titled ‘The Eye’, from stylistic perspective. ‘The Eye’ is the opening tale of the set of four stories, in a style of memoir that is titled as ‘Finale’. This set of four stories appears in her collection of short stories titled “Dear Life” (2012. ) The paper presents the stylistics analysis of the story keeping the stylistic approach in focus suggested by Leech and Short in Style in Style in Fiction (2007). The story is analyzed stylistically in terms of character and characterization, point of view and speech, thought and writing presentation. Stylistic study of any text effectively provides comprehension of the base of the text particularly and its evaluation generally (Peer 2008). In order to carry this out, the method of textual analysis of Qualitative research approach is conducted. The end of the analysis is to have a turnout of a deeper comprehension of the relationship between style and literary aesthetics in ‘The Eye’ by studying the stylistic patterns behind Munro’s narrative, in order to find out her creative approach. Paul Simpson maintains, “Stylistics serves to inquire into the language of the text and on a broader level to investigate creativity in the use of language (2004:3). The endeavor made in the paper explores that Munro has an ambivalent and complicated technique of presentation, both structurally and thematically. Here, the argument is that the stylistic analysis of the story reveals that Munro has high artistic approach towards the short story; she narrates the fiction with such an ambiguous approach that it welcomes more than one interpretations of the story.

scholarly journals A STORY OF HER OWN: MEMORY AND NARRATIVE IN SHORT FICTION BY MARGARET LAURENCE, ALICE MUNRO AND MARGARET ATWOOD

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (61) ◽  
pp. 408-428
Author(s):  
Carolina De Pinho Santoro Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Margaret Laurence ◽  
Strong Bond

The objective of this paper is to analyze the interplay of narrative, memory, and identity in short stories by Canadian authors Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. The three works explored in the article are narratives told from the perspective of characters who delve into their own past to make sense of their present, thereby revealing the strong bond between the act of remembering and the construction of one’s self.

scholarly journals Rola przestrzeni przedstawionej w powieści nowelowej

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-148
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Izdebska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Mechanical Element ◽  
The Many

This article focuses on outlining the function of the presented space in the novella novel as an element constituting its coherence. The term “novella novel” (adopted from Krystyna Jakowska and defined by Elke D’hoker) refers to literary works that are generically situated between a coherently composed collection of short stories and a loose novelistic structure. The following works will serve as the material for the analysis: Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk, Hotel World by Ali Smith and Girls and Women by Alice Munro. These pieces are structured and classified differently. The former two are referred to as novels, while the latter one is called by some critics a novel or a hybrid text that can be perceived as a novel. Ultimately, although sometimes used as an element that maintains coherence, the presented space is always meticulously crafted, and it does not appear as quasi-real or geographically located. It is always valorised, metaphorized and ambiguous. Thus, such a common setting is not a “transparent” or “mechanical” element that unifies these stories, but rather one of the many aspects of the process that constitutes coherence of novels constructed in such a way, which remains open to interpretation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document