The Writing of Alice Munro

Alice Munro

Writing can often be considered a reflection. Sometimes authors resonate on certain experiences or aspects of their life, and express them through the art of writing. Alice Munro, a renowned short-story author, creatively displays this technique. It is important to first understand that Munro is a writer of fiction, yet her writing has chronologically progressed through situations and experiences in her own life. Being a Canadian native, Munro is often compared to great Southern writers such as Faulkner and OíConnor due to her ability to place her characters in confrontation with tradition. Because of her implicit style of writing, many readers can easily relate to the characters, settings, and plots of her stories. Through the use of complex characters, setting, ironic humor, and symbolism, Munro elegantly creates fictional short stories that easily survive in a non-fiction lifestyle.

Munroís characters are the backbone of her stories. One could assume that Munro first creates her characters, then delicately places the plot around them. In An Ounce of Cure, the main character recalls one of the most embarrassing moments of her adolescence, a crush she thought she would never get over, and how she has grown into a mature young woman in spite of it all. In an interview with renowned writer Graeme Gibson, Munro describes the feelings and expectations she encountered while growing up:

ìAs a child, I always felt separate, but pretty happy to be so. Then in high school,

Suddenly with puberty and everybody getting down to business - girls especially

Getting down to what their role would be - I began to feel terribly out of things and

in a way superficially unhappy ...

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...tinís, 2002. 487-488.

McMullen, Lorriane. ìShameless, Marvellous, Shattering Absurdityí: The Humor of Paradox in Alice Munro.î Probable Fictions: Alice Munroís Narrative Acts. Ed. Louis K. MacKendrick. Toronto: ECW Press, 1984. 354.

Munro, Alice. ìAn Ounce of Cure.î The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 6th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St.Martinís, 2002. 451-458.

Munro, Alice. ìPrue.î The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 6th ed. Ed. Micheal Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St.Martinís, 2002. 467-469.

Munro, Alice. Interview with Graeme Gibson. ìAn Interview with Munro on Writing.î The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 6th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martinís, 2002. 484-486.

Munro, Alice. Interview. Meanjin. 5 September 1995: 222.

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