Alice Munro Imagery

770 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Feminism in the works of alice munro

Throughout Alice Munro’s short story, “Wild Swans”, bird imagery reflects Rose’s metamorphosis from an innocent, insecure child into a desirable young woman, like a guarded young chick taking flight for the first time, becoming a beautiful wild swan. In this story Rose is a sheltered young girl who desires independence, beauty, and excitement. Through repetitive bird imagery, Munro shows Rose’s personal growth and the struggle between her innocence and wild, animal desires. Bird imagery was used in the beginning of the story by the worried Aunt Flow to warn Rose of the dangers of the world. Intense moral upbringing was ingrained in Rose’s head by Flow, who is portrayed as an over protective mother bird. Like a mother bird, flow is afraid …show more content…

Rose uses bird imagery to describe this momentous trip to Toronto as a way to free herself. Being her first time traveling across country, she expresses fascination and joy as she watches the seasons change like a bird during migration, even noting the excitement of feeling “West Hanratty flying away from her” (Munro 189). Rose is intrigued by beauty, independence and transformation. She feels the need to groom herself into something lovely and desirable. This desire for change is shown by her list of items she wants to buy to make her lovely. She feels that these items could “transform her, make her calm and slender, take the frizz out of her hair, dry her underarms and turn her complexion to pearl” (Munro 189). In a sense, Rose wants to make herself a “swan amongst geese” (Munro …show more content…

“The gates and tours of the Exhibition Grounds came into view, painted domes and pillows floated marvelously against her eyelids ‘ rosy sky. Then flew apart in celebration. You could have had such a flock of birds, wild swans, even, wakened under one big dome together, exploding from it, taking to the sky” (Munro 193). The imagery was used here to reflect on her desire for freedom, the imagery of birds bursting into the sky when she orgasms shows the freedom she feels as she begins to set her fears aside, gives into her wild animal instincts, and become a woman. In this scene Rose throws aside all Flows teachings and her moral hangups as she finds pleasure in disgusting things, and gives into her carnal desire to be touched. After the experience passes, Rose doesn't regret her actions. Although the reality sets in and she sees the man without rose colored glasses, she shows excitement, and joy that she had transformed in her mind, becoming a different woman in the same

Show More
Related

  • Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Without Wood”, Rose Jordan was unable to find a balance between herself and her need to please everyone around her, especially her husband, Ted. Her mother believed that Rose was lacking the element Wood, translating into the fact that Rose ...

    Read More

  • Dorianne Laux’s “Bird”

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.

    Read More

  • Roselily

    442 Words  | 1 Pages

    Alice Walker’s “Roselily”, when first read considered why she decided to use third person. Especially when the story is in such a private line of thought, but then after my second time reading the story I decided that Roselily would not be a strong enough woman to speak about the social injustices that have happened to her. One key part of the story is her new life she will be facing after she is married in Chicago, while comparing it with her old life she is leaving in Mississippi. In Chicago she will no longer have a job, but instead be a homemaker where she will be responsible for the children and home. Also, in Chicago she will become a Muslim because it is what her new husband will want her to be, but back in Mississippi she was of the Christian faith. One of the more positive outcomes of her marriage is that she will go from extreme poverty, to not having to worry about money on a day to day basis.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Individuality In Sylvia Plath's Initiation

    953 Words  | 2 Pages

    This realization stems from a number of events that occur throughout the story, but Plath’s usage of symbolism with the heather birds encapsulates this idea in the best manner possible. Millicent’s first chronological encounter with the heather birds is with a man at the back of a bus, the setting for one of the aforementioned trials. When asked by Millicent what he had for breakfast, he simply replies with "Heather birds' eyebrows”, heather birds being creatures that “live on the mythological moors and fly about all day long, singing wild and sweet in the sun…” (Plath something). Her reaction to this is a fit of laughter and a newly found comradeship that overpowers her fears of “the remainder of the humiliating tasks put upon her during the initiation process, because she truly does not mind being an “other.”” (Yasoni something). This disconnect from the sorority only continues to grow through the story until the end where she compares the sparrows she observes to the heatherbirds. Her description of the sparrows, “ pale gray-brown birds in a flock, one like the other, all exactly alike” (Plath a page) is a representation of the sorority girls, a herd of characters who do not care for freedom, individuality or any form of expression that deviates from their standards. This is contrasted with her description of the heather birds, “Swooping carefree over the moors, they would go singing and crying out across the great spaces … strong and proud in their freedom and their sometime loneliness” (another quote please). The man and the heather birds allow Millicent to accept her differences and the differences of others in order to be a happy and free being. This final development provides an optimistic conclusion to the story, where Millicent is no longer held back by her

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Winter Dreams And The Great Gatsby

    1333 Words  | 3 Pages

    She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: "An absolute rose?" This is not true. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house” (F. Scott Fitzgerald 14).

    Read More

  • Roses in Fairy tales: Traditional Belief vs. The Language of the Flowers.

    1742 Words  | 4 Pages

    These definitions of this age old symbol, the rose, evolved over time as cultures came into contact with what has now called the Language of the Flowers. This “language” first appeared in the East and was used as a form of silent communication between illiterate women in harems. During the Victorian era this form of communication began to move towards Western Europe. The first compilation of this language was written in French and then was later translated into English. (Seaton, ).The Victorians used this new method of communication to express love, sorrow and much more through the flowers that they cultivated and bought. This language of flowers or rather the use of flowers to symbolize different messages can certainly influence a story if one has knowledge of this method and chooses to interpret it in this manner.

    Read More

  • Rose Blanche By Robert Innocenti

    727 Words  | 2 Pages

    First of all, Roses uses phrases that only a child would use. In the text, it states “Broken toys. I like the color of the river. It looks like the sky.” (5) This statement tells that Rose is not looking at the big picture, all she can think about is how the color of the sky and river match, when in actuality there is a war going on and those broken toys might be some of the only things that the Jewish kids had left or owned, and now it is gone. This shows that she is not looking at the overall idea of the situation. Furthermore,

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of The Glass Castle

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot

    Read More

  • Audubon and Dillard

    447 Words  | 1 Pages

    Annie Dillard portrays her thoughts differently in her passage, incorporating a poetic sense that is carried through out the entire passage. Dillard describes the birds she is viewing as “transparent” and that they seem to be “whirling like smoke”. Already one could identify that Dillard’s passage has more of poetic feel over a scientific feel. This poetic feeling carries through the entire passage, displaying Dillard’s total awe of these birds. She also incorporates word choices such as “unravel” and that he birds seem to be “lengthening in curves” like a “loosened skein”. Dillard’s word choice implies that he is incorporating a theme of sewing. As she describes these birds she seems to be in awe and by using a comparison of sewing she is reaching deeper inside herself to create her emotions at the time.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Entrapment In A Bird In The House

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bird usually portrays an image of bad luck that follows afterwards and in this novel, that is. the beginning of all the bad events that occur in the rest of the novel. It all started when Margaret Laurence introduced the life of Vanessa MacLeod. protagonist of the story, also known as the granddaughter of a calm and intelligent woman. I am a woman.

    Read More

  • Edna Pontellier, Madamoiselle Reisz And Madame Ratignolle

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to the Louisiana society, Edna Pontellier has the ideal life, complete with two children and the best husband in the world. However, Edna disagrees, constantly crying over her feelings of oppression. Finally, Edna is through settling for her predetermined role in society as man’s possession, and she begins to defy this. Edna has the chance to change this stereotype, the chance to be “[t]he bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice” (112). The use of a metaphor comparing Edna to a bird proves her potential to rise above society’s standards and pave the pathway for future women. However, Edna does not have “strong [enough] wings” (112). After Robert, the love of her life and the man she has an affair with, leaves, Edna becomes despondent and lacks an...

    Read More

  • Femininity against Masculinity in A White Heron

    1703 Words  | 4 Pages

    Since its first appearance in the 1886 collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the short story A White Heron has become the most favorite and often anthologized of Sarah Orne Jewett. Like most of this regionalist writer's works, A White Heron was inspired by the people and landscapes in rural New England, where, as a little girl, she often accompanied her doctor father on his visiting patients. The story is about a nine-year-old girl who falls in love with a bird hunter but does not tell him the white heron's place because her love of nature is much greater. In this story, the author presents a conflict between femininity and masculinity by juxtaposing Sylvia, who has a peaceful life in country, to a hunter from town, which implies her discontent with the modernization?s threat to the nature. Unlike female and male, which can describe animals, femininity and masculinity are personal and human.

    Read More

  • Plath's Initiation

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    The short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, describes the story of a girl in high school, by the name of Millicent, who is going through her initiation to join a sorority, but has doubts about joining. Throughout the story there is a magical, mythological bird named a “heather bird” which largely functions as a symbol in the story. These birds represent being unique and carefree. As the story develops you can see Millicent is trying to push herself to fit with the sorority. She tries to be a sparrow, ‘pale gray-brown birds in a flock, one like the other, all exactly alike’, but she thinks of these wonderfully different birds that ‘[swoop] carefree over the moors… singing and crying out across the great spaces of air, dipping and darting,

    Read More

  • Alice Munro Husband

    508 Words  | 2 Pages

    Her style of writing is more contemporary and can be relatable to other readers. Alice Munro’s “The Beggar Maid” is a noteworthy short story collection about Rose, who grew up less fortunate than others and had the opportunity to educate herself after winning a scholarship to a respected university. There she meets Patrick, who is from a wealthier family, and as their connection progressed, they unified their relationship with marriage and started a family. Throughout the short stories, their relationship fluctuates. The short stories mostly reflect Rose and her experiences with not just her husband but other men and dealing with her ideal relationship.

    Read More

  • To A Waterfowl And John Constable's The Hay W

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    The people of this era began to value imagination and individualism over rational thinking. This becomes present when looking at the William Cullen Bryant’s poem “To a Waterfowl” and John Constable’s painting “The Hay Wain.” These works illustrate the characteristics of the Romantic Era by focusing on the celebration of the individual, an interest in the distance, and an awe of nature. First, Bryant’s poem highlights the celebration of the individual by focusing on one waterfowl and one man. The single bird is sorrowing high above the narrator as he wonders what is to become of this bird.

    Read More

More about Alice Munro Imagery

Open Document