Alice Munro Research Paper

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Born in 1931 to a fox farmer and a school teacher, Alice Munro lived “just beyond the most disreputable part of town” and wrote short stories in her spare time. She grew up to attend the University of Western Ontario to study English and Journalism but dropped out to move to Vancouver with her husband. She published her first short story collection in 1968 titled Dance of the Happy Shades. Afterwards she gained recognition for her short story collections, including three awards from the Governor’s General Literary Awards (Britannica, 2018). “[Short stories are] often sort of brushed off in general, you know, as something people do before they write their first novel. And I would like it to come to the fore, without any strings attached, so …show more content…

Women in the workforce are oppressed, whether that is from unequal pay or general disrespect through sexual harassment or assault. Munro shows that women can be just as successful as men through her Nobel Peace prize or other numerous awards from her work. She never gave up on her dreams to get published after she was rejected by several publishers to produce her work before her first collection of short stories came out (Britannica, 2018). Munro also had to give up everything she knew to become an author by abandoning her family instead of staying to work on her family’s farm until marriage (Thacker, 2014). Alice Munro demonstrates to women that hard work and determination eventually pays off. This message will inspire University of Virginia …show more content…

These themes may include love, education, death, friendships, the meaning of life, and finding one’s self. She would pose the question of what lies ahead for these graduates and ask open-ended questions that the graduates may have not considered before the ceremony. Munro would not be afraid to ask these questions as she already has multiple times in her life through her short stories. Munro may even reference some of her past experiences when she was at a crossroads in her life and mention what she did to move forward. After all, Alice Munro is always at a crossroads whether that be a new character, a new short story, or a new short story collection. If a University of Virginia graduate gets even a tiny lesson from Munro’s speech, then he or she will have a lesson to remember for a

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