Analysis of Alice Munro's "How I Met My Husband"
"All of it is clear to a person who has understanding and right to those who have acquired knowledge." (Proverbs 8:6-9)
Alice Munro gives a good example of the meaning of this in her story "How I Met My Husband". The theme of this story is under certain circumstances people can sometimes be blind to the truth.
The main character, Edie, provides the narration of the story from a first person point of view. She tells her story based on an event from her past. Because she narrates the story the reader is unable to be sure if what she tells of the other characters is completely accurate. Because one does not hear other character's thoughts one could question whether Edie interpreted them correctly. Or has time caused her to recall her story different from the way it actually happened? For example, Edie says it is hard for her to recall how she felt when she had to do dishes without a dishwasher and heated water. It had been so long ago her perception had been altered. Sometimes time can play a role in why truth can be so hard to see.
The conflict that appears to be most prevalent is appearance vs. reality. Loretta seemed to be a friendly neighbor when in fact she was more interested in what new information she could gossip about. For example, she asked Edie personal questions about the Peebles. The Peebles were ignorant of Loretta's true motives. It appeared to Edie that Chris was her true love when in reality it was the mailman she would marry and fall in love with. Similarly, the mailman believed Edie was always waiting for him at the mailbox when in actuality she was waiting for her letter from Chris. [Nice Point] False appearances can make it hard to d...
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.... She was unable to accept that he did not love her so she blamed his actions on others. For example, she believed it is Edie's fault, not Chris's, that they were "intimate", so she accused Edie of being loose and bad. Likewise, Alice was very obsessive because she continued to follow Chris wherever he went, trying to catch up with him. When love is involved in a situation it can really alter the truth.
In the end Edie finds that the truth was always there she just had to grow and experience life in order to filter it out. Truth is sometimes a hard thing to find because there are many things that can influence it. However, as people explore life, truth will become easier to discover.
Works Cited
Munro, Alice. "How I Met My Husband." Perrine's Literature : Structure, Sound, and Sense. By Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. Boston: Heinle, 2008. 125-140.
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true” (Kierkegaard)- Misleading oneself by accepting things as true or valid when they are not is a common phenomenon of nearly every human being, especially when faced with life changing of threatening situations. Self-deception can therefore be considered an option to escape reality in order to prevent oneself from dealing with the weight of a situation. Basically, those strong influencing psychological forces keep us from acknowledging a threatening situation or truth. However, oftentimes people do not realize that they are deceiving themselves, for it is mostly the action of the subconscious mind to protect especially the psychological well- being. This psychological state is depicted and in Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. He shows that people try to escape reality and seek refuge in self-deception when confronted with life-threatening situations, through characterization, alternate point of view, and the fluidity of time.
Kempe, Margery. "From The Book of Margery Kempe." The Norton Anthology of Literature By Women. 2nd ed. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. 18-24.
Her memory of these events is a justified version of what she believes happened. This may alter the truth in her narration, leading to question the credibility of the source. According to Antonio Damasio, a comparable construct of dynamic memory may be fundamental in establishing human consciousness, which is a process that is linked to two stages known as "autobiographical self". This includes “core self” which creates an autobiographical identity which emerges through a special kind of story. This initial stage both enhances the awareness of the imagery of the “temporal and spatial context” and imposition of an experiential perspective. An instant projection made over and over which is the sense of the self in the act of knowing. This means that the governess reflecting her past, may have led to memory alteration, and what the readers are exposed to, is far from the truth. “That is, consciousness, seemingly a collection of disparate mental projects- thinking, daydreaming, planning, observing, as well as what we usually think of as remembering- occurs in the conjunction with the continuous reproduction of the “self”, or the unifying perspective that lends each separate construction its coherence.” (85). Perhaps her mental illness may have led to hearing needing an identity, along with the times she lived in, she projected her own fears onto the children, as a way to feel a sense of "self". Henry James used a point of view prose on purpose to steer the audience away from the actual truth. “I don’t know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. I never have. I think you’re cruel. I don’t like you!” (James 215). The governess, so disoriented by her mind, doesn’t realize that she is projecting her own fears and demons created by her mind onto the ones she loves. In her mind, she blames the figures she sees, the things that threaten her and herself the most, not realizing she is the one struggling to
Charters, Ann. Major Writers of Short Fiction: Stories and Commentaries. New York, NY: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Print
Bradstreet, Anne. "To My Dear and Loving Husband." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Ed. Jay Parini. New York: Columbia UP, 1995. 28.
Kinnell, Galway. “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable 10th ed. Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2011. 490-491. Print.
-the read must put more trust in the narrator in this type of situation in believing what they say is the truth
Introduction paragraph- end with thesis- In Shirley Jackson's short stories, ostensibly happy couples experience unusual encounters that force the wives to concede the truths about their marriages, and themselves that they have tried to ignore.
As a result, what you see is what you get. If you believe you’re dumb, that very belief will make you dumb. If you believe your sister is dumb, you’ll look for evidence to support your belief, find it, and she’ll remain dumb in your eyes. On the other hand, if you believe you’re smart, that belief will cast a rosy hue on everything you do. (Covey 13)
...must gather knowledge of what is right. If we want to know “If we want to know things we must first love them by attending to them and relinquishing our fears, desires, and self-serving agendas” (Wirzba 90).
Whether a result of Emma's complex life or Agee's attachment to Emma, Agee's choice of a narrative voice only presents her life through one limited point of view. This may sometimes cause the reader to miss Agee's point. For example, after reading Emma's first person account of her own life the shortcomings of Agee's perspective are made evident.
The story, depended on her affection for the historical backdrop of country Ontario, Canada, where she grew up. When one first peruses the story, it may seem confounding. Munro utilizes an outside storyteller, who bounced forward and backward in time from the 1800s to the 1980s. This storyteller incorporates outside wellsprings of data, for example, news cut-outs and portions from books—that intrude on the stream of the story and stun the follower, and, toward the end of the story, the credibility of the storyteller is raised doubt about, which can make a few pursuers address the purpose of the story. However, when one warrens more profound, the explanations behind these apparently bumping account devices, which are another trademark of Munro's written work, turn out to be clear. Through its complicated structure and the utilization of a sketchy storyteller, "Meneseteung" eventually investigates numerous topics. Therefore, Munro's story can be delighted in on numerous levels. One can read the story as a faithful piece, analysing the life of a Canadian frontierswoman who lives in a male-ruled society and who experiences the improper parts of the human experience. One can likewise focus on the storyteller, who is recreating this story by utilizing reliable bits of data and extrapolating to cover the crevices.
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
Proverbs 16:16-17 affirms, “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver. The highway of the upright avoids evil; those who guard their ways preserve their lives”. Wisdom is priceless, a value that is immeasurable. Insight gives one the clarity in any situation and guides one through their decision making. Living a life of wisdom prevents the upright from evil and helps preserve their life. To gain wisdom and insight gives courage and excitement. Proverbs 4:7 expounds, “Wisdom is supreme—so get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding” (Holman Christian Standard Bible). One looks forward to the future with an expected hope, and faith that God’s blessings will meet them wherever God leads with abundance. When one uses the lessons from Proverbs as the model one receives the wisdom and the spiritual growth from practice.
Fathers is a short story by Alice Munro that was set in the 1940s during World War II. It is told from the perspective of a narrator in rural America who reflects back on girls she knew and was friends with during her youth, and gives her recollections on their fathers. It is an interesting look at the father-child dynamic during the World War II years, and illustrates how that dynamic has changed in the years since.