Alice Munro’s Narrative Art

192 Pages·2011·1.89 MB·English

by  Isla Duncan (auth.)

Alice Munro’s Narrative Art

Alice Munro’s Narrative Art
Isla Duncan
alice munro’s narrative art
Copyright © Isla Duncan, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-33857-9
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-34159-7 ISBN 978-1-137-00068-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137000682
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Duncan, Isla.
Alice Munro’s narrative art / Isla Duncan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Munro, Alice—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Women and literature—
Canada—History—20th century. I. Title.
PR9199.3.M8Z595 2011
813'.54—dc23 2011018681
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: November 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to my partner, Gill.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 The Confiding First- Person Narrator 19
2 Changing Perspectives 31
3 Competing Testimonies 53
4 The “Queer Bright Moment” 73
5 “The Love of a Good Woman” 91
6 What Is Remembered 105
7 “A Constant Reworking of Close Personal Material” 125
8 “Marooned on Islands of Their Own Choosing” 147
Notes 163
Bibliography 175
Index 181

Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to librarians at the University
of Chichester, West Sussex, England, who have always been extremely
helpful to me.
Parts of this work have been published before, in slightly different
form. They are: “‘It seems so much the truth it is the truth’: Persuasive
Testimony in Alice Munro’s ‘A Wilderness Station,’” Studies in Cana-
dian Literature 28, no. 2 (2003): 98– 111; “Disparity and Deception
in Alice Munro’s ‘Lichen,’” British Journal of Canadian Studies 19, no.
1 (2006): 61– 77; “Social Class in Alice Munro’s ‘Sunday Afternoon’
and ‘Hired Girl,’” British Journal of Canadian Studies 22, no. 1 (2009):
15– 31. I am grateful to Studies in Canadian Literature, New Brunswick,
Canada, and to Liverpool University Press, England (publishers of the
British Journal of Canadian Studies) for their kind permission to reprint
those materials here.