Carried Away By Alice Munro Analysis
Erik Thijs
Ms. Russell
Short Fiction
Tuesday May 10, 2016
Imagination and Memory in Miles City Montana and Carried Away by Alice Munro
“Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener”-Unknown. The story, “Miles City Montana” by Alice Munro, shows how a couple can fall out of love after knowing each other for a long period of time. “Carried Away” by Alice Munro on the other hand was a story of how you can fall in love with someone that you do not know at all. What the two stories have in common is a strong relationship between memory and imagination. Both stories are about information that is hidden deep within the main character’s memories and what they choose to reveal and repeal. In the stories “Miles City Montana” and “Carried Away” …show more content…
What was interesting was that the narrator described herself as a, “watcher and not a keeper” (Munro 125). This is a description of her use of memory. She watched events and was able to draw on them later. However, she did not store them well and often doubted herself throughout the story. The narrator could describe Steve Gauley with vivid detail but in the third paragraph she doubts herself: “I don’t think so. I don’t think I really saw all this […]” (Munro 121). With the narrator not trusting herself, it makes all places and facts unreliable, turning the novel into a fictional story. She felt memories mix together: “the feeling of these stockings on my legs is mixed up with another feeling in my memory” (Munro 123). As the husband told the narrator that there was something selfish and untrusting about her, it reinforced that the reader could not trust the details. When the narrator said, “No place feels real until you get out of the car” (Munro 136) I felt that it applied to the text as well. In the car, as a reader, you are sitting looking out at stories and memories unfold. There is no truth until the narrator opens the doors, corrects herself, or calls herself out. The female narrator’s life should not have been so reliant on her memory and vivid imagination. “Carried Away” by Alice Munro begins with a description of an imprecise memory. Louisa received a letter from Jack Agnew who remembered her but did not remember her name. He remembered her size, build, hair colour, and could recall the order of the magazines Louisa had put away. With Jack being a soldier at war, he must have lots of time to daydream. A man with an imaginative mind would find it easy for him to details: “She could not remember shaking out her hair […] or smiling […] he might as well have dreamed all that, and perhaps he had”(Munro 213). This is revisited when Louisa racks her brain to remember Jack. Memory
Ms. Russell
Short Fiction
Tuesday May 10, 2016
Imagination and Memory in Miles City Montana and Carried Away by Alice Munro
“Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener”-Unknown. The story, “Miles City Montana” by Alice Munro, shows how a couple can fall out of love after knowing each other for a long period of time. “Carried Away” by Alice Munro on the other hand was a story of how you can fall in love with someone that you do not know at all. What the two stories have in common is a strong relationship between memory and imagination. Both stories are about information that is hidden deep within the main character’s memories and what they choose to reveal and repeal. In the stories “Miles City Montana” and “Carried Away” …show more content…
What was interesting was that the narrator described herself as a, “watcher and not a keeper” (Munro 125). This is a description of her use of memory. She watched events and was able to draw on them later. However, she did not store them well and often doubted herself throughout the story. The narrator could describe Steve Gauley with vivid detail but in the third paragraph she doubts herself: “I don’t think so. I don’t think I really saw all this […]” (Munro 121). With the narrator not trusting herself, it makes all places and facts unreliable, turning the novel into a fictional story. She felt memories mix together: “the feeling of these stockings on my legs is mixed up with another feeling in my memory” (Munro 123). As the husband told the narrator that there was something selfish and untrusting about her, it reinforced that the reader could not trust the details. When the narrator said, “No place feels real until you get out of the car” (Munro 136) I felt that it applied to the text as well. In the car, as a reader, you are sitting looking out at stories and memories unfold. There is no truth until the narrator opens the doors, corrects herself, or calls herself out. The female narrator’s life should not have been so reliant on her memory and vivid imagination. “Carried Away” by Alice Munro begins with a description of an imprecise memory. Louisa received a letter from Jack Agnew who remembered her but did not remember her name. He remembered her size, build, hair colour, and could recall the order of the magazines Louisa had put away. With Jack being a soldier at war, he must have lots of time to daydream. A man with an imaginative mind would find it easy for him to details: “She could not remember shaking out her hair […] or smiling […] he might as well have dreamed all that, and perhaps he had”(Munro 213). This is revisited when Louisa racks her brain to remember Jack. Memory