A Little Bit About Alice Munro
For my AP English class our blog this week was to make 3 open ended deep ended questions about our author and respond to them. My author is Alice Munro.
1) What are some of Alice Munro's qualities that you notice in her stories that would relate to her personal life and how do they contribute to he overall writing ability.
-Looking at Alice Munro's piece "Gravel" here's the link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/06/27/gravel-alice-munro. I can see that this is in first person and I am really getting the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. Looking at a biography of Alice Munro it mentions that she was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. In her biography it also mentions more about her mother such as her career, and is very faint and just mentions the descents of her father. Which closely relates to the speaker and setting in this piece. The setting is in Canada, and the reader knows this because of the mentioning of Toronto. The speaker in this piece moves from a more population home to a farm that is more secluding and the only parent figure focused on in Gravel is the mother and how she "left the life she had before". My point here is that Gravel is a story about her life and she is the speaker. In real life and in this story they are present in Canada on a farm. In real life and this story the mother is more dominant in the child's life. She uses her thoughts and feelings from her own personal life to develop a more realistic story loosely relating to her own life to entertain her readers.
2) How exactly does Alice Munro change the theme from the beginning of the passage to the end?
-The theme works together and changes throughout the piece in many ways. One being from life to death. In the beginning the piece is so lively and dynamic. There is a lot building up in the piece. A pregnant mother and moving homes kind of sets of the piece of life. A new baby on the way represents life. Then it suddenly changes when her dog Blitzee drowns, then her sister dying going in after him. Two deaths in the family truly make the piece change from life or death. Alice takes these situation and brings them to the extreme making the piece more dramatic and emotional.
3)How does the offer develop a difference between what is actually happening, versus how she mentally views the situation?
- What is actually happening is a changing of life that keeps moving on and keeps going. But mentally the speaker has this horrific moment on replay. She drastically builds up situations leading to the most dramatic the death of her sister and her dog. But what's going on in the background is a baby brother being born. Alice brings in this counselor which drags on the situation even longer. To easier explain it life is moving on, but the horrific deaths are tattooed in her mind, she was a witness and they are dragging on in the story and in her mind.
This piece is really weird if anyone happens to read this can you make a connection to the title gravel and the piece as a whole? Gravel is mentioned a lot in the piece but I don't really understand it's meaning.
Thank you for reading!
1) What are some of Alice Munro's qualities that you notice in her stories that would relate to her personal life and how do they contribute to he overall writing ability.
-Looking at Alice Munro's piece "Gravel" here's the link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/06/27/gravel-alice-munro. I can see that this is in first person and I am really getting the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. Looking at a biography of Alice Munro it mentions that she was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. In her biography it also mentions more about her mother such as her career, and is very faint and just mentions the descents of her father. Which closely relates to the speaker and setting in this piece. The setting is in Canada, and the reader knows this because of the mentioning of Toronto. The speaker in this piece moves from a more population home to a farm that is more secluding and the only parent figure focused on in Gravel is the mother and how she "left the life she had before". My point here is that Gravel is a story about her life and she is the speaker. In real life and in this story they are present in Canada on a farm. In real life and this story the mother is more dominant in the child's life. She uses her thoughts and feelings from her own personal life to develop a more realistic story loosely relating to her own life to entertain her readers.
2) How exactly does Alice Munro change the theme from the beginning of the passage to the end?
-The theme works together and changes throughout the piece in many ways. One being from life to death. In the beginning the piece is so lively and dynamic. There is a lot building up in the piece. A pregnant mother and moving homes kind of sets of the piece of life. A new baby on the way represents life. Then it suddenly changes when her dog Blitzee drowns, then her sister dying going in after him. Two deaths in the family truly make the piece change from life or death. Alice takes these situation and brings them to the extreme making the piece more dramatic and emotional.
3)How does the offer develop a difference between what is actually happening, versus how she mentally views the situation?
- What is actually happening is a changing of life that keeps moving on and keeps going. But mentally the speaker has this horrific moment on replay. She drastically builds up situations leading to the most dramatic the death of her sister and her dog. But what's going on in the background is a baby brother being born. Alice brings in this counselor which drags on the situation even longer. To easier explain it life is moving on, but the horrific deaths are tattooed in her mind, she was a witness and they are dragging on in the story and in her mind.
This piece is really weird if anyone happens to read this can you make a connection to the title gravel and the piece as a whole? Gravel is mentioned a lot in the piece but I don't really understand it's meaning.
Thank you for reading!
I ended up reading Gravel and I absolutely loved it. Alice Munro's personal narrative was beautiful and poignant. I liked how you thought of the theme of life and death, I think it would help if you wrote about that and then went into a smaller specific theme, if that makes any sense. I remember Kopcha saying start with the broad and then go into the specific. I also liked how you used the word tattooed on her mind, I feel like your language and syntax has gotten stronger. (also you spelled offer and I think you meant author if you want to change that) I thought your third question was a good question, I feel like you did well with writing your questions. I personally struggle writing questions which is why I've kind of avoided those blogs.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your piece I think it's called Gravel because that's were Caro and the dog died, but it also is like a metaphor for the author learning to let go of her sisters death. When someone dies in a gravel pit they drown and suffocate, the gravel consumes you. And I think that's how she felt about her sisters death for a long time, it's something that consumed her mind. This is piece is her expressing that she needs to let go and not let guilt consume her because there is nothing she could have done to change fate. Overall I enjoyed your blog and wanted to thank you for the piece because I loved it.