Thoughts on Alice Munro's "Gravel"
Choose one aspect of craft (character, point of view, dialogue, scene--or something else, like setting or plot) and comment on how you found Alice Munro using it in the story. Reference at least one specific scene or line.
I loved Munro's manipulation of perspective in this story. Telling it from a child's point of view sets a tone of heartbreaking innocence; a child is also necessarily an unreliable narrator, and the reader is forced to work harder to read between the lines about the family's behavior, Neal's character, and Caro's actions. This perspective also adds a touch of humor, reminding us of what it was like to be children, to look up to "the big kids," and to be afraid of criticism from the adults: "I thought he was talking about an atomic bun. I knew there was something wrong with this interpretation, but I wasn't about to ask questions and get laughed at."
ReplyDeleteThe way Munro chooses to have the narrator speak from hindsight is important as well. The readers can imagine her talking to a psychiatrist after her experiences, trying unsuccessfully to understand both her sister and herself. The fact that the narration is retrospective also allows the tone to be colored with knowledge, hints, foreshadowing. And, finally, it serves as a literary device that allows Munro to jump only to the significant events and details, for her narrator can't reasonably be expected to remember everything.
All in all, through her choice of point of view, Munro successfully leaves the reader with more questions than answers, the exact same way Caro leaves her sister.
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ReplyDeleteI’m particularly intrigued by the concept of “catharsis,” which is discussed in the reader. It seems to me that catharsis features heavily in Alice Munro’s “Gravel.” There are two main components of catharsis in the story: the scene where Caro dies, and the scene where the narrator meets with Neal. These scenes describe the cycle of loss and redemption, respectively. These scenes are structured similarly, with events in the scene interspersed with reflections from others. For example, when she poses the question, “What do you think Caro had in mind?” she first gives the responses of two other people before sharing the response of the other person in the scene, Neal. In the first scene, she is constantly reflecting upon her reflections, questioning her memories, telling us:
ReplyDelete“Caro instructed me to do as I was told. Why? I may have said that, or I may have just stood there not obeying and trying to work up another argument.”
The scenes in some ways bookend each other, with the reflections in the first scene (loss) being from future conversations and reflections in the second scene (grief/redemption) being from past conversations, at least relative to the events of the scene. The relationship between these scenes works particularly well because one is the emotional climax and the other is the catharsis/closing.
What is most notable to me in this story is the first person point of the view of the story. At the beginning of the story, we get a hint for why the narrator is telling the story: “I barely remember that life. That is, I remember some parts of it clearly, but without the links you need to form a proper picture.” Throughout the story, we get the sense that the narrator remembers the past but struggles to understand how and why events happened and the relationships between them. At the end of the story, Neal tells the narrator, “I think you might want to know how it happened.” The narrator seems to be telling the story in order to make sense of the disconnected past.
ReplyDeleteThus, the narrator’s point of view connects strongly with the theme of security versus uncertainty in the story. The gravel pit represents the discrepancy between solidity and uncertainty. The pit “was shallow enough to lead you to think there might have been some other intention for it.” The narrator is caught in between stability and instability, between what exists in the world and what disappears. The narrator wonders where the other house had gone and after Caro drowns, the narrator, instead of knocking on the trailer door immediately, sits down and tries to reconcile Caro’s disappearance.
Point of view was central in Alice Munro's ability to convey the extent to which the tragedy lives on in the narrator. It is the juxtaposition of this very present sense of heartbreak and confusion that the narrator experiences and the callous reactions of Neal and to some extent, the mother, who "didn't throw herself in the water" nor "went into labor because of the shock" that makes the story so memorable. As readers, we feel sympathetic to the narrator, who has been victim of the carelessness of the people around him.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most striking quality Munro has been able to achieve through telling the story through the narrator's perspective is how little he has changed over time. In many respects, the narrator still seems like the child, going along with other people's conceptions of the things "out of contrariness or fear of getting things wrong." One example is when trying to remember how his old house looked like with Caro when they first moved into the trailer. We see a similar kind of tension between a desire to reveal truth in a memory and an apathy in his actions when exchanging with others even towards the end of the story, where Neal, Ruthann and the counsellor all offer Caro's impetus for doing so and explanations to what had happened. The narrator does not offer any commentary on his opinions on what happened, only stating that the counsellor convinced him of a possible truth once, but has since not been able to accept the explanation. I think the last line is a painfully beautiful summation of this feeling, where he admits: "I’m still caught, waiting for her to explain to me, waiting for the splash."
I enjoyed Alice Monro's use of a naive and innocent character because it creates a stark contrast between the perspective of a child and the perspective of an adult. This is displayed in the passage where the "professional person" suggests that the narrator was locked out because her mother and Neal were having sex. The narrator implies that this is not true and this case points out the negative mindset of an adult in comparison to someone who society would deem as "innocent."
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, it seems as if out of all the characters it HAD to be told from this one. The mother was going through a new change in her life and becoming a new person, Neal was a stoner who was trying to be a family man, Caro seemed to not enjoy the new life she was living, and the father was out of the picture. While it may have been a risky move for Munro to choose a narrator who doesn't remember much, this leaves room for Neal to re-enter the story and reflect on the day of Caro's death.
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ReplyDeleteI, personally, was intrigued by Monroe’s descriptions throughout the story including setting and character descriptions. When the narrator thinks back to her old life, she can only recall a small portion of what her house was like and does not give very vivid images of her new habitat. She can remember teddy bear wallpaper in her old bedroom, but little else. This allows the reader to fill in the blanks as they see fit. By allowing the reader to create their own image, Monroe allows us to get closer to the girl because we can substitute some of our own memories into her life. This is also true of the dog, Blitzee.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are some critical details Monroe does not allow us to selectively fill in. For example, when describing her mother’s transition to their less luxurious life, the narrator observes that “She’d begun to dress like an actress…” If Monroe had left it at that, we could have filled in any vision we wanted. We could have pictured her mother like Marilyn Monroe or Sally Fields, but instead we see a woman who is more like a hippie. This choice is very deliberate and gives us a better understanding of their family dynamic and serves as a contrast to their former life.
I found the dialogue in “Gravel” very memorable. Much of the story is told in narration, making every line of dialogue sharp and characterizing. Rather than just for movement along the plot, the dialogue reveals something about the characters. I noticed how Neal has a habit of repeating the same two words before continuing with his thought (“Easy. Easy” and “Great. Great” and “OK. OK”). These repeats often come before he makes one of his strong points of criticism, such as his statement against guns (in the context of Vietnam) and his shrugging off of doctors (“What do doctors know?”). Moreover, as the story is told from the perspective of a young child, the dialogue we hear is the dialogue that catches her attention – the dialogue that stands out to her. And through this realization, we can see how much other characters impact her thinking – how even as a child she remembers Neal’s strong views, or her mother’s increased cursing (“It’s not like going in at the beach, for fuck’s sake. Just stay away from it.”)
ReplyDeleteI really agree with Michelle, Onisha, and others who pointed out that using the perspective of a child was probably the only way this story could be told effectively. This line, "sometimes I thought I did remember, but out of contrariness or fear of getting things wrong I pretended not to," makes you trust the narrator because you as a reader remember the childish fear of getting things wrong, and therefore being as careful as possible in your relation of events. Adult narratives view events through multiple lenses that can obscure what actually happens. First-person adult narratives in particular have to deal with the disconnect between events and the way adults tell themselves events happen (or why they happen). A child can tell this story in an honest way, and an adult's retrospect can apply the lenses than an adult reader might apply automatically, making the biases of the reader more obvious.
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ReplyDeleteThe power of “Gravel” comes from its narrator, who is haunted by her inability to save her sister Caro’s life. As a young girl having to deal with the perils of a broken family life, the narrator’s confusion is evident throughout the story. She thinks Neal is “talking about an atomic bun” near the beginning of the story, and even though she knows that “interpretation” is incorrect, she is not willing to ask for clarification.
In fact, Munro’s narrator is largely inactive throughout the story—she simply listens and absorbs information. When Caro goes to school, the narrator sticks around with her mother, following her without asking questions. She notices anything and everything about the characters, from Neal and her mother’s romance, to Caro’s need for “people to like her.” This passivity, which is the reason for the author’s emotional instability as an adult, is reflected best in the line “All I have to do is watch and be happy—nothing required of me, after all.” As a young child, the narrator just wants everything to be all right, but her failure to act will continue to plague her memory in later years.
I, like many of my classmates, found the first person point of view of a child incredibly provocative. I had been considering writing from the point of view in my story but wondered if I could communicate as a child where cause and effect is less clear, where life is taken at face value. I thought this point of view was most poignant when the narrator is reflecting on returning to the house to get their mother. The memories are fragmented, the narrator works the scene around his mind, trying to find truth. Did he knock on the door? Did he sit on the step even though there was not a step to sit on? How long did he sit for? I am sure all of us have planned through given scenes in our lives, playing the "what if" game. However, when the memories are confined to the small and almost out of reach mind of a child, the game becomes that much more elusive. This sense of reality or truth or understanding being just out of reach is written into the story well during this scene.
ReplyDeleteI think that Munro does a really fantastic job in "Gravel" with her style. She ends particular paragraphs in a way that leaves the reader curious and eager for more. In this way, she highlights the insecurities of the narrator. He is not confident in himself and it made me delve deeper and want to know why exactly. She ends one paragraph in saying "Sometimes I thought I did remember, but out of contrariness or fear of getting things wrong I pretended not to" and another in saying "but I wasn’t about to ask questions and get laughed at". Furthermore when she ends with "But, in my mind, Caro keeps running at the water and throwing herself, as if in triumph, and I’m still caught, waiting for her to explain to me, waiting for the splash", as readers, we get the impression that something is suspicious of the narrator's feelings. It makes us think, even the narrator himself is still lost on the whole situation of Caro's death.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to narrow in on Munro's unusual syntax and sentence structure.
ReplyDeleteOne thing in particular the stood out to me was the variance in how she portrayed dialogue. In certain conversations she used traditional, quotation style format (i.e. “You know he’d have those kids out of here like a shot,” our mother said. “Never again.”) while in others she summarized diction
(i.e. "She told him that the baby was Neal’s.
Was she sure?
Absolutely. She had been keeping track.
What happened then?")
What makes this more interesting than just normal conversation summation is that Munro still keeps the paragraph breaks that indicate a normal conversation, so that the reader keeps the same pauses and flow that they would if it was quoted. This way, she makes sure that the reader doesn't skim over the conversation as "unimportant," but she is still able to make the scene feel long ago & distant. These conversations are happening in real time, but are memories.
In general Munro also uses a lot of conversational structure. Rheorical questions ("I don’t know if I sat there for five minutes. More? Less?"), parentheses ("She had not given up reading for very long.) "), incomplete sentences ("I don’t know how Caro managed to do it. Not once but twice.") and dashes ("Its name was going to be Brandy—already was Brandy—whether it was a boy or a girl.") all serve to make the writing style more informal. The piece feels like a conversation, or an interview. It begs to be read out loud.