Gender Identities in the Wilderness & Small Town Canada

The Company of Strangers and “The Found Boat”

Outline The Company of Strangers Alice Munro “The Found Boat”

The Company of Strangers (1990) 7 women between the ages of 67 and 88, st

randed in the Quebec countryside; with their bus driver, a 29-year-old woman of colour;

Produced as an “Alternative Drama” in Studio B (Alternative Drama: the use of non-professional actors performing themselves in loosely scripted drama.

The Company of Strangers (1990) Mary Meigs In the Company of Strangers

(1991) Beth, 80-yr-old – “the film was the best thing

in my life” Meig: “for the first time we are separated fro

m our mirror-images, the ones we can control, and have become Others”; surprised at how old she looks;

Winnie: “Nothing happens.” Meig: “ I tell her that we are happening.” (Ru

ssell 217)

Starting Questions1. Documentary and Feature Film --Do you find the film interesting? Why? --After seeing the final product, the actresses i

n the film find that ”nothing happens” in the film, unlike the Hollywood films they are used to seeing. Do you agree? What do you think are the purposes of combining documentary interviews and a fictional plot?

Starting Questions2. Aging and Survival -- When the old ladies cry outloud, ”we are ali

ve!” is there anything significant? -- What are the signs of their age? How do the

y deal with them? 3. Individual stories --What do we get to know of each lady throu

gh the glimpses we have of their lives?

The characters Constance (gloomy depression) Winnie (a former belly dancer)

The characters Catherine (a nun, who tries to fix the bus an

d, when that fails, hikes 20 miles on arthritic ankles for help)

Cissy ( a survivor of a heart attack)

The characters Alice (a Mohawk Indian) Mary (an artist and a lesbian) Beth –least adapted to old age and existence

in nature

The characters Michelle Sweeney-- as Michelle (the only

one under 60 and with professional theatrical experience; the young black bus driver)

Beth Webber-- as Beth (passive and unaccustomed to the wilderness)

Their common concernsA. Family vs. “career”– Constance: gives up her art when her first c

hild was born; (clip 1) Cissy: afraid of losing her only son; Beth: her son died as a young man; Alice: hates her ex-husband, loves her gran

dson.

Their common concernsA. Family vs. “career”– their lives in

glimpses

Their common concernsB. Food, activities & their interest in Nature

-- leftovers

-- Catching Fish, frog,

-- watch and imitate bird singing

-- dancing

-- card games

C. Aging, Death & Survival-- Constance afraid of death;

-- Beth –concerned with her appearance

-- envy the young people; Alice

-- Fear of loneliness & death -- Cissy

-- Send out signals to show

that “[they] are alive.”

Survival Human vs. nature

The role of Michelle Younger, livelier, an “interviewer” but

without telling her own past

“The Found Boat”

Alice Munro

Alice Munro The strength of her fiction

arises partially from its vivid sense of regional focus, most of her stories being set in Huron County, Ont, as well as from her sense of the narrator as the intelligence through which the world is articulated.

Lake Huron

Toronto

About rural southwestern Ontario. "'I don't think it's very different at all from the Mi

dwest,' she says. 'There are nice old-looking towns, substantial towns, with big brick houses and big shade trees, large churches - many large churches -and factories that tend not to be operating any more. There's good farming land, and the lake - Lake Huron, 10 miles from where I live. And there's a kind of ritualistic wildness - pretty wild, self-destructive driving, a whole culture of sports -hockey is the big thing. . . . “

Alice Munro:

Themes and Style Gender Issues1. the dilemmas of the adolescent girl coming to

terms with family and small town2. the problems of middle age, of women alone and

of the elderly. Style Emphasis on an explosive moment—a moment of

revelation or a turning point. ''I don't understand where the excitement is

supposed to come in a novel, and I do in a story. . . . I kind of want a moment that's explosive, and I want everything gathered into that.''

“The Found Boat” Five Parts:

1. Discovery of the boat

2. Fixing the boat

3. Rowing the boat down the river

4. The Pedder Train Station

5. Truth or Dare

“The Found Boat”--Questions

1. What is the “explosive moment” in the story?

2. How do the boys and girls relate to each other differently in these five parts? How does Eva feel about Clayton?

3. Do you find the girls too daring in taking off their clothes?

4. Symbolic meanings of (p. 135) debris, river, the forsaken train station, Clayton’

s action, the names of Eva and Clayton.

Gendering process in “The Found Boat”

The division of boys and girls in the beginning of the story

Their joining efforts in the process of boat-fixing—though still there is a gender distinction.

Initiation story: the five of them are no longer children engaged in child games.

Transgressing Social/Gender Boundaries The trip as a trip of transgressing gender boundari

es. The trip ends up re-confirming gender boundarie

s, since women’s bodies are vulnerable to rape and in need of protection.

Ironically, it is the boy, but not God, that give “Eva” (Eve) her sense of shame.

Ending – ambivalence, the girls in between shame and scorn.