Journal Article

Alice Munro's \Providence,\ Second-Wave Feminism, and the (Im)possibilities of Reconciling Motherhood and Liberation

Getz, Kristina

2020

Overview

Munro wrote the story in October 1976 (Thacker 311), a few years after the dissolution of her own marriage of two decades (244), and it first appeared in the August 1977 edition of Redbook, the publishing venue serving as an obvious testament to the story's underlying thematic preoccupation with women's lived experiences and the liberative upheavals of the feminist movement.2 The other stories in the collection capture episodes and eras of Rose's life, from her downtrodden childhood in Hanratty, to her socially advantageous marriage, followed by the birth of her daughter, extramarital affairs, and newfound independence after her divorce. [...]it is easily the least critically explored story in Who Do You Think You Are? Chantel Lavoie notes more generally that Munro's fiction has \"always explored\" the \"ambivalence\" of motherhood, asserting \"that staying and coping with motherhood is only [ever] an uneasy compromise, not a triumph\" (70), and that more often than not, Munro is preoccupied by \"the dark ambivalence of the monstrous mother\" (69), with stories featuring \"maternal characters [who] ache with longing for men they love, and sex with those men takes them away from their children, the fruits of earlier relationships\" (71).3 And while \"Providence\" does include a fledgling, long-distance romantic relationship that Rose is eagerly seeking to maintain, the story is much more deeply invested in the quotidian tasks of a mother raising her child, and the conflicts and difficulties of managing life as a newly-single working mother. [...]it is precisely her struggle with these competing demands and impulses which drives the narrative, as Rose longs for autonomy, freedom, and erotic love, while striving to adequately meet the obligations of mothering her young daughter.

• Publisher: Pacific Affairs. The University of British Columbia
• Subject: 21st century / Ambiguity / American literature / Authenticity / Bibliographic literature / Biographies / Canadian literature / Children / Children & youth / Domestic violence / Fate / Feminism / Fiction / Ideology / Literary characters / Literary criticism / Literary devices / Logic / Marriage / Mothers / Munro, Alice / Narrative structure / Narrative techniques / Narrative theme / Narratives / Plot (Narrative) / Psychological aspects / Reconciliation / Rich, Adrienne (1929-2012) / Short stories / Source materials / Women