To close of not to close: the case of Alice Munro's "Love of a good woman"

• Autores: John Gerlach
• Localización: The Short Story in English [Recurso electrónico]: crossing boundaries / coord. por Gema Soledad Castillo García, María Rosa Cabellos Castilla, Juan Antonio Sánchez Jiménez, Vincent Carlisle Espínola, 2006, ISBN 8481387096, págs. 418-427
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • With its teasingly suspended ending, Alice Munro’s story both demands and resists closure: demands it in the sense that realistic treatment and pulsations of climax create a strong expectation of closure; resists it through internal contradictions that cancel tracks which would allow one to achieve a stable interpretation. This paper proposes that the story is best understood through the Gary Saul Morson’s concept of sideshadowing, a concept that views certain fictional works as explorations of presentness, of ongoing and resonant choices. A fuller treatment than the 2500 word sample below also amplifies contemporary critical approaches to closure and contrasts “Love of a Good Woman” with open-ended stories by Gabriel García Márquez and Javier Marías that do not produce sideshadowing.