Sally is the main character in Alice Munro’s story “Deep Holes”. From the outside it should seem as though Sally is happy, but is she really? She should be, she has a new baby, two healthy young boys and her husband just published his first solo article. Munro doesn’t outright address weather Sally is happy or not. It’s almost up to the reader to decide for themselves. Her happiness really seems to stem from her husband’s approval and her need for emotional connection.
She dreams of remote islands that were rarely talked about and no one visited. This is something she internally focuses on, for exactly what reason I don’t know, but when she does mention these places she appears to be at the peak of her happiness. It’s some sort of secret and internal happiness, she has, about these lost islands. I believe these islands are important to Sally. They are her inner focus, as Aristotle states, “Since clearly it is a mark of much folly not to have …show more content…
I speculate the internet also had something to do with the loss of that dream, it was too easy and there was so much information at her fingertips, that it was no longer a fantasy but a reality. She doesn’t allow her happiness to come from within and has always followed her husband’s approval for her own happiness. Her husband continues to decide for her what she needs, something real. “So she became the small figure in black or bright clothing contrasting with the ribbons of Silurian or Devonian rock” (Munro 105). I think this passage literally sums up Sally’s life. She is just there, nothing more, contrasting with her husband’s disapproval. This is in opposition to Aristotle’s theories of the good life. Wisdom, goodness and pleasure being the most desirable things and she seems to not attain any of these at the moment. Sally has lost her focus and doesn’t appear to have anything specific to aim
She dreams of remote islands that were rarely talked about and no one visited. This is something she internally focuses on, for exactly what reason I don’t know, but when she does mention these places she appears to be at the peak of her happiness. It’s some sort of secret and internal happiness, she has, about these lost islands. I believe these islands are important to Sally. They are her inner focus, as Aristotle states, “Since clearly it is a mark of much folly not to have …show more content…
I speculate the internet also had something to do with the loss of that dream, it was too easy and there was so much information at her fingertips, that it was no longer a fantasy but a reality. She doesn’t allow her happiness to come from within and has always followed her husband’s approval for her own happiness. Her husband continues to decide for her what she needs, something real. “So she became the small figure in black or bright clothing contrasting with the ribbons of Silurian or Devonian rock” (Munro 105). I think this passage literally sums up Sally’s life. She is just there, nothing more, contrasting with her husband’s disapproval. This is in opposition to Aristotle’s theories of the good life. Wisdom, goodness and pleasure being the most desirable things and she seems to not attain any of these at the moment. Sally has lost her focus and doesn’t appear to have anything specific to aim