In Munro’s writings, one of her key focal points is the relationship between family members with components of gender and sexuality, between husband and wife in the case of Dimension, and between parents and children in the case of Train. However, the characters in each are affected in similar ways and suffer the same negative outcome of feeling trapped throughout most of the story. One literary critic, Dahlie, asserts:
On the surface, much seems straightforward – family relationships, ordinary friendships, love affairs – but Munro’s vision often invests these situations with a degree of moral chaos and a destructive force rather than with positive tendencies we customarily associate them with” (Dahlie 12)
In Dimension, Doree learns that both …show more content…
This part of Belle’s life repels him from her as he cannot handle the sexual nature in her past, and Jackson decides to move on with his life and pursues employment at Bonnie Dundee, “A few days he could have then, to get his affairs together and do the proper moving in. That would not be necessary, Jackson said. His affairs were together and his possessions were on his back” (Munro 55). This is an ultimately an act of cowardice as he is running away from a sick woman whom he has spent years with because he cannot handle her thoughts about her father’s death. Jackson could have stood up to his inner demons in that moment, but he could not. The underlying connection between families and the protagonists in Dimension and Train is that Doree and Jackson are both cowards as a result of their families. Munro gives family influence a strong presence in her stories, and the literary critic, Thacker, asserts that this is due to her relationship with her parents, saying, “I have put forward an autobiographical approach to Munro generally… her relationships with them, both literally and through memory, make figures based on them common-place throughout her work” (Thacker 14). Munro incorporates the relationship with family with components
On the surface, much seems straightforward – family relationships, ordinary friendships, love affairs – but Munro’s vision often invests these situations with a degree of moral chaos and a destructive force rather than with positive tendencies we customarily associate them with” (Dahlie 12)
In Dimension, Doree learns that both …show more content…
This part of Belle’s life repels him from her as he cannot handle the sexual nature in her past, and Jackson decides to move on with his life and pursues employment at Bonnie Dundee, “A few days he could have then, to get his affairs together and do the proper moving in. That would not be necessary, Jackson said. His affairs were together and his possessions were on his back” (Munro 55). This is an ultimately an act of cowardice as he is running away from a sick woman whom he has spent years with because he cannot handle her thoughts about her father’s death. Jackson could have stood up to his inner demons in that moment, but he could not. The underlying connection between families and the protagonists in Dimension and Train is that Doree and Jackson are both cowards as a result of their families. Munro gives family influence a strong presence in her stories, and the literary critic, Thacker, asserts that this is due to her relationship with her parents, saying, “I have put forward an autobiographical approach to Munro generally… her relationships with them, both literally and through memory, make figures based on them common-place throughout her work” (Thacker 14). Munro incorporates the relationship with family with components