Vision By Alistair Macleod Summary

Contemporary Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod features the idea of story telling centrally in his short story Vision. MacLeod draws upon passionate communication, Metafiction, and first-person address to demonstrate how the context of a story is consistently determined and re-shaped depending on the intent of the teller towards the listener. MacLeod’s Vision suggests that stories are powerful methods of communication that must continuously be told, heard, and retold to ensure that they are not lost. Therefore, Vision exhibits how one story is made up of an infinite number of stories that can be told both orally and written and through a variety addresses. MacLeod begins this story by attributing the power of deep listening when he explains, “I don’t remember when I first …show more content…
Making a connection to a particular story often leaves a mark on the reader and ensures that it will “remain there forever” (MacLeod, 131). MacLeod’s organization of the first two paragraphs indicates that the teller of this story is also a listener, thus demonstrating the strong connection between listening and telling. Notably, the young narrator is retelling his father’s story of a young man from Canna who told himself and his twin brother their grandfather’s story. This demonstrates how Vision is metafictive and draws attention to the nature of storytelling. As the narrator explains, “it is the telling of a story about a story but like most stories it has spun off into others and perhaps no story ever really stands on its own” (MacLeod, 162). The narrator must wend his way through various stories to try and make