Friend of My Youth
by Alice Munro
- 2 Members Following
Follow a topic to see new activity, such as homework help questions and answers, in your personal feed on the homepage.
At a glance:
- Author: Alice Munro
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Short stories
- Time of Work: The 1860’s through the 1970’s
- Setting: Scotland; a ship in the Atlantic Ocean; and various locations in Canada, including Ontario and British Columbia
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction, Domestic realism, Character study
- Subjects: Self-discovery, Memory, Mothers, Parents and children, Marriage, Friendship, Dreams, Women's issues, Storytelling, Adultery, Sisters, Women, Divorce, Death or dying, Canada or Canadians, Imagination, Widows or widowers, Sacrifice, Happiness, Miscarriage, Wigs
- Locales: Oceans, Ontario, Canada, Scotland, British Columbia, Canada
Whatever their differences in age and aspirations, the protagonists in Alice Munro’s short-story collection Friend of My Youth have one thing in common: They are living as much in the past as in the present. They come to see that their lives are the result of past choices made on impulse, the influence of memories and dreams, and even the secondhand stories of other lives.
The title story, “Friend of My Youth,” illustrates the fact that the lives of others, founded as they are on these irrational elements, can never be fully understood. The major characters are...
(The entire page is 2445 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
