The Other Side of the River: Poverty and Ambition in “Dear Life”

Jenessa Branon

Dear Life, a collection of short stories written by renowned author Alice Munro, was initially anticipated to be her last published work, though she later continued to release several more short story collections, much to the surprise and delight of her readers. The collection’s final story, “Dear Life,” serves as inspiration for the book’s title. Autobiographical in nature, Munro draws a vivid picture of her adolescent life in rural Ontario, Canada, where she was born in 1931. The narrator in the story, presumably Munro herself, describes growing up on the outskirts of town and how she struggled to receive an education due to the roadblocks of taxation zones and poverty; later on she had to push through while taking over the role of mother when tragedy strikes their household in the form of a neurodegenerative disease. Many themes have been analyzed and written about by students and scholars alike, the core ones being memory, feminism, and loss.

One area that is sorely underdeveloped is a critical analysis of the socio-economic impact of poverty and war on the characters, as well as the alienation they experience for various reasons. I aim to bring light to another side of her writing, one that is tucked away beneath layers of subtext and hidden meanings, more significant in its exclusion rather than inclusion in the writing. I believe the struggles of the characters in the way of poverty, class structure, and alienation shape their stories in ways yet to be thoroughly discussed. Throughout the story, the narrator’s tone remains devoid of resentment towards her circumstances and refrains from assigning blame for the undeniable trauma she endures. Instead, she approaches these experiences with a nostalgic detachment, as though she has distanced herself from that period of her life. Though the events of the past may seem far away from the narrator now, many people are able to relate to the struggles Munro writes about.

Born just a few years before the start of World War II, the narrator is forced to navigate growing up in a time of economic stress paired with an already rugged and poverty stricken town. She makes brief -but intentional- mention of the overhanging, oppressive weight of war in subtle ways, primarily focusing on the mundane and undramatic details of her life and those around her. Though the wars are mentioned only in passing, in the manner of a veteran named Waitey who served in World War I, and in the narrator recalling the boys from school being eager to join the army and workforce, the effects of the economic unrest are ever present and emphasize the character’s hardships and experiences throughout the story. Though it is not a glaring theme in this particular work, the heavy presence of wartime is not isolated in this piece; it makes appearances in other works by Munro, highlighted in an analysis of several of her legacy by author Miroslawa Buchholtz–it was clearly a significant period of time in her life, one that was overwrought with turmoil and struggle. In addition, this period was not kind to the intellectual, who would have ambitions to pursue education above other paths. The pressure from outsiders to finish up with school quickly marks a world in which education and learning was not prioritized. It turned out to be rather ironic, considering that in the wake of the second World War, Canada’s economy experienced a huge boom, and they put a heavy emphasis on educational reformation. In the narrator’s case, she was simply ahead of her time. The lack of support from the people around her were not the only obstacles in the way of the narrator’s education. Her home life and the power structures inside also created a barrier she had to overcome. The author of the article “Caretakers/Caregivers: Economies of Affection in Alice Munro” remarks on the reversal of roles as a theme in Munro’s previous works, where “characters are frequently summoned by a call of the other…a call that portends the realignment of personal structures of power…but in exchange for such relative privilege she becomes a kind of handmaiden” (DeFalco 380). This is remarkably similar to the narrator taking up the role of mother in her story as her own mother becomes too ill to continue on with her duties. She finds herself able to cook whatever she wants “…as long as they were cheap” (Munro 309) but in turn must fill the shoes of her mother by caring for her family. Despite these sudden confines of responsibility, the narrator does not simply submit to the single mindedness of this newly assigned role by giving herself over to it–she still pursues an education and reads “big novels…borrowed from the town library” (Munro 310), much to the surprise of people in town, like Diane’s grandmother and the war veteran Waitey.

The narrator’s determination to finish her schooling sets her apart from the other school children and makes her somewhat of an oddity in her social culture. This story has no shortage of outcasts, all of whom serve as an example of how difference leads to the alienation and isolation of the characters. Though Canada is well known today for the public’s broader support of socialism, it is still very much a country based in capitalism. The room for things that are not deemed valuable and profitable is strained, and it is reflected in the father’s failed fur business. His resulting job at the foundry leads to a “…loss of connection between a worker’s own purposes, and thus his “original” identity” (Williams 161). He experienced a loss of self as a direct result of capitalism, and many of the men he worked with had faced similar bad luck. We can also see this idea of alienation in the tale of old Mrs. Netterfield, by all accounts a strange individual who was rumored to be aggressive and crazy. Only after the narrator grows and leaves town does she see the parallels between her own mother and Mrs. Netterfield, and we can see that the loss of their autonomy and support results in being cast aside in society. Through Mrs. Netterfield’s character, as well as the mother, the capitalist system’s tendency to exploit and alienate certain underprivileged groups is critiqued. Many characters in the short story are marked by their isolation and differences, the young girl, Diane, whose mother was a prostitute, alienated from social society even after her mother’s death. Diane’s family experiences another form of alienation as well, one that reflects the broader issue of sacrificing something virtuous in order to move up in society. The narrator accepts a drink from Diane’s grandmother and remarks at how awful the water from their dug well is, to which the grandmother agrees (Munro 301). In this it seems that a certain sacrifice is made in order to live in the more urban part of town, and so the people who live in the towns instead of on the outskirts find themselves lacking the pure, vital resource of clean water in favor of “better” lives. The grandmother’s loss of her daughter, Diane’s mother, is just another sacrifice made in the wake of the pursuit of more fulfilling lives.

The desire to rise up in the social classes, and the choice to pursue something outside their means, seems to be hereditary in the story. Both the mother and father fight against the boundaries of their means. The mother’s rejection of her old family’s farm life showed in her style and fancy cooking, for which she was looked down on by the father’s side of the family. In her pursuit of the good life she attempted to manifest a higher class for herself with her dress and her actions, hoping they would “…transform themselves into a different sort of people…who enjoyed a degree of leisure” (Munro 304). The father’s fur business, which they poured everything into only to have it fail due to poor timing, resulted in him having to work a dangerous job to provide. These ambitions trickle down into the narrator, who pushes against the weight of economic stress and alienation from others and continues to value education and intellect in an attempt to rise above her allocated station in life.

The family, with their home on that westward road, was stuck in limbo, not able to fit in with the “real country” people (Munro 302), but sat right on the outskirts of town, far enough that the father had to buy a shed in town so the speaker could attend school there. And so the narrator’s family receives neither the camaraderie of the country folk nor the acceptance of higher class brackets. The family striving to reach a semblance of class is shown in the unused golf clubs in the house, in the father’s decision to wear pants instead of overalls to go downtown, and in the narrator’s efforts to finish her high school career despite adversity and dismissal of the girls that left school to become wives and mothers, marking her a “rebel” who fights against the prescribed ways of society (Ait Mohammed and Harbit). The not-so-subtle “grass is always greener” idiom found in the speakers recounting of how the settlers decided to move across the river, thinking life must surely be better “on higher ground” (Munro 306) is a testament to how far people are willing to go to pursue a better life for themselves and their family, and how they are always looking for something better.

As the concluding piece to the collection Dear Life, the final story is at once both beautiful and ugly, the realness of it coming through in a way that doesn’t make light of the struggles the narrator faced, but accepts them nonetheless. It simply tells the narrator’s life how it happened, inviting the reader to resonate with the complexities of human experience amidst socioeconomic strife. The reason this piece of work is so special is because of its depiction of the adversity the working class faces in an authentic and unexaggerated manner–it is truly a testament to the resilience and drive those with shared experiences have. The upwards battle many people can relate to is depicted in the narrator’s desire to learn, the family’s hope for a better life, and the unfair challenges life throws our way. Munro captures it all in a mere twenty-one pages, sharing with readers a childhood that mirrors so many others, marked by struggle and the desire for more, yes, but significant in its own right because it highlights the grit one needs to reach outside society’s bounds.