Walker Brothers Cowboy

By Alice Munro
Presenters: Rita Chen Christine Chen Teresa Ally Kuo
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Alice Munro as
A short-story writer A regional writer A realist

Setting of her story rural Ontario

her father is a fox farmer her parentss struggles within a variety of rural occupation

Source: http://members.aol.com/MunroAlice/images.htm

Munros Background
1931 born in Wingham, Ontario, Canada 1949-51 undergraduate, University of Western Ontario. 1951 married James Munro and raised three daughters. 1968 published first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades; won Governor Generals Literary Award. 1972 divorced James Munro. 1976 remarried to Gerald Fremlin.
Source: http://members.aol.com/MunroAlice/images.htm

Munros Works
Novel
Lives of Girls and Women (1972)

Collections of Short-Stories
-- Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) -- Something Ive Been Meaning to Tell You (1974) -- The Moons of Jupiter (1982) -- Friend of My Youth (1990) -- The Love of a Good Women (1998) -- Runaway (2004)

Source: http://www.nwpassages.com/bios/munro1.asp

Geographical Background
Dungannon Tuppertown

Source: http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/greatlk.htm
Source: http://maps.yahoo.com/dd_result?csz=24245&country=us&tcsz=24251&tcountry=us 5

Historical Background The Great Depression

Time 1929-1933 Depression of 1929 Slump of 1929
Causes The stock market crash The overcapacity of agricultural products The raising customs

Problems Bankrupt and Unemployment Living condition changed Tramps and migrants workers People went starving
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Problems of Great Depression

presented in Walker Brothers Cowboy
Depressed market and economy

views of gray barns and falling-down sheds and upturning windmills (p. 2711) we pass a factory with boarded-up windows (p. 2707) The tramps they encountered by the Lakes Nora, I guess you count yourself lucky to have the workhe was out of work the longest time. (p. 2714)
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Unemployment

Source

Source
Waiting for free meals

Source

Source Source

Migrant mother with seven children

Why cowboy?
The Stereotype of a cowboy

Manhood Self-dependent Riding on a horse Grazing cattle

Accepting would-be customers abuse Driving a car, knocking the doors of kitchens Raising foxes Felt like a failure both for bankrupt and marriage
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The father, a parody of a cowboy

Summary (1)
Walker Brothers Cowboy is a story of a girls growth. The narrator, the girl, takes a journey with her father and her brother. From the journey, the narrator revealed their living condition before and now. Her father raised foxes before, but the price of the foxes fall down from one year to another because of Depression, so they owed the feed company a big money. Then the whole family moved to another place by the Lakes, Tuppertown. Her father earned a living by working as a peddler for Walker Brothers company.
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Summary (2)
One day, because of the mothers sickness, the narrator and her brother took a journey with their father. From the journey, they knew what their fathers job looks like. The narrator perceived her fathers different aspects. Before they went home, the father took them to visit his ex-girlfriend, Nora. The narrator experienced something that she never encountered before that changed the narrator at the end of the story.
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Character Analysis
The narrator, a girl, 1st person point-ofview

sensitive and clever I think of what my grandmother and my Aunt Tena, that was what they would say about Nora (p. 2714, L3 from the bottom) My father does not saythe whisky, maybe the dancing (p. 2716, L6 from the bottom)

The father (Ben Jordan)

A fox raiser A salesman for Walker Brothers Company (p. 2708, second par. from the bottom) A good husband (p. 2716, L10)
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Character Analysis
The mother

A sorrowful woman who longs for her past home and life. (p. 2709, L12 from the bottom) She likes to keep her class and style. (p. 2709, the first whole par.)

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Character Analysis
Nora, the fathers ex-girlfriend, loving dance The blind woman, Noras mother The narrators brotherinsensitive and childish

Pee, pee,he can do to walk in. (p. 2712, L 10)

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The father-daughter relationship

Teacher-student

He tells me how the Great Lakes came to be . (p. 2708, the first whole par.) and I feel you cannot imagine. (p. 2717, L4)

Degraded

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The mother-daughter relationship

Uncomfortable

With me her creation, on the street. (p. 2709, L25) Dont you remember any unwanted emotion. (p. 2709, L12 from the bottom)

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The husband-wife relationship

Polite and cold

No. No thanks, Im better just to lie here with my eyes closed. (p. 2710, L13) Just dont tell your mother that, She isnt liable to see the joke. (p. 2712, L11)

They dont understand each other

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The relationship between the father and Nora

Cheerful

He tells about the chamberpot that was emptied out the windowthats all you are. (p. 2715, L13)

The end of affection between two of them

Stay for supper. (p. 2716, L23) Bring the children. Bring your wife. (p. 2716, L21)
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An initiation story
A story of a characters growth or retreat that takes the shape of a journey. The character changed or became experienced at the end of the journey. A journey to

Knowing her (the narrators) father The adult world The world outside her home To herself
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A journey to know her father

As the journey proceeded, the father figure changed from a mentor, an amusing father into a sophisticated person.

The father figure as

A mentor

He tells me how the Great Lakes came to beThey were new as time went. (p. 2708, par.1)

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The father figure as

A buffoon or an amusing cowboy

Now then, missus, are you troubled with parasitic life? He would would wave the imaginary box of pillsand she would laugh finally, unwillingly (p. 2711, par.2) Where are the Baptists My brother takes this for straight truth trying to see down to the Lake (p. 2710, par.2)

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The father figure as

Tough cowboy both in physical and psychological aspects

He should know how to quiet animals, he has held desperate foxes with tongs around their necks. (p. 2711, par. 1) Just then a window is opened upstairs, a white pot appears on the sill, He picks up his suitcases with no particular hurry and walk, no longer whistling lights a cigarette before he starts the car (p. 2712, L 2-8) Ben. My father drops his head and says quietly, Not me, Nora. (p. 2716) Stay for supper.Oh, no. And their mother would worry (p. 2716)
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A father / husband of responsibility

The father figure as

A sophisticated adult covered with a cheerful cowboy

I feel my fathers life flowing back from our car in the last of the afternoon, darkening and turning strange, like a landscape that has an enchantment on it, making it kindly, ordinary and familiar while you are looking at it, but changing it, once your back is tuned, into something you will never know (p. 2717, par. 2)

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A journey to the adult world

The cruelty of life

a white pot appears on the silltilted over and its contents splash down (p. 2712) This is first blind person I have ever seen close up From one hollow comes a miraculous tear. (p. 2713) The womanholds on to them tightly, pushing them against her stomach as if it hurt. (p. 2712) Noras dress, when she appears again (p. 2713)

The suffering of life

The emotional suffering

The unacceptable relations between Protestants and Catholics.

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A journey to the world outside her home

What poverty is

My father says he is a bit hard up himself (p. 2708)

Aligning himself and his family with the destitute

the factory with boarded-up (p. 2707) it is hard to find any colors. Gray for the barnsThe rusting cars show rainbow patches (p. 2711, par.2) Not living things to be seen Except dogs their lean sides rising (p. 2711) One yard after anotherthe old cars, the pumps, dogs, views of gray barns and falling-down sheds and upturning windmills (p. 2711, par. 2)
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A journey to herself
A sense of loss: her fathers mortality and her own

The tiny share we have of time appalls me, though my father seems to regard it with tranquilityhe was not alive when this century started. I will be barely alive old,oldwhen it end. (p. 2708, par.1) My father does not say anything to me about not mentioning things at home, but I know, just from the thoughtfulness, The whisky, maybe the dancing. (p. 2716 bottom) When we get closer to Tuppertwon the sky becomes gently overcast, as always (p. 2717)
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Displaying her discretion as an adult

The deadening quality of life

Theme
both the pathos and the degradation of men and women who face the deadening quality of life in a cycle of promise and decay.. (p. 2706) The mother Mrs. Oliphant who is the only neighbor she (the mother) talks to (pp. 2708-09) She walks serenely like a lady shopping (p. 2709) She is not able to keep from mentioning those days. (p. 2709) No bathroom with a claw-footed tub and flush toilet is going to comfort her (p. 2709) The father my father hung on hoping they would get better next year, and they fell again, and he hung on one more year and one more and finally it was not possible to hang on anymore (p.2708) The narrator When we get close to Tuppertown the sky becomes gently overcast, as always (p. 2717)
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ThemePoverty
poverty stamps itself on all facets of life (p. 2706)
We poured all we had into it, my mother says, and we came out with nothing. Many people could say the same thing, these daysmy mother has no time for the national calamity (p. 2709) Nora laughs. Well, I guess you count yourself lucky to have the work, Isabels husband in Brantford, he was out of work the longest time (p. 2714).

Color imagesgray and brown (p. 2707, 2711) all suggest depressed economy.

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ThemeIsolation
Isolation
Children are still playing. I dont know them either because my mother keeps my brother and me in our own yard separate into islands of two or one (p. 2707). He goes back once again, probably to say goodbye to my mother, to ask her if she is sure she doesnt want to come, and hear her say, No. No thanks, Im better just to lie here with my eyes closed. (p. 2710).

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Questions
Characterize the narrators relationship with her father. Does it change over the course of journey? What does the word cowboy in the title suggest? Is that positive or negative?

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Works Cited
Alice Munro. Homepage. 6 Mar. 2006 <http://members.aol.com/MunroAlice/>. "Author: Alice Munro ." Literature and Culture Teaching Database ( ). 2004. Hermes Database Project . 23 Apr. 2006 <http://hermes.hrc.ntu.edu.tw/lctd/asp/authors/author.asp?id=00164>. The Comparative Analysis of the Father Figure in Boys and Girls and Walker Brothers Cowboy. Hong En. 8 Apr. 2006 <http://news.hongen.com/news/remark.aspx?ID=2249>.

The Great Depression. Modern American Poetry. 18 Apr. 2006 <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm>.

Martin, W. R. The Strange and the Familiar in Alice Munro. Studies in Canadian Literature. 21 Mar. 2006. <http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol7_2/&filename=Martin.h tm>. Munro, Alice. Walker Brothers Cowboy. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. 7th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 2000. 2707-17.

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Works Cited
Photographs of the Great Depression. 20th Century History. 15 Apr. 2006 <http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blyindexdepression.htm>. Walker Brothers Cowboy. 20th Century English Literature. 3 Mar. 2006 <http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_2003S/c_20th_lit/cowboy.htm>. Walker Brothers Cowboy by Alice Munro. English286. 19 Apr. 2006 <http://gs.fanshawec.ca/ENGL286/walkbros.htm>. Walker Brothers Cowboy Study Guide. Book Rags. 10 Apr. 2006 <http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-walkerbrotherscowboy/>. What Caused the Great Depression of the 1930s? Gold Ocean. 12 Apr. 2006 <http://www.shambhala.org/business/goldocean/causdep.html>. (1929-1945). Americas Library. 7 Apr. 2006 <http://americancorner.org.tw/AmericasLibrary/category/page/jb/wwii.htm>.

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