“Trespasses”
by Alice Munro
from Runaway
While you could argue that the Lord’s Prayer is the springboard for “Trespasses,” Munro’s sixth story in Runaway, I would like to take a side step and examine the story through the lens of the 12 steps of AA. I like the exacting nature of the language of the steps, especially in regard to this story.
Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Bill Smith. Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism was written in 1939. AA is famous for its twelve steps.
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Steps 4, 5 and 9 are particularly applicable to “Trespasses. Step 4 requires a “fearless inventory.” Step 5 requires an admission of “the exact nature of our wrongs.” Step 9 requires the “making of amends.” Let’s be clear as well: AA requires the humbling of your self.
Let’s also be clear. The stories of Alice Munro present a deafening critique of the failings of conventional religion, but Munro also frequently explores the essential questions that religion seeks to answer.
Munro is distrustful of groups that attempt to assert control over individuals. The academic department of Greek at the University in Runaway’s “Chance” is merely one example. AA would likely be another such group that attempts to control individuals, when the individual’s own experience can be the only true teacher.
Nevertheless, the framework of AA’s Twelve Steps provides a useful lens through which to explore “Trespasses” because it requires honesty and confession, and because it requires, in particular, the admission that one’s life has become “unmanageable” because of alcohol.
(“Trespasses” also obviously refers to the version of the Lord’s Prayer in which one asks to be forgiven for “trespasses” and in which prayer one pledges to forgive others. AA does not require this prayer or any specific religion; it merely gives the alcoholic the map an alcoholic might follow to forgive and be forgiven.)
“Trespasses” is strange and upsetting. A couple keeps a baby’s ashes hidden in a cardboard box. No ceremony to mark the baby’s death has ever been held. No explanation has ever been given to the living daughter that there ever was even a first daughter.
It isn’t that the dead baby was unloved or unwanted. Eileen and Harry had adopted her. And Eileen had immediately become pregnant. Desperation ensued. Eileen could not imagine how she could manage two babies as well as, probably, the loss of her profession, which was newspapering. Late in the story we learn that Harry wanted Eileen to have an abortion. Harry and Eileen argued, Eileen ran off. In the emotional chaos, Eileen had not properly fixed the baby’s car seat, and in an accident, the baby died.
Eileen denies that she was drunk at the time. There is, however, evidence that she drinks quite a bit and that she and Harry fight quite a bit. They fight to the degree that they hardly notice the fact that their second child, who is 13 or so, is drifting. The family has just moved in an effort to start over.
There is a pervasive carelessness here. The baby died due to carelessness, maybe carelessness about drinking and driving, and certainly about fastening a baby seat. The dead baby’s ashes are never buried. The new baby is given the dead baby’s name, as if to pretend the first baby never existed, or as if to pretend the death didn’t matter, and as if the guilt for the death did not exist. Their second child, their natural child, Lauren, does not know that the adopted child ever existed.
Instead of burying the baby in a semi-public way, Eileen and Harry have buried the memory of the fight, the drinking, the driving, the accident, and the baby.
Is that not what we do? Bury the things we do that were wrong and for which we are accountable?
Certainly, alcohol, and every form of alcoholism, requires us to carelessly bury any consciousness of its “wrongs” in the basement. One of the basic signs of alcoholism is denial. Another sign of alcoholism is neglect. Lauren, Harry and Elaine’s natural daughter, is thirteen or so and showing signs of neglect. They have moved to the country to start over, and Lauren is a freshman. She is not navigating the move very well, but neither Harry or Eileen seem to take any notice. It is if they are pre-occupied, not only by their new life, but by a need to be pre-occupied.
They fought, “flinging ashtrays, bottles, dishes, at each other.” And worse. “Both of them threatened the use of pills and razors.”
Lauren, the thirteen year old, is part and parcel of the whole lengthy fight, every time.
Lauren used to be unable to stay in her room, she had to be where they were, flinging herself at them, protesting and weeping.
These scenes were predicted “when Harry got out a bottle of gin and poured half a tumbler for himself, adding nothing to it but ice — the course was set.”
They would spend themselves on the fight. They would not stop when Lauren begged. They would have to take it to its end, maybe with one of them out in the yard, threatening to run away. Munro leaves us to imagine what effects these dangerous scenes might have on a child and what memories she would have to live with as an adult . . . what post traumatic syndrome they have created in their daughter.
Next day, they would be muted, broken, shamed, and queerly exhilarated.
They would defend themselves to Lauren. They would even try to claim that such fights were necessary.
There’s even a theory that repressing anger gives you cancer.
Says Eileen.
This particular line of Eileen’s is very important. It’s important, although Munro makes no note of it and leaves it to the reader to do so. But you might not take note of it unless you are reading the story twice. Eileen claims that she is repressing, in particular, “anger”. But we know, given the box of ashes in the basement, that she is repressing responsibility, accountability, you name it. Guilt. If you will.
Have their lives become unmanageable?
If they were to conduct “a fearless inventory,” would they see that they had hurt each other and that they had hurt, almost beyond repair, their daughter?
I am reading right now David McCullough’s book about the Wright brothers, and in it he quotes Wilbur as saying what you need is “the right parents.” Wilbur’s father was a bishop, of all things, a bishop who encouraged his children to read Bob Ingersoll, the great atheist. Wilbur’s parents were the ones who encouraged their children to read and read and read and skip school if some important inquiry needed to be finished. And their mother was the one whose death on the fourth of July was mourned for the rest of their lives.
What if Eileen died before things have changed (and maybe even if things have changed)? Would Lauren feel anything but relief?
The conclusion of Munro’s story is the familiar scene for the child of an alcoholic. The daughter is awakened in the middle of the night to be a partner to a bizarre ceremony.
Harry and Eileen want to “bury” the first Lauren and they have invited her birth mother to be a part of the whole thing. Eileen’s admission regarding the death of the baby runs like this:
I wasn’t speeding and I certainly wasn’t drunk. It was just the bad light on the road and the bad weather.
There is the fact, even if she wasn’t drunk, of the bad weather. That Eileen took off with the baby in the bad weather in the dark. Is she responsible for that bad decision?
And then, there is Eileen’s phrasing. She says: “It was just the bad light on the road and the bad weather.”
Has Eileen “admitted the exact nature of her wrongs,” to use the AA language, step 5?
Does the appearance of Eileen’s “just” tip us off to the fact that this isn’t really a “fearless inventory?” Does that one word tip us off to the fact that this terrible scene is not really “making amends”? Either to the birth mother or to Lauren?
In fact, I would posit that Munro uses the word “just” on purpose in Eileen’s speech, in order to make us do a double-take. Is Eileen being “just” and fair? To the baby who died? To Lauren? To Harry? To the birth mother?
Is it “just” that the second Lauren will have vivid memories of her powerlessness during Harry and Eileen’s long fights? Is it just that in the middle of the night Harry and Eileen force a parody of a religious service on their daughter? Does this strange ceremony really make amends for the memories that Lauren will have for the rest of her life? The fact that she had to listen to bottles breaking, the threat of harm, the (repeated) threats of suicide, and that she was old enough to think she might be able to stop them?
You have never been such a child if you don’t think those memories are not life-long, and you have never been such a child if you think that long after the parent’s death you don’t wonder if you could have “saved” them.
Munro’s brilliance is that she often leaves you with a “maybe yes/maybe no” answer. There are several examples of that here.
Do Harry and Eileen make an admission of guilt that is “searching,” “fearless,” and complete?
To this reader the “trespasses” that Eileen and Harry have committed are the ongoing trespasses of the alcoholic. It would be nice if their dark and secret burial ceremony changed them in any way, the way AA changes people. But this reader leaves this burial scene with no assurance that the drinking, the fights, and the dramatic suicide attempts will stop. And until they do, Lauren’s life will be one car wreck after another, every night. Until she runs away.
Note: If I were teaching this story in a class with a bunch of avid readers in it, I might get as many takes on this story as there were readers in the class.
I have taken my space here on “Trespasses” to take a look at one angle only. I feel sure there are as many good angles on this story as there are good readers.
There is the element of paradox in this story, for instance, in that perhaps Harry is right, that this made-up religious ceremony is actually as holy as a traditional one. A really good student might be able to argue that in fact Harry and Eileen have done what I do not think they have done — that they have changed.
Another take on the story would be to emphasize the importance of Delphine, the birth mother. A companion take to Delphine is the issue of whether secrets can ever be truly buried, or denied, or escaped. I would, if pursuing this line, take a close look at the paradoxical nature of Delphine’s sudden appearance.
Another take on the story could be to emphasize Harry’s desire to start over. Or to examine Eileen’s ambition.
The whole issue of the title word “trespasses” is an essay in itself. Just what is a trespass? Just how did “trespass” come to appear in the English version of the Lord’s prayer? Why do we have at least three different translations (debts, trespasses, sins)? What do these competing versions have to do with this story? Why did Munro choose this word for the title? Just what exactly does Eileen mean when she suddenly blurts out, “Forgive us our sins?”
I merely wrote about what mattered to me, what spoke to me, at the time I read the story. I really enjoyed thinking about the story using the lens of AA. I welcome any challenges to my take. Munro’s method appears to absolutely invite discussion and disagreement. The real issue is not whether there are different takes — of course there are different takes — the real issue is whether your take holds water.
Wonderful analysts and commentary, thank you.
Not ashamed to say that Alice Munro is to me something close to a goddess.
I am an avid reader of her spells.
Will order right away.
I am wholeheartedly thankful for bringing this story to my attention
Welcome, Laura and Lilianna.
Liliana – “Runaway” is a great book. Just be prepared – “Chance,” “Soon” and “Silence” are a trilogy and somewhat unusual in that regard. 100 pages instead of Munro’s common 30 is challenging.
The title story alone is worth the price of the book, however, and with “Trespasses”, the book’s phenomenal value is doubled. I love “Passion,” as it is another coming of age story, but in addition, it hooks with “Trespasses” as it is also an unusual exploration of alcoholism.
“Powers” is drop-dead on a psychopathic personality and the ways we become complicit with the psychopath’s web.
But “Powers” also explores the creative states of two other characters. Happy communion with the goddess, Liliana.
interesting comments. BUT:::: PLEASE give warnings about spoilers
Part of the joy in reading Munro’s sometimes complicated plots, in which she so brilliantly moves present, past, future, is having the reader discover it. I wish I hadn’t read Betsy’s (fine) analysis before reading the story
Love your site, love Alice Munro!!!!
Betsy: Lauren is 10 years old, not 13 or so. (At least in the first Vintage International edition of Runaway; see Eileen’s comment on page 226).
Yes, Paul. You are correct. Thank you for that.
Alvin – good observation – Thank you.. Yes, from here forward I will include this sentence in the first paragraph: “Please read Munro’s original story before you read the following (detailed) commentary; Munro’s art deserves to be encountered fresh.”
So grateful to read your analyses again, Betsy!
Thank you, Heath. Glad to hear from you. Am working on “Tricks” as I write.
I appreciate the opportunity to read this story again and to think of it in a new light. One question I had after finishing it this time was, now that everything has been brought to light and the threat of the intruder removed, is Lauren not going to get to go away to school? I sensed that she wouldn’t, and that she would be stuck with her parents for a long time to come. That’s a haunting thought.
Yes, Millie! Occationally it is nice to speculate on the turns of a possible sequel story. Some consolation: Lauren´s next phase or place seems to be a boarding school, not quite in line of the book; she´ll not be a runaway, rather a sentaway.
Eileen will be immensely relieved. The parents can fully concentrate on “figuring things out”. If that meens booze and violence, AA would be helpful to both.
More seriously, I think Harry and Eileen could have been a couple from Kitsilano Beach, which has figured in some of Alice Munro´s stories. The same critical view on ordinary social life with a not so slight feeling of superiority, dispise of common manners, and essential in this story, treat your child as adult.
“Trespasses” is written much like a suspense novel. Very late in the story the reader realizes how much vital knowledge there has been around, as the pieces start to fall into place.
Unlike after a conventional mystery story, here after the last dot you face the dilemma of so many alternative explanatory models.
Based on my notes made over 6 months ago…
SHORT SUMMARY OF STORY
Impossible!
SCORE 08/10
That Lauren/Lauren device may be the only thing holding me back from a 9/10. And the device of not telling us schoolgirl Lauren’s age until late in the story. But it’s a very clever story. Schoolgirl Lauren is the main character but baby Lauren haunts the entire story. Perhaps I especially like it because, after 3 readings, I feel I understand it more or less fully. Which can be unusual with a Munro story.
Both Eileen and Harry are loving parents. And I guess they’re problem drinkers (or is it just Harry, can’t remember) – but I really don’t see either of them as alcoholics.
Funny to look back … as I was working my way through the story for the very first time, about half way, ever on the look-out for Munro’s little tricks, I entertained the notion that the Delphine mentioned in the short opening section was actually the jar of ashes.
TITLE
As so often with this collection I find the story title weak. I just think with this collection Munro has decided to fetishize one word titles. My alternative suggestion is ‘Who Was It If It Wasn’t Me?’ – this is something schoolgirl Lauren says at one point. (Full disclosure: a Munro scholar elsewhere on the internet has used this as the title for her essay on the story.)
Howard – I think you and I could have quite the word-wrestling match over whether Eileen and Harry are either or both alcoholics. But I think that is one of the questions that Munro poses and doesn’t answer and purposely leaves to us. I have to say I know they are alcoholics – but Munro never says it outright. In fact, whether or not someone is an alcoholic is one of the big questions in life.
To me – it’s the AA sentence – “our lives had become unmanageable.”
Munro is so complex that we each have the thing that matters most to us in the story. Hence the wonderful discussion.
Millie – I love your question. Would the solution for Lauren be boarding school? That is, as Harri points out, whether we write the sequel. I went to a high school that had boarding students. Sometimes it’s a haven and a springboard and sometimes it isn’t. It all depends on the combination of what you find there – sports, art, science and the teachers and the other students. Salvation comes in different guises. Love thinking about this.
The lost baby, put into a shoebox without ceremony–this is based on Alice Munro’s life.
From the book, “Alice Munro: A Double Life:”
“In August 1955, a second daughter, Catherine, was born. Without functioning kidneys, she lived less than two days. The intense grief for this lost daughter surfaced later. At the time, the major feeling was numbness, mixed with relief and guilt. At first, the doctor thought Catherine had Down’s syndrome, because the missing kidney function caused the baby’s extremities to be swollen from birth. Briefly, it seemed as if Alice had escaped the older-daughter’s role of looking after a disabled mother to become a full-time caregiver for a retarded child. Alice thought about getting her name on a waiting list for care facilities, and the wait was six years long. This was not necessary, as it turned out. The baby died and was buried, as was commonly done, in a shoe box slipped without ceremony into an available open grave. Alice and Jim, not conventionally religious, were both scornful of sentimentality, and chose to have no funeral and no tombstone. But until Jenny was born in June 1957, Alice was haunted by recurring dreams: “I was doing something and had the feeling I was forgetting something very, very important. It was a baby. I had left it outside and forgotten about it, and it was out in the rain. By the time I remembered what it was, the baby was dead. This dream stopped when Jenny was born” (unpublished interview [Ross]). A poem in the Alice Munro Papers, written after Jenny was born, is an elegy for the “dark child,” who “went without comfort / Without a word to make you human.” Eventually, Alice couldn’t bear the thought that there was no permanent marker for this child. In 1990, she returned to Vancouver to arrange for a tombstone for Catherine. She says, “A remarkable coincidence occurred: the day I tracked down the records — 7 August 1990 — was exactly 35 years from the day on which I had signed the burial forms in the funeral home. I remember being in the hospital for just two days, and then a few days after that pushing Sheila in her stroller to the funeral home to sign the papers” (unpublished interview [Ross]). Now, in the same graveyard, though not on the exact spot, is a plot marked with a stone for Catherine.”
That element of the story affects me. I have a half-sibling who lived only two months and was buried without ceremony in an unmarked grave. And I didn’t even learn anything regarding this well into adulthood. I did try to track down the gravesite, but there are no surviving records regarding its exact location.
Lauren is the victim of “emotional incest” which is sometimes always called “covert incest.” And it is both her parents and also Delphine (to a lessor extent) that victimize her.
https://www.webmd.com/parenting/what-is-emotional-incest
In the situation Lauren is in, being sent to a boarding school is probably the best possible outcome. The “girls’ private school in Toronto” she Eileen has in mind was selected after speaking to Harry’s sister (“Harry’s sister—whom Harry wasn’t speaking to, because of criticisms the sister’s husband had made about his, Harry’s, way of living his life”) who actually had attended that school. So we can hope it is not too horrible.
And clearly Eileen has decided that this is the preferred placement for Lauren–and admits that she as already planning this “all along.” ““It’s not just this happening, either,” she said. “You don’t deserve to have to grow up in this crappy town. You don’t deserve to end up sounding like a hick. I’ve been thinking of this all along. I was only putting it off till you got a bit older.””
One can wonder whether “having to grow up in this crappy town” is more of an excuse to hide the unnamed real reason–preventing Lauren from growing up in this crappy family exposed to Harry’s alcoholism-fueled rages.
In my view Harry and Eileen are hipster parents who certainly both like a drink. But they’re loving parents and Munro goes to some lengths to show how re schoolgirl Lauren they have agency. If there’s a problem or an issue with Lauren, they deal with it – there and then. In thoughtful, measured ways.
Yes in their child-rearing they’re also liberal in a 1960s/1970s way that many, including myself, would find neglectful and shocking.
Neil in the Passion story is an alcoholic and we see him as such in the story as it unfolds, in the present day action. However in Trespasses, as the story unfolds, in the present day action, Harry and Eileen are only drinkers. Scenes where alcohol is almost certainly playing a negative part in their behaviour are only glimpsed retrospectively – via Lauren’s point of view. This more than anything is what leads me to judge that we’re not supposed to go all the way and conclude they’re alcoholics. I’m not saying those scenes didn’t happen in the way Lauren describes them, I’m just saying Munro has chosen not to place those scenes in the present day action. Perhaps the only exception to this is Eileen taking her coffee back to bed and leaving Lauren to have breakfast and get herself off to school.
If Eileen had been drunk when the car accident killed baby Lauren surely she’d have been charged with some serious offence.