“The Wilds of Morris Township”
by Alice Munro
from The View from Castle Rock
Class Assignment for “The Wilds of Morris Township”.
This story is sixteen pages. This is one of Munro’s shortest stories, and it is perhaps her most difficult. It resists common sense or commentary. It makes the head swim. If I were forced to teach this story (and it would be against my will) I would assign each of my twenty students one question apiece to consider and come to class ready to present some kind of answer to that one question, no matter how tentative.
1. Is Munro trying to debunk family history with this story?
2. Does this story strike you as a shambles of gaps, misinformation, and supposition?
3. Why does the main character of this story appear to be a house?
4. Is the narrator a man or a woman?
5. How reliable is Big Rob’s journal? Is there any confusion about this journal? Is it real? Does the narrator offer us any provenance for it? Tell us who had possession of it after his death? Tell us where we can see it? Why does this confusion about the journal exist?
6. Who was killed in the woods by a falling tree? Could this have been murder? What would have been the motive? Does “killed in the woods by a falling tree” anecdote remind you of any other Munro story?
7. How did Big Rob and his cousins come by the land they homesteaded?
8. Who are the people that Big Rob names? What is his wife’s name? Who is the very large group of “landowners” that Big Rob never mentions or names?
9. Who had nine children in a two-room shanty in the wilderness? What is the significance of the narrator’s “slip of the tongue” regarding the birth of these nine children?
10. Why did one of big Rob’s children run away?
11. What is the significance of these dates? 1851? 1853? 1857? 1907? Why is there a 50-year gap in the dates provided?
12. How does the narrator know so much about how Big Rob’s eight adult children lived?
13. In what way is Forrest’s almost empty eight room house a symbol? Bearing in mind that symbol is not Munro’s favorite technique?
14. What is the significance to be made of the straw-baby? The fire in which it is burned? The silence regarding it?
15. A Munro story is often full of desire and sex. Where’s the sex here? Why or why not? Why is infertility a theme?
16. Why does Munro make a point to say that the Lizzie/Forrest story is a rumor?
17. Is this a ghost story? Explain. Who are the real ghosts?
18. “What squashed their spirits?” i.e. the spirits of Big Rob’s eight children. Are there any other squashed spirits to be considered in this story?
19. Names are an important shorthand in Munro. Why did Munro give Big Rob that particular name? What other robberies or thefts or sly sleights of hand occur in this story?
20. Explain how silence is perhaps the biggest force in the story. Why is silence such a big deal?
21. Did you think this story was dull? Or stultifying in its confusions? Or so full of gaps the mind boggles? Why do you think Munro would intentionally write a “dull” story?
22. Did Big Rob have any other motive for writing his “pioneer history” other than saying how hard it was? Consider this question in relation to “Child’s Play.”
Once we spend sixty minutes in class mulling over each of the questions, I would ask the students to spend a half hour writing an answer to this question: What is Munro’s opinion of the “discipline” of genealogy and family history?
But I would also give them an alternate choice. They could choose, instead, to write about (as demonstrated in this story) any one of the following: Munro’s feminist stance, pioneer heroes, silence about sex, silence as a historical position, national mythmaking, silence as a means of communication, monuments as national treasures, confusion or gaps as fictional tools, the unreliable narrator, the writer’s purpose in confusing the reader, the use of historical document in this and the other “Part One” stories, the difference between the writer and the writer’s narrators, the position of indigenous peoples in this story and the corresponding lack of documentation, or, my favorite, is the narrator a man or a woman?
This is the best I could do with this thing! Munro has me flummoxed! Except for this. I would venture that the real “wilds” in Morris Township are the wilds of guilt, memory, history, and time, especially in regard to the oppression of women and indigenous peoples.
Okay, Betsy, I’ll take your exam!
1. Is Munro trying to debunk family history with this story?
I don’t see evidence of that. In the last paragraph of her “Foreword”, Munro was very clear about her intentions for the “Part One” stories:
“… the part of the book that might be called family history has expanded into fiction, but always within the outline of a true narrative.”
2. Does this story strike you as a shambles of gaps, misinformation, and supposition?
Written “nonfictional” history itself is full of “gaps, misinformation, and supposition” isn’t it?
As she explained, Munro was writing “stories”; but unlike those in her other collections (and Part 2 of this one), she didn’t want to stray far from the truth. There surely were gaps in the information Munro had to work with. It is possible that some of the information she had is misinformation. To make stories, she was bound to make some suppositions.
3. Why does the main character of this story appear to be a house?
I didn’t think of it that way as I was reading. Because of his memoir extract, the focus was on Rob for several pages. Then the focus moved to others, particularly Forrest for several pages. I thought of the story as being about family history. I don’t see “a house” as a character, although the story is largely about the building process. But there was more than one house.
4. Is the narrator a man or a woman?
In this story, both: Big Rob and Alice Munro.
5. How reliable is Big Rob’s journal? Is there any confusion about this journal? Is it real? Does the narrator offer us any provenance for it? Tell us who had possession of it after his death? Tell us where we can see it? Why does this confusion about the journal exist?
There isn’t a lot of confusion for me. The journal (Munro referred to.it as his “memoir”) was purportedly written by Big Rob in 1907. Munro indents it as if it is an actual extract. Is there reason to think it otherwise? One may question whether his memory was wholly acurate after a half a century. I have no basis for knowing nor having an opinion about more than that. I don’t think Munro was obliged to tell us.
6. Who was killed in the woods by a falling tree? Could this have been murder? What would have been the motive? Does “killed in the woods by a falling tree” anecdote remind you of any other Munro story?
James Laidlaw, Jamie, son of William and Mary from the previous story, was killed by a falling tree. I never suspected murder. Who would have had a motive? Did I miss something? I’m not reminded of any story I’ve read, but I’ve read far from all Munro’s stories.
7. How did Big Rob and his cousins come by the land they homesteaded?
I don’t recall that we were told. Were people maybe allowed to go out and claim “wilderness” land?
8. Who are the people that Big Rob names? What is his wife’s name? Who is the very large group of “landowners” that Big Rob never mentions or names?
From Rob’s memoir: Thomas, John, and James Laidlaw, and their parents William and Mary; Andrew Laidlaw, his father; Valentine Harrison, James Waldie. Munro names others, but we don’t know wherher it was Rob or others who provided that info. I don’t think Rob mentioned his wife’s name. Did he mention “a large group of landowners”? Guess I missed that.
9. Who had nine children in a two-room shanty in the wilderness? What is the significance of the narrator’s “slip of the tongue” regarding the birth of these nine children?
Rob’s wife had the children. Or is that “supposition”? I didn’t notice phrase “slip of the tongue” mentioned. But the narrator, Munro, wasn’t sure of all the names. Her information may have been unclear about them.
10. Why did one of big Rob’s children run away?
Duncan? He “left early”. We aren’t told why. Did he “run away”? Probably Munro didn’t have that info.
11. What is the significance of these dates? 1851? 1853? 1857? 1907? Why is there a 50-year gap in the dates provided?
1851: Rob and his cousins set out on their journey.
1853: James was killed.
1857: Rob got a wife.
1907: John died. Rob was writing his account.
The 50 year gap was purportedly because that’s when Rob wrote the account. We aren’t told why he waited.
12. How does the narrator know so much about how Big Rob’s eight adult children lived?
Munro has told us that the stories are history “expanded into fiction, but always within the line of a true narrative”. So I suppose she was going by whatever was said in her sources, and whatever she learned about what life was like in that place and time.
13. In what way is Forrest’s almost empty eight room house a symbol? Bearing in mind that symbol is not Munro’s favorite technique?
I don’t know. I’m not always very astute about symbolism in fiction. Maybe if I’d studied Lit in college? But did Munro intend it as a symbol? If she didn’t like symbols, such an interpretation may well be an unlikely supposition.
14. What is the significance to be made of the straw-baby? The fire in which it is burned? The silence regarding it?
These questions are getting tough! Can I even hope for a “C” ?
The family members weren’t having babies, so maybe someone was “suggesting” it. Maybe Forrest burned it because the suggestion made him angry. Guess they didn’t want to talk about it.
15. A Munro story is often full of desire and sex. Where’s the sex here? Why or why not? Why is infertility a theme?
Sex isn’t mentioned much, is it? Probably there wasn’t much about it in Munro’s sources. People back then didn’t talk about it much, I take it. Munro says her mother said the siblings “were devoted to each other”, though she’d never met them. They were religiously austere, and disinclined or prudish about sex.
16. Why does Munro make a point to say that the Lizzie/Forrest story is a rumor?
We don’t know ( at least *I don’t), but we can suppose that’s what Munro’s sources indicated. Rob or someone else writing about their lives maybe said that’s what they *heard…
17. Is this a ghost story? Explain. Who are the real ghosts?
I never had any notion it was a ghost story. What prompts the question? Did I miss something? I suppose in some sense you could say the “real ghosts” are the characters we don’t know much about. I’m just reaching for something to say.
18. “What squashed their spirits?” i.e. the spirits of Big Rob’s eight children. Are there any other squashed spirits to be considered in this story?
Maybe the hard life squashed their spirits. Maybe their religion. But wasn’t it just Munro’s father who suggested the idea of “squashed spirits”? He only saw them in church when they were old and he was a kid.
19. Names are an important shorthand in Munro. Why did Munro give Big Rob that particular name? What other robberies or thefts or sly sleights of hand occur in this story?
I don’t know. The question seems to suggest it has something to do with the word “”robberies”. Did Munro give him that name? Was that not his name? As for “other robberies or thefts or sly sleights of hand”, there’s Forrest’s dealings related to building the house.
20. Explain how silence is perhaps the biggest force in the story. Why is silence such a big deal?
I didn’t think of silence as I was reading. But I take it there were thoughts and doings some of them kept to themselves. Is that what you mean?
21. Did you think this story was dull?
Or stultifying in its confusions? Or so full of gaps the mind boggles? Why do you think Munro would intentionally write a “dull” story?
Well, it’s not exactly a “page turner”. But it’s interesting, in the context of what Munro intended. It depends on what the interests the reader. It’s interesting if we are interested in what life may have been like in that place, time, and circumstances.
I suppose it’s possible she (or any author) might make a story dull if she wanted to create that effect. But I think here she was fascinated with the subject and wanted to present a picture of life as it may have been for her ancestors, based on what info she had.
22. Did Big Rob have any other motive for writing his “pioneer history” other than saying how hard it was? Consider this question in relation to “Child’s Play.”
You said “20 questions”! I suspect I’ll need extra credit, so I’ll venture some sort of guess to this one…
I read “Child’s Play”. I recognized that I had read it before, many years ago. Was it in the New Yorker?.
I don’t know what connection you are suggesting. Marlene and Charlene kept a great secret, and Charlene apparently wanted to confess many years later. In a previous question, you imply that James may have been murdered. But I didn’t see indication that Rob or anyone else murdered him. And Rob didn’t confess anything in his memoir excerpt. So maybe it was something else you had in mind. Guess I really can’t answer this question. Oh, well…
You added a question:
What is Munro’s opinion of the “discipline” of genealogy and family history?
I don’t have that info, apart from her Foreword to _The View from Castle Rock_, which explains her principles for writing this collection.
I won’t take up any of the other subjects you suggest writng about, although I’ve written about some here or in other discussions.
I’ll be very interested in what you had in mind behind all these questions!
Hi, Eddie. Well!!! What did I have in mind with all these questions!!! A high school class or a college section is often made up of about 20 people. The secret to kids coming to every class with both brain and heart attached is whether or not there is someone in the class they are looking forward to hearing from. If you are the teacher, with any luck that is you – if you have the multiple gifts of charm, energy, charisma, smarts,compassion for kids and a full understanding of not only of your discipline but also the author at hand and the work of the day.
College section leaders and literature section leaders in particular usually have none of these (being simultaneously exhausted with the preparation for their own work and also wracked with terror about their future).
So what did I have in mind with all these questions? There are several keys to the classroom kingdom. One is that every student says something, gets heard, gets a real foot in the door. Another is that students love mysteries (this story – like geneology, like family history – is one mystery after another). And another key to the kingdom is the “now split into pairs and talk – about your question.” (In an hour – 6 times.) Although I think each time I would increase the split from pair to trio to quartet. High school students love splitting up. College students have a deep need to split up into pairs – given that it is possible in some universities to attend section and never get to know one other person’s name.
No one student has to answer all these questions. They only have to answer one. They have the question in front of them when they read the story. They’ve been informed that “Gaps in the narrative are one of Alice Munro’s techniques, and she provides these gaps as a mirror of real life and that the story is some kind of practice in the practice of real life. Nevertheless, read into the gaps. Interpret them. How reliable and how useful and how important is doing all that interpretation??”
I realize while writing that that in a college section, a section leader could add a wrap up question for each pair/trio to share – “Are the gaps that you faced while answering your question anything like the gaps is your own family history?” That would make the section a class the students would never forget.
For instance – there is a legend in my family that my own grandmother attended Barnard College for a while in 1899. What was that all about? Why only for a while? Does all of this have anything to do with why she was so depressed in later life? There is another legend in my family that right after marriage my other grandmother lived as a cook with my grandfather in a platform tent at the oil rigs in Pennsylvania where my grandfather was a driller. What about that? I get a thrill just talking about it. But what are the gaps? Why is this “history” so important to me 125 years later? Exploration. One grandmother had exploration shut down. The other grandmother embraced exploration. When I give myself the space and permission to go exploring, my life is alive. Birds, ALice Munro, cameras, social systems – exploring these makes me feel alive.
“The View from Castle Rock” is about Alice herself, about inquiry, about imagination, about reality and about “knowing herself.” I think she is also talking about in these stories about the risk and danger that life requires. And she is exploring the worth, regardless of the risk and danger, of writing. There is a history of writing in these stories. Do we dare write? What is the truth? What if in writing we lose everything? What if in not writing we lose everything?
So – Eddie – did you pass the exam!?!?! Well – that was one deep foray you took into that story! Wow. I really enjoyed reading your answers. In particular – when you remarked “Maybe the hard life squashed their spirits. Maybe their religion. But wasn’t it just Munro’s father who suggested the idea of “squashed spirits”? He only saw them in church when they were old and he was a kid.” If I were in your pair I’d ask – which was it and why? the hard life or the religion?
But what really matters? in what way was this story talking to you? What mattered to you about reading that story? There’s the A.
Betsy, thanks for your thoughtful explanation! Have you been a teacher—that is, formally, professionally?
After all your effort producing over 20 questions about this story (actually far more than 20!), based on so much consideration of a class of students dealing with questions and interpretation, it is too bad I am the only attendee. Where is everybody? I could have used some collaboration!
Although you have kindly awarded me an “A” for effort, I have actually failed to offer worthy answers to many of the questions. I’m still wondering about the implications of some of them—especially:
1) how Munro might be debunking family history
6) indication in the story that might prompt suspicion that James (Jamie) was murdered
7) how the brothers acquired the land
13) the symbolism of Forrest’s “almost empty eight room house”
14) the significance of the straw baby and the burning of it
17) why this might be a ghost story, who are the real ghosts
18) other squashed spirits in the story, besides Rob’s children
19) why the name “Rob” might suggest robbery
20) silence as the biggest force in the story
22) Rob’s possible other motives for writing a memoir, in relation to Munro’s story “Child’s Play”
For you to have asked these questions suggests you had possible answers in mind, which I obviously failed in many cases to see. I hope you’ll address these.
Actually, Eddie, I carefully did not award you an A for effort. I said that the A is in the answer to this question: What mattered to you about this story?
What mattered to me about “The Wilds of Morris Township” is this: In attempting family history, one runs up against all that you do not know. All the gaps and skips. All the omissions. All the misinterpretations and all the misleading and all the silences.
For instance, I know that one night in about 1922 when my mother was about 12 my grandmother put her head in the oven. But my grandfather pulled her out and she survived. I know this fact because my mother at 70 had been watching Phil Donahue and one show . . . . But there is where reality fades. There are a few other facts that I would use to make sense of this late learned fact about my grandmother.
But what I write would be speculation – I would be in “The Wilds of Morris Township” and I would have to admit that: that reality is bounded by silences, gaps, skips, misleadings, misreadings and misinterpretations. Any reality I construct, any journal I leave regarding this startling fact about my grandmother would be just that – a reconstruction constructed amid silences, gaps, skips, misreadings, misleadings, and misinterpretations. But it would be worth doing as it would be what we do – the great challenge of our lives is to answer this necessity: that we construct our own realties amid the gaps and skips of our perception. Alice’s 150 stories are evidence of that central fact.
As to me answering all my “Wilds of Morris Township” questions? I asked them somewhat in jest. As if saying to Alice – I give! This is one story out of about 150 that makes my head spin just enough that I’ll admit it.
Betsy, I did understand that you were frustrated with the story; and I recognized that some of your questions reflected your attitude about it. But I also thought there must have been some basis for suggesting such notions as Jamie maybe being murdered, etc. Well, at least I can feel some relief that I wasn’t as dense as I felt when I couldn’t detect any such hints when reading!