The Alice Munro short Story, “Dimension”
The Alice Munro’s short story, “Dimension,” narrates about the life of the main protagonist by the name who lives a life of misery after the murder of her children by her husband, Lloyd. The husband is imprisoned in a facility for criminals who are insane. Her husband exhibits symptoms of disordered impulses and drives and can be regarded as a psychotic or neurotic. The story begins with Doree making her third trip to the facility. Her first two trips were unsuccessful as her husband refused to see her. She is a woman who explores the boundaries that contains the compulsive nature of repetition. She is a woman seeking to deal with her trauma and be able to be free of the construct that her older husband had placed on her. She is a woman who has not given up on life even though she is undergoing much suffering (Disney, 2016).
Apart from entertaining the reader, the author had the intention of educating and motivating the reader not to give up hope despite the difficulties that one faces in life. He intended to give advice to individuals who are depressed and tired of moving on because of the many problems they are facing in this world. By choosing the short story the author aimed at evoking emotions on the readers who will relate with the story and the kind of suffering that the protagonist is undergoing. The short story type of narrative has played an effective role in the function of rhetoric of evoking feelings and emotions to the reader. The author is able to influence the reader to adapt her own point of view. The narrative is also aimed at bringing together individuals who have been separated by alienation. Doree is trying desperately to meet her husband Lloyd who has been incarcerated for the murder of his children.
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In this narrative, Burke’s concept of identification plays a big role in that the author tries to persuade the reader or listener by identifying with him or her. The author paints a picture in which the author identifies with the situation that is being painted by the author. The trials and tribulations undergone by the protagonist in the short story identifies with the sufferings that some readers undergo and this becomes the basis in which the author persuades the reader to take certain actions (Nordquist, 2017).
The narrative contains extensive symbolism to the extent that it tries to capture the situation by using a language that will evoke emotional feelings. It also uses comparative language which tries to compare different situations with the prevailing situation. An example is where Doree was taking the third trip to the facility but had to sit for long hours at the depot waiting for transport to the facility. This sort of discomfort did not disturb her because she was used, not to sitting down, but to doing hard labor at her place of work which hardly gave her time to relax. According to Booth and Bakhtin, in this narrative, language has played a role in the rhetoric of the narrative in that it provides a relationship between the protagonist and the author and the reader. The author is relating well with the protagonist by being able to show the reader the mental, psychological and emotional state of the protagonist. This is a relationship that is conveyed by the protagonist which is narrated by the author to the reader. There is a certain resonation from the story’s rhetoric including its ethics (Zeng, 2018).
Images have a role in this narrative because they are used to show the various feelings and emotions that one would expect the narrative to have. They give a true picture of the mood the narrative is expected to present and how the reader would interpret what is being displayed by the images.
References
Disney, D. (2016). ‘Know Thyself’? Border linearity in Alice Munro’s ‘Dimension’. Journal of Language, Literature and Culture . Volume 64, 2017 - Issue 1
Nordquist, R. (2017). What is Identification in Rhetoric? ThoughtCo . Retrieved from: https://www.thoughtco.com/identification-rhetoric-term-1691142
Zeng, J. (2018). The tension within the “specter” of Bakhtin and narrative theory. Neohelicon . Volume 45, Issue 2 , pp. 491–503
