• Research Paper on:
    Characters in Open Secrets by Alice Munro

    Number of Pages: 6

     

    Summary of the research paper:

    In six pages the short stories 'Vandals' and 'Open Secrets' are examined in terms of the character similarities in growth and development. There are two other sources cited in the bibliography.

    Name of Research Paper File: JR7_RAopen.rtf

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    Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
    life in the small towns of the Ottawa Valley, where she has lived most of hers, with occasional sweeps to Toronto and Vancouver" (Solotaroff 665). Her collection of short stories  in "Open Secrets" are just one example of her focus on women, ordinary women, and the lives they lead. Her stories present us with characters that think, feel, and develop  in normal, as well as abnormal, situations. In the following paper we discuss two of her short stories from "Open Secrets," and discuss the characters and their development. The stories  chosen for examination are "Open Secrets" and "Vandals." The paper discusses each one individually and then presents a discussion and summary concerning the characters and their development. Open  Secrets "In the title story, Open Secrets, a teenage girl out on a hike with the Canadian Girls in Training disappears. The story is told from Maureen Stephens point-of-view, a  young woman married to a much older man, a reputable lawyer in town who is recovering from a stroke" (Dubus 27). She is a woman apparently haunted by what may  have happened to the girl, and a woman whose own position in life mirror that happening. She examines the conditions of what happened, or what may have happened, to this  young girl, and finds herself examining her own life as a result. Without even understanding anymore of this story we can see that Maureen is a young woman who  is intelligent and introspective. She is not merely moving through life blind, but a woman who is examining her present position in life and looking at the future that may  well be her life. She examines and analyzes life and death. For example, in one particular scene we see her looking out a window at a wall of trees along 

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