Bear Came Over The Mountain

Alice Munro Paper
Different Perspectives in ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain’
Introduction

Books are the best story tellers.
This paper discusses the idea of two different perspectives a reader can have while reading the short story ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain’ by Alice Munro and further discusses and differentiates their meaning and impact on the story and the relationship between Grant and Fiona. Both perspectives focus on the idea that the story is the focalised through Grant.

Summary

‘The Bear Came Over The Mountain’ is a short story with a resonant plot which primarily deals with the challenges of a long marriage which are, in certain ways, common and traditional but also falls into the category: unique with a touch and flavour

During the first thirty days, Grant is not permitted to visit Fiona and she then forgets about her marriage and much about Grant. As a result Grant finds himself in in a complete new life without his wife. Moreover, since Fiona nearly forgot Grant entirely she begins to develop a strong attachment to a temporary resident named Aubrey. When Aubrey`s wife, Marian removes him form Meadowlake, Fiona is devastated and thus Grant persuades Marian, through presumably a romantic relation, to bring Aubrey back to Fiona. At the end of the story everything twists when Fiona now does not remember Aubrey anymore but

This can be not only illustrated by the world play ‘Wow. Narcissus this early’ (Munro 278), used when Grant visited Meadowlake for the first time with a large bouquet of narcissi, but can be found several times in the story. One exceptional example is the instance when Grant, after visiting Fiona several times, is wondering ‘whether she (Fiona) isn`t putting on some kind of charade’ (Munro 283). On the one hand this means that he is denying the illness (which in itself has several implications) but tries to make her illness about himself. He gets incredibly jealous of Aubrey and is asking about him and what it means that they are having such a deep bond (Munro 283) and also has no empathy for Fiona. In several instances he is interpreting Fiona’s actions and projecting them on himself without considering that she is suffering from memory deterioration. A perfect example is the notion that Grant is thinking more about his appearance than what the illness means or how he could help Fiona. ‘Sometimes he seemed to himself like a mulish boy conducting a hopeless courtship (…) convinced that one day these women will turn around and recognize their love’ (Munro 285). He is not thinking much about what he can actually can productively do to help her out. If she meant so much to him, her well-being would be of much higher priority than