Abstract
Alice Munro’s acute sense of human interactions and relations is often perceived as being driven by a feminist ideology and being on the side of women. Although most of her stories are indeed centered on her characters' emotional and spiritual growth and development, Munro's concerns are not limited to female subordination; she does not demand equality assuming that only women are systematically disadvantaged. Instead, Munro simultaneously acknowledges the paralyzing effect of heteronormative codes and ideals on men. This is prominent in her short story Hateship Friendship Loveship Courtship Marriage. In this story, she challenges traditional distinctions of gender, and consequently gender norms and archetypes, as a means to create queer identity that have been both present and subdued in society since the 1950s (Bauer and Cook, 2012).
Through a chain of subversive echoes and allusions to ‘Cinderella’, Munro prioritizes gender fluidity, highlighting the rigidity in idealistic portrayals of masculinity and femininity. She does this by subverting the relationship between gender and the role associated with that gender as depicted in the traditional ‘Cinderella’ narrative. In the original folktale, Cinderella, is subjected to extreme emotional abuse and physical exertion, while the male protagonist, the Prince, serves as her sole opportunity to escape her situation. Here, two complementary ideals are presented: one in which the male must play the role of the savior and the other a frail and helpless female. Munro sets the register for this short story from the start by using a fairytale formula; the narrator introduces Johanna by saying, ‘Years ago, before the trains stopped running on so many of the branch lines, a woman with a high, freckled forehead and a frizz of reddish hair …’ (p. 1). However, the Cinderella figure in this story actively rejects her Cinderella associations. Johanna does not wait passively for the male protagonist, Ken Boudreau. When Johanna enters his life unannounced, he is in his most vulnerable state - ‘delicate’ and like a ‘stricken boy’. Johanna speaks to Ken with an authoritative tone and Ken is described as understanding that she knows what was right (p. 50). The portrayal of Ken as a man lacking managerial aptitudes and unable to provide consistent economic support to his daughter as he juggles jobs whilst making unsuccessful business investments is stressed numerous times in the story. There is an evident reversal of roles, but Munro writes this with such ease such it does not appear peculiar. Moreover, we see Johanna both prince and princess. Perhaps the most significant example of this is her relationship with a brown dress and the character Mrs Milady who serves as Johanna’s fairy godmother. Mrs Milady gives the dress ‘a wicked snip with the scissors’ (p. 11) and the moment she puts it on her eyes begin to twinkle, and she later exclaims that it is the dress that she’ll likely get married in (p. 9). In the dress shop, Johanna expresses traditionally feminine aspirations for male companionship and marriage. However, she willingly removes the dress to appropriate another gendered role: the physically able man that is quick on his feet to run errands. Along with Ken’s submission, Johanna’s ability to travel back and forth between set norms, as needed, stresses the idea of gender being constantly in flux along a continuum.
These allusions are heightened when Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage is placed in context with ‘The Ugly Duckling’. The opening fairytale-esque lines themselves focus on the apparent disconnect between Johanna and conventional standards of beauty and Johanna is ostracized and isolated for this very reason. As with the storie's Cinderella allusions, the parallels between the duckling and Johanna slowly dissolve as Johanna’s character progresses. The duckling is only able to substantiate its sense of self upon its metamorphosis into a white swan, whereas there is a complete lack of physical transformation in Johanna’s case. Yet Johanna nonetheless merits the same happy ending as the duckling in that she is able to find a significant other who appreciates her for who she truly is and instills within her ‘such busy love’ (p. 51). What is key in this is how Munro divides the psyche from the body. The duck only garners respect through its physical transformation into a swan which is viewed as superior to the other birds. The deliberate suppression of a physical metamorphosis in Hateship Friendship … can be viewed as a suppression of the idealized form. Instead of assimilating and transforming, Johanna displaces to an environment in which she can be socially included: from Exhibition Road to Gdynia, Saskatchewan.
The queer identity that is introduced by subverting the traditional gender binary is extended through female homosocial spaces embedded within the narrative. These are achieved through the letters between Johanna and Sabitha and Edith, as well as the close bond between Johanna and the character Mrs Willet. Sabitha and Edith write letters to Johanna posing as Ken Boudreau, immersing themselves in a world in which they are able to explore their own sexualities: ‘It would be wonderful if you were reading it in bed with your nightgown on and thinking how I would like to crush you in my arms’, (p. 38). Munro orchestrates the sexual exploration of young virgin girls under a homoerotic light. By injecting latent homosexuality into Hateship Friendship … Munro destabilizes gender and is able to explore burgeoning alternative sexualities. The girls’ natural inclination and ease in assuming the male role in a period of their development that is characterized by innocence further stresses the artificiality of heteronormative gender relations. Coupled with this, is the close bond between Johanna and Mrs Willets who ate ‘every meal together’ and ‘slept in the same room together’ (p. 28). After Mrs Willet’s passing Johanna describes her heart being ‘dry’ and she is only then ‘warmed’ by Ken (p. 51). Both sexes have a deep, emotional impact on Johanna.
By blurring the lines between masculinity and femininity, Munro creates a gender-neutral identity that may resonate for both male and female and which emphasizes gender nonconformity.