'The Eye' af Alice Munro, novelleanalyse

The short story ”The Eye” written by Alice Munro and published in 2012 is set in Canada and revolves around the small world of a little girl, who suddenly realizes that there is more to the world than her family. The story is told from her point of view in past tense, indicating that she has now grown up and is looking back on her childhood. Even so, it is told from the eyes and mind of a child, therefore we immediately get a childish picture of the world. The story deals with themes such as truth, lies, rite of passage and trust. The author has written the story with short sentences that gives off an indifferent feeling. It does not have many dialogues or spoken words which indicates a cold and distancing wall between the narrator and the other characters. You get the sense of floating around in a state in-between while reading the story, as if the narrator is dreaming or reliving this period through her own eyes as a child.

The arrival of the protagonist’s two siblings creates a barrier between her and her mother but this slot is filled by a young woman presumably in her twenties named Sadie. The little, taciturn child grows endeared towards the open-minded talkative Sadie, because she values truth (which her mother kept from telling her). The reason for the expansion of the child’s world is partly because her mother cannot be around her in the same way, after having babies, and partly her meeting Sadie, who opens up to the protagonist and tells of a whole other unknown world. The two grow very close, and Sadie becomes a sort of substitute mother to the main character: “With her [the mother] not around so much, I could think about what was true and what wasn’t.” (ll. 17-18). Before, the mother had been the child’s world: Everything revolved around her and she had all the answers. She was a cover, a shield from the real world yet she really just obscured the sight to the things that the child really wanted to see (but did not know that she wanted to see) also by attaching her own opinions and ideas on the child (ll. 4-11). Once the babies arrived, the mother no longer had time to “protect” the protagonist which resulted in her finding the truth in things and the consequence of this is that the bond between mother and daughter grew colder until the mother became a stranger. The mother tries to maintain a certain role to the child, but fails to prevent the two of them from slipping further away. Even though the mother still cares deeply for her daughter, it is plain to us that the things that mean the most to her right now are her new children. This fact is understood perfectly by the main character who draws back into the welcoming truth from Sadie. Wonderful, open, free Sadie, who can dance, sing and take care of herself. The mother and Sadie are each other’s counterparts in a way, like how Sadie appeared when the mother disappeared from her life and how Sadie is the truth and the mother is the lies. A woman also mentions how “Sadie loved children,” (l. 77) but in reality she loved being a child, which is why she spent so much time dancing - feeling free, and staying away from adult stuff like boyfriends. At Sadie’s funeral (pp. 2-4) we are told she was killed on the border to the “proper town sidewalk” (l. 83) which must mean that she had been out dillydallying on the “wrong side” - which means that Sadie stands for all the things you do not want to show is wrong with the world (truth) while the mother is the pretty exterior that you can proudly show off (lie). The narrator also tells how the mother found out that Sadie worked in the creamery in the time between leaving their household and dying. A creamery is a place where you receive milk from dairy farmers and prepare it to be sold. Milk has a meaning of purification, and since Sadie works there she must have been stained from some experience on the wrong end of town. I noted that every time the girl makes eye contact with someone, she is unable to do anything. It is like eyes hold a special meaning in the story, as if they hold the “truth”. She could not defy her mother by the casket when pulled up there to see Sadie one last time (ll. 105-111), and can pull away only when the mother starts sniffling and therefore breaks the trance. It is said that the eyes are a mirror of the truth. It is in this sense that the title has a link to the course of events. In the end, it is revealed that some years later, in her teens, the protagonist no longer believes that she actually saw Sadie’s eye twitch at the funeral, meaning that she no longer believes in the truth of the eye, or has just grown up to become an adult like her mother - living by a lie because it is easier.