“The Love of a Good Woman” by Alice Munro

Munro’s The Love of a Good Woman (1998, McClelland & Stewart) in same
spirit of individual story appreciation, delight and scrutiny. I’m beginning
with the first (and titular) story of the collection, “The Love of a Good
Woman”.

Alice Munro’s writing begins – with a drowning. A man, an optometrist

named D.M. Willens, loses his life to the Peregrine River in 1951. The reader
learns this through the object that opens “The Love of a Good Woman”: a red
box of optometrist’s tools, which contains, among other things, an
ophthalmoscope

Themes in "The Love of a Good Woman"*

1. *The Power of Secrets*: The story highlights the power of secrets to shape
our lives and relationships, and the consequences of keeping or revealing
them.

2. *Morality and Ethics*: Munro explores the complexities of morality and

ethics, challenging readers to consider the gray areas between right and
wrong.

3. *Human Connection and Empathy*: The narrative underscores the

importance of human connection and empathy, demonstrating how these
qualities can transform lives and relationships.
*Character Analysis*

1. *Enid's Character*: Enid is a complex, multifaceted character, driven by a

desire to understand and connect with others. Her actions are motivated by
empathy and compassion.

2. *Rupert's Character*: Rupert is a mysterious, enigmatic figure, with a dark

past and a deep sense of guilt. His conversations with Enid reveal a desire for
human connection and redemption.

detailed summary of "The Love of a Good Woman" by Alice

Munro.

*Part 1: Enid's Visits

The story begins with Enid, a kind-hearted and compassionate nurse, visiting
Rupert, a man accused of murdering his lover. Enid's visits are regular, and
she brings Rupert small gifts, such as fruit or books. Their conversations are
polite and superficial, but Enid is drawn to Rupert's quiet, introspective
nature.

*Part 2: Rupert's Past

As the story unfolds, Munro reveals Rupert's troubled past through a series
of flashbacks. Rupert's relationship with his lover, Mary, was intense and all-
consuming. However, their love was also marked by possessiveness,
jealousy, and ultimately, violence. Rupert's actions lead to Mary's death, and
he is subsequently accused of murder.
*Part 3: Enid's Motivations*

Enid's motivations for visiting Rupert are complex and multifaceted. On the
surface, she appears to be driven by a sense of duty and compassion.
However, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that Enid is also drawn to
Rupert's vulnerability and introspection. She sees something in him that
resonates with her own experiences and emotions.

*Part 4: The Truth Revealed*

As Enid continues to visit Rupert, she begins to uncover the truth about his
past. She learns about his relationship with Mary and the events leading up
to her death. Enid's reaction to this information is complex, and she struggles
to reconcile her feelings about Rupert's guilt and innocence.

*Part 5: Redemption and Forgiveness*

The story concludes with Enid's visit to Rupert on the day of his release from
prison. Rupert is hesitant to leave, fearing the world outside and the
consequences of his actions. Enid, however, encourages him to take a chance,
to seek redemption and forgiveness. As they part ways, Enid reflects on the
complexity of human nature, the power of secrets, and the possibility of
redemption.
Munro wields this object with dual stylistic purpose – in her deft hands, it is
both a promontory and a point of multiple divergences. We are allowed to
trace the history of the ophthalmoscope backwards through time, to the
quiet, sturdy town of Walley (in whose museum of quaint domesticities the
device is housed). We get to breathe Walley in; we’re allowed to take its
unremarkable temperature. We peer into the lives of three boys who, while
surveying their riverbank domain, happen upon Willens’ car, buried in pond
mud like a light blue absurdity. We stay with each lad awhile, privy to the
small and considerable distresses and merriments of their lives, until they
tell Walley that the optometrist has drowned.

Time passes. The boys grow up, and Willens’ death becomes part of Walley’s
remembered history. We meet and spend time with a woman who is
admonished by her mother for throwing herself towards sainthood. She’s
called Enid, and she is tending to Mrs. Quinn, who is dying of a rare illness
whose symptoms are both grotesque and medically fascinating. On her
deathbed, trapped in the resentment of her prolonged, focused misery, Mrs.
Quinn contains secrets. When she shares one of them with Enid, certain
things once held as true begin to fray, threatening to dredge up old
drownings with new, sharp interrogations.

Majestic flourishes of language don’t typify how Munro tells this story. It’s
more like the language is majestically suited to a series of nimble purposes.
She captures the impetuous shock (and its robust aftermath) that
goosepimples the skin of the boys, who dive into the Peregrine:

“So they would jump into the water and feel the cold hit them like ice
daggers. Ice daggers shooting up behind their eyes and jabbing the tops of
their skulls from the inside. Then they would move their arms and legs a
few times and haul themselves out, quaking and letting their teeth rattle;
they would push their numb limbs into their clothes and feel the painful
recapture of their bodies by their startled blood and the relief of making
their brag true.”

Alice Munro, it turns out, is like this stealth rogue who shivs you with at least
ten difficult-to-name emotions when you weren’t even expecting to feel your
heartbeat race. A full repertoire of individual sorrows and contemplations,
plus the collective memory of a town that’s no quieter than its ghosts are
silent and well-mannered, resides in this telling. There’s the consideration of
all these lives from multiple, age-tiered perspectives. Munro feeds us slices
of devil-may-care, boyish bravado, and injects us with doses of a nurse’s calm
equanimity; she does both while winning our absolute belief that she keenly
sees each person we meet in her pages.

The writer shows us that the boys aren’t just brash; they’re also beset by
varying degrees of domestic trauma, over which they may or may not feel
duly traumatized. She peels away the nurse’s graceful routine by night,
summoning up for her a host of sleepless hours, and private agonies over
choosing what’s right, what’s useful, what future might be hers based on
speaking, or else saying nothing at all.

“The Love of a Good Woman” ends as so much of it is conducted, with

quietness blanketing one’s orbit, while the world continues its indifferent
geographical circuitry. There is no easy way to know how Enid will fare, at
the story’s close – what is clear is that she won’t end. The ambit of her drama
will continue to lope, and loop; one feels intensely that her life is happening
to her even now, while dinners are being made in the real world, while blog
posts are being written. She is the real world, Alice Munro tells us, and her
life is just about as unremarkable and miraculous as any of ours, whether we
are helping someone breathe, or watching them falter, seeing them sink with
other secrets to the lake’s still bed.