Dragged into the Past: A Major Motif in Munro's 'Walker Brothers Cowboy'

Alice Munro's Walker Brothers Cowboy (The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Sarah Lawall. NY: Norton, 2002) is bracketed by similar images that establish futility of trying to stop time. At beginning of story, in order to explain to narrator how glaciers formed Great Lakes, father shows his hand with his spread fingers pressing rock-hard ground where we are sitting. His fingers hardly make any impression at all ... (3012); at conclusion as Ben Jordan, father, and his children prepare to return home from their odyssey, Nora Cronin touches car's fender, making an unintelligible mark in dust there (3020). By using same verb (i.e., to make) and noun (fingers--stated and implied) in both constructions, Munro helps readers understanding why early in story narrator states, the tiny share we have of time appalls me (3012). The story utilizes repeated motif of journey into past: father dragging narrator down to lake where they used to live, mother dragging narrator to Simon's grocery, father dragging narrator and her brother to Nora Cronin's house, and, ultimately, narrator dragging audience into her past. The opening scene is journey wherein father leads narrator into past and through part of town where they had once lived: After supper my father says, 'Want to go down and see if Lake's still there?' (3010). Literally, lake is still there, but has changed in recent past with hobos and in distant past with Ben's story of how glaciers changed land, reinforced by poignant image of his fingers in ground. Significantly, this section ends with narrator's admission that she regrets passage of time and wishes would stand still--i.e., that Lake would always just lake, with safe-swimming floats marking it (3012). In other words, narrator reveals herself in face of inevitable mutability of life to be Canadian Peter Pan, satisfied with and desirous of remaining in static safety of childhood. The story's second scene again uses motif of journey into past to intensify narrator's awareness of passage of time. While first scene stresses this notion in general, second scene familiarizes notion by showing within family context. In afternoons, narrator tells us, her mother habitually drags her to grocery. Like Tennessee Williams' Amanda Wingfield, unnamed mother views these moments as retreats into more genteel past when she was a lady shopping (3013). …

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