yashwant_panwar

The title may be a bit offensive to some of you, but at the end of the day who are we to decide to what is offensive and what is not . We should learn to challenge society and go against its norms and that is what I am doing and that's what Alice Munro did in her short story Hateship, Courtship, Friendship, Loveship and Marriage. The story challenges the very basic idea of marriage and Munro allows two girls Sabitha and Edith to play with the idea of love, which ultimately leads to the marriage of these two old ,poor and middle class people . The story also challenges the concept of love and this can be considered as the most striking feature of this story. I know it’s unfair to talk about a story without describing its basic plot but that's what my blog is about emotions and not story

I introduced the idea of emotions over story in the ending of the previous paragraph and this is how I relate to a work of fiction, I would rather like to praise the style of writing, display of emotions and usage of words in a work of fiction rather than the plot structure and climax .Munro's works are perfect example of emotions over plot. The opening line of this short story made me realize that reading Munro will require a lot of patience and this piece of work can’t be enjoyed by a traditional reader's mind. Coming back to the story, the protagonist of the story Johanna is a housekeeper at Mr. McCauley's place, where she meets McCauley's daughter's widower and Sabitha's father Ken.
Ken writes a friendly letter to Johanna and asks Sabitha to post it; the reply to this letter reaches Edith's hands who is Sabitha's friend. Edith and Sabitha decides make a game out of this and writes a love letter to Johanna on behalf of ken, Johanna after reading "ken's" letter decides to shift to Gdynia where Ken lives. After several years Edith comes to know that Johanna is married to Ken. The series of letters, Johanna's leaving her job and moving to Gdynia and nursing ken leads to their marriage. Like i said the plot is something which i found least important in this story, it is Munro's connection with the reader which makes all the difference. The notion of marriage, its arrangements and engagement all of them are completely forgotten in this story. The title itself is taken form a game played by Edith and Sabitha. the movie adaption of this story fared well on box office but at the same time there were many critiques stating that the film cannot will not do justice to the story , Munro herself didn't attended the screening because she was afraid of the same. That’s what novel and films do they express things in a way that no other medium can express. coming back to the story Edith and Sabitha are the two responsible for the crime they never committed but they never had to pay for it after all marriages whether accidentally or purposefully are considered divine and in this story , marriage is not accidental as well as purposeful.

This blog post cannot be complete until you read the story. Hope you like the story