A Deep Dive into Alice Munro's Walker Brothers Cowboy Essay

This essay offers a comprehensive analysis of Alice Munro's short story, "Walker Brothers Cowboy." It delves into the narrative structure, focusing on the protagonist's evolving understanding of her father and the world around her. The essay explores the themes of nostalgia, contrasting past and present realities, and the impact of societal and financial changes on the family. Character analysis is central, examining the perspectives and motivations of the narrator, Ben Jordan (the father), the mother, and Nora. The essay highlights the relationships between these characters, their individual experiences, and how they shape the story's core themes. The analysis examines how the story portrays the characters' feelings and how the narrative conveys the complexities of human relationships and the impact of the past on the present, providing a deeper understanding of Munro's literary techniques and the story's overall message.

ENGLISH LITERATURE

Introduction
“Walker Brothers Cowboy” reflects a story around a young girl; her opposing and
complementary attitudes headed for her mother as well as father, with a specific emphasis on the
event through which she achieves awareness regarding her father exclusively and the fully
developed world enormously. The situations of the events are constructed on the physical event
as it depicts the societal and financial weakening of the family. Munro has specified: “When I
remained a considerably younger kid, my dad took me owing to some reason I’ve failed to recall
to that lady’s house, and she trained me in what way to dance. There stayed something around
the exposure of this entire Catholic elegance of life that performed much brighter and cheerier
besides poorer - if you can envisage inferior than ours!”
Thesis: Walker Brothers Cowboy: Comparison between Past situation and Present times with
reference to nostalgic feelings towards lifestyle and nature of Narrator, Father, Mother and
Nora
Characterization
Narrator
The narrator seems to be very matured and accommodating one who reflects curiousness in his
endeavor to comprehend her situation in life and attitudes to define the actualities of her father.
She has been a keen observer and portrays the realization of human feelings. She seems to be
quite sensitive and imaginative one
Ben Jordan (the father)
He remains as a salesman on behalf of Walker Brothers--a firm which trades almost completely
in the nation .A diligent man who works entirely to hold onto his family with contentment and
nurturing activities. He is precisely humorous and approachable. He possess flexible approach
headed for his existence.
Mother

She is an unhappy woman who feels pain for her bygone house, family as well as existence. She
stands as a “disappointed, sorrowful, fairly snobbish mother who efforts to uphold her looks"
She is inactive and enjoys to possess her class as well as elegance.
Nora
Nora presently is middle-aged, practical and harsh lady. She persists to live unaccompanied on a
humble farm by way of her visionless mother and forbidden by Ben being irresponsible of all
strange state of affairs Yet from time to time Nora handled the gloomy consequence of being
without help “Nora is an effervescent easygoing flash of color with her soft and wonderful dress
as well as an enthusiastic lady talented with reflecting hilarious conduct and dynamic invitation”
Relation of nostalgic events: The very initial link of the incidents depicted in the story does not
deliver any contextual information concerning the strategy or characters, however, unswervingly
drives the audience into action. “After dinner my father speaks, ‘Want to drive down and realize
whether the Lake’s still there? Munro has engaged this method in her exclusive method to stretch
a renewed and inventive framework to her description of scenes. The story’s succeeding line
positions the girl’s mother in her domestic situation, indulged in an action that conventionally
describes the character of wife as well as mother: “We leave my mother sewing under the dining-
room light, making clothes for me against the opening of school” The girl circuitously imparts an
amplified intellect of setup, a kind of imprisonment since she reveals in her way of walking
towards the lakefront and goes through a collection of kids “I don’t know them… because my
mother keeps my brother and me in our own yard, saying he is too young to leave it and I have to
mind him”
There are issues of nostalgia as well as an old phase sort of feelings. The events are told from
the viewpoint of a fledgling girl who is growing in Canada alongside her family who simply has
been demoted in the social order because of her father’s catastrophe at possessing “a fox farm”.
He is currently a “door-to- door salesperson”. In the same way there remains the concern of
“past vs. present times”, through the entire section and in that way this shows how children
distinguish their parents. The declaration of walking beside lakes, ingesting of ice cream at the
front entrance, as well as a father who remains a “door to door” salesperson transported very
robust feelings of homesickness and a period that has remained overlooked. Altogether these

things possibly come together by way of a termination of the typical 80s -- demonstration of
undecided of stage of development. By presenting these effects that the progenies are performing
with their predecessor for instance, singing melodies and hence, it circles up the level for the
fundamental theme
Past vs Present: Through homesickness which plays its part in background scene of the story,
the actual theme may come out as past events versus present situations. This complete story
looks as if screening the speaker’s father as Ben Jordan in the way of comparing his inherent
existence and new pattern of lifetime. The family as a group is facing this situation additionally
when they are enforced to travel from the farm to a diverse township. By presenting the
character’s past as well as present existence, the spectators can acquire a decent hold on the
entire disposition of the characters
From the foundation of the events of story the readers are familiarized to the concept of the
previous lives of the characters as well as it is understood that not every person like the
children’s mother continues managing and dealing with the pioneering environments within her
life. Nevertheless soon they are thrown towards a new set of circumstances while the father
brings the two youngsters “to Nora’s household” aimed at a visit which appears to remain as the
outgrowth of the instant awareness. At this position, it is strong to understand the confidentiality
that might continue within relations and the progenies catch to understand the previous stages of
life that “their father remained exposed to”
Conclusion: While Ben takes his descendants to observe Nora, who appears to be placed as a
previous lover, the children remain opened up in the direction of a different aspect of their dad
that they on no occasion were acquainted with what actually happened.