Walker Brothers Cowboy

“Then the town falls away in a defeated jumble of sheds and small junkyards, the sidewalk gives up and we are walking on a sandy path with burdocks, plantains, humble nameless weeds all around.”

Setting is an important literary device in Alice Munro’s writing, and in this story in particular. In these lines, Munro calls attention to the setting by personifying it. She states that it is “defeated” and “gives up,” and such descriptions are designed to echo the dire economic straits that characterized Great Depression. Thus, she also establishes a mood of fatigue and desperation and invokes a sense of poverty.

“I try to see that plain before me, dinosaurs walking on it, but I am not able even to imagine the shore of the Lake when the Indians were there, before Tuppertown. The tiny share of time we have appalls me, though my father seems to regard it with tranquility.”

The narrator’s reaction to her father’s explanation of the way Lake Huron was formed shows her immature, child-like perspective on the world. This reaction stands in contrast to her perspective at the end of the story, once she has undergone a transformation that reflects The Disillusionment of Fading Childhood and has broadened her horizons.

“Not a very funny song, in my mother’s opinion. A peddler’s song, and that is what he is, a peddler knocking at backwoods kitchens.”

This is the first mention of Ben’s song, “Walker Brothers Cowboy,” which introduces the motif of music into the story. Here, Ben’s sense of humor in the song is contrasted with the mother’s reaction. Both the song and Ben’s new job as a salesman hurt her pride. The mother’s pride plays a large role in creating a contrast to Ben and the children’s habit of Finding Solace in Companionship, for her pride leads her to isolate herself from others.

“We poured all we had into it, my mother says, and we came out with nothing. Many people could say the same thing, these days, but my mother has no time for the national calamity, only ours.”

The mention of the “national calamity” helps to establish the context and setting for the story, which takes place during the Great Depression. The mother’s inability to empathize with her community and recognize that many people are experiencing similar hardships to her own leads to her further isolation.

“I loathe even my name when she says it in public, in a voice so high, proud and ringing, deliberately different from the voice of any other mother on the street.”

This quote demonstrates the frank and honest tone of the story’s narration. The mention of the narrator’s name also calls attention to the fact that Munro has declined to share that information. Names and identities are closely associated. For the protagonist to “loathe” her name suggests an internal conflict with her self-identity and where it comes from.

“Who is Ned Fields? The man he has replaced, surely, and if so he really is dead; yet my father’s voice is mournful-jolly, making his death some kind of nonsense, a comic calamity. ‘Wisht I was back on the Rio Grande, plungin’ through the dusky sand.’ My father sings most of the time while driving the car.”

Further establishing the motif of music to support the themes of Finding Solace in Companionship and The Bittersweet Effects of Nostalgia, this passage shows Ben using his sense of humor to cope with a difficult topic and to connect with his children. His song also illustrates his archetypal cowboy attitude: confident, capable, and a little irreverent.

“The 1930s. How much this kind of farmhouse, this kind of afternoon, seem to me to belong to that one decade in time, just as my father’s hat does, his bright flared tie, our car with its wide running board (an Essex, and long past its prime).”

This interjection breaks with the dominant narrative voice in the story, as it is a reflection from a more mature narrator (or perhaps from the author herself). This is the first (and only) specific date in the story. The motif of clothing is present here as well, for Ben’s whimsical characterization is furthered by the description of his “bright” tie.

“‘Pee, pee,’ sings my brother ecstatically. ‘Somebody dropped down pee!’ ‘Just don’t tell your mother that,’ my father says. ‘She isn’t liable to see the joke.’”

One of the sales clients that Ben attempts to visit dumps a chamber pot full of urine out of the window very near to him; this is a clear and harsh depiction of the hostile conditions in which he works. The incident further underscores the strength of his humor, which allows him to overcome his resentment at such treatment. This is immediately followed by a statement of contrast about the mother’s lack of a similar sense of humor.

“Nora’s dress, when she appears again—stepping heavily on Cuban heels down the stairs in the hall—is flowered more lavishly than anything my mother owns, green and yellow on brown, some sort of floating sheer crepe, leaving her arms bare.”

Nora’s dress is explicitly contrasted with the dress of the protagonist’s mother. Whereas Nora uses her wardrobe to welcome people in, the mother uses her dress to keep her community at a distance. This contrast establishes the two characters as foils and uses the clothing motif to deepen the characterization of the two women.

“She and my father drink and I know what it is. Whisky. One of the things my mother has told me is that my father never drinks whisky. But I see he does. He drinks whisky and he talks of people whose names I have never heard before.”

Here, the narrator is beginning to realize that her father has a deeper past that has thus far been unknown to her. This is an important realization in her transformation and The Disillusionment of Fading Childhood. Ben is also behaving in a way that he does not around his wife, reflecting the different mood that is present in Nora’s house and advancing the theme of Finding Solace in Companionship.

“But after some urging he does sing it, looking at Nora with a droll, apologetic expression, and she laughs so much that in places he has to stop and wait for her to get over laughing so he can go on, because she makes him laugh too.”

Nora and Ben share an infectious laughter, connecting with each other even after many years of estrangement. The author never shows Ben sharing this type of laughter with his wife. The motif of laughter demonstrates that each character responds differently to the stressors in their lives. The Bittersweet Effects of Nostalgia are also at work here, as the protagonist begins to notice evidence of the strong bond that Nora and Ben once shared.

“Round and round the linoleum, me proud, intent, Nora laughing and moving with great buoyancy, wrapping me in her strange gaiety, her smell of whisky, cologne, and sweat.”

Nora dances around her kitchen with the protagonist in the most physically active scene of the whole story. The amount of sensory detail in this description makes it stand out and gives the impression that this is a powerful, strong memory in the narrator’s mind. Although she has just met Nora, the woman’s vivacious presence brings about a transformation for the protagonist, expanding her world and her understanding of her father. Here Munro depicts The Disillusionment of Fading Childhood in a positive, vibrant tone.

“Nora does not repeat these directions. She stands close to the car in her soft, brilliant dress. She touches the fender, making an unintelligible mark in the dust there.”

Ben tells Nora their home address in case she’d like to come visit. When she doesn’t repeat the directions back, the author implies that she has no intention of visiting. The image of her standing alone by the car, along with diction like “soft,” and “unintelligible” establish a sense of melancholy as the narrator realizes that the events of the afternoon will never be repeated. Nora’s mark in the dust is symbolic of her mark on Ben’s past and also her mark on the narrator’s memory.