The Progress of Love, a short story cycle written by Alice Munro, was first published in 1986 by the publishing company McClelland & Stewart. In the same year, the collection won the Governor General’s Award for English fiction, allotting Munro her third Governor General’s award, the first two being for Dance of the Happy Shades in 1968 and Who Do You Think You Are? in 1978. While there is not a singular character who links each story in the collection—in contrast to Lives of Girls and Women with the character of Del, for instance—, the stories in The Progress of Love are still joined together through thematic links, emphasizing the unity that is created across the short story sequence. In her essay “The Art of Alice Munro: Memory, Identity, and the Aesthetics of Connection,” Georgeann Murphy claims that “connection is a subsuming theme of Munro’s fiction. Her characters…struggle to forge their identities in a crucible of connections: of one place to the next, of the past to the present, and of one sexual being to another” (49). Thus, connections both limit and aid the construction of our own identities. In The Progress of Love, one connection that Munro investigates is that which is forged or denied between generations. Through the stories of “The Progress of Love,” “A Queer Streak,” and “White Dump,” Munro considers the way that inheritance can manifest not just as a physical, tangible concept but instead as experiences and emotions that tragically get carried through generations. In particular, she explores how memories can become a form of this inheritance, with individuals being inexplicably trapped by their past.
In all three stories, the main characters are inescapably tied to the past through their own memories of the trauma and tragedy that has inflicted them. In the title story, “The Progress of Love,” Fame recalls her memories of the past after her mother’s passing. Her mother, Marietta, clearly experienced trauma in her own childhood, so much so that she carried a deep hatred for her father, even burning the three-thousand-dollar inheritance he left for her (Munro 26). As Munro demonstrates, Marietta’s trauma prevents her from connecting with her daughter. For instance, Fame explains how she used to pester her mother to figure out her hair color before it turned white. However, Marietta undermines Fame’s questions, responding with incomplete or vague answers (6). At the end of the conversation, Marietta finally discloses that she is glad her hair turned white so “that [she] wouldn’t have hair anymore that was the same color as [her] father’s” (6). Thus, the subversion of her daughter’s line of questioning seems to serve as a coping mechanism for Marietta. Yet, in striving to suppress her past trauma, she inevitably severs a connection with her daughter, ultimately continuing the cycle of trauma by passing it down to Fame.
However, as Ajay Heble contends, when Beryl—Marietta’s sister—comes to visit when Fame is twelve, Fame is provided with a radically new viewpoint that puts matters into perspective (58). As Fame states, Beryl is “strange in every way—everything about her [is] slanted, seen from a new angle” (23). Not only does Beryl have a completely different memory of Euphemia’s attempted suicide, but she is modern: a Californian who wears makeup, dresses glamorously, and knows various tips for styling hair (17). At first, Fame is deeply disappointed in Beryl (15). However, as readers learn, Fame ends up taking after Beryl in many regards, like following Beryl’s advice about styling her hair (17) and going to school to learn typing and bookkeeping (30), just like Beryl (14). Thus, by taking after Beryl, Fame rejects the inheritance from her mother. In fact, just like Marietta is happy her hair went white to avoid her father’s physical inheritance, Fame dyes her hair to avoid going white like her mother (30), therefore rejecting her mother’s inheritance in the same way her mother rejected her father’s.
Similarly, in “A Queer Streak,” Violet desperately seeks to avoid the queer streak in her family. From the very opening of the story, the queer qualities of Violet’s family are firmly established. The first thing readers learn about the family is how Aunt Ivie lost three baby boys before the birth of her three daughters. Thus, not only is the family already tied to this tragedy, but the three daughters—Violet, Dawn Rose, and Bonnie Hope—serve as replacements in a sense, further connecting them to the three boys’ deaths. The narrator even notes that Aunt Ivie most likely chose her daughters’ fancy names as “temporary decorations” (Munro 208). Aunt Ivie, traumatized by the loss of her previous three children, cannot fathom a world where her newborn children will survive. She feels that they, like their names, are only temporary, bound to die like the three boys. In sum, from their birth, the daughters become unavoidably marked by the trauma of the boys’ deaths.
In addition, the family structure itself further confirms the queerness of the family. Violet’s mother and father—Aunt Ivie and King Billy, respectively—not only have strange names but also stray from the typical roles of parental figures. In fact, Violet who ends up running the household (211), doing the chores or taking care of her sisters. Yet, once old enough, Violet aims to take agency over her own life, moving away to Ottawa for teachers’ college. During her schooling, she falls in love with a young minister named Trevor Auston. The two become engaged, after which Violet asserts that “[a] responsible and important sort of life lay ahead of them” (216). Violet falls into the typical, normative pattern of a woman her age during the time, rejecting the queerness of her childhood home and family.
Just like Fame and Violet, Denise in “White Dump” finds herself inevitably trapped by the past; however, unlike the other two characters, Denise does not try to escape. While visiting her father and stepmother at their log cabin, Denise notes that her brother, Peter, “can’t understand why Denise is still so bound up with these people” (Munro 276). Further, Denise herself does not seem to understand why she continues to visit, even through the anger and pain of the typical repetition of her visits: Laurence laying the bait for an argument and Denise snapping it up (277). Yet, as revealed by the narration, the log cabin is deeply connected to Denise’s childhood; it was her grandmother’s home, a place she and her family would visit every summer when she was young (279). Denise even admits that she is unhappy with her present reality, considering that perhaps she is “too mired in a past that everyone else has abandoned” (288). In other words, Denise feels confined by her past.
As Murphy argues, while change may be a significant theme in Munro’s work, the true focus is the connection between the events before and after this change (46). In fact, the narration of Denise’s part of “White Dump” aligns with Murphy’s scheme. Rather than focusing on the actual airplane ride on her father’s fortieth birthday—which becomes a catalyst for change in her family—, Denise evokes two memories: the first, from the moments leading up to the ride in July of 1969, and the second, the exposure, a year later, of her mother’s affair. In the first memory, Isabel and Denise drive into Aubreyville to pick up the cake from a caterer, who turns out to be the pilot’s wife. The account reveals that the plane ride was entirely Denise’s idea (281). However, as later explained, the plane ride becomes the origin of Isabel’s infidelity, the moment when she meets the pilot with whom she will have an affair. Heble, in this regard, argues that because the plane ride was Denise’s idea, she cannot escape the guilt she feels for, in some sense, causing the end of her parent’s marriage (73).. In her second memory, Denise recalls how the catering woman came to their cabin the next summer to disclose her knowledge of Isabel’s affair to Laurence. During her visit, Denise remembers the moment in the plane ride when the pilot described the phenomenon of St. Elmo’s fire, where “cold blue fire [shot] out of his fingertips” (287). Denise imagines its sound, which reminds her of the catering woman’s sobs coming from their dining room (288). The pilot’s description of St. Elmo’s fire, with its buzzing electricity, can be compared to the strike of lighting that Isabel uses to represent the promise of her and the pilot’s affair (305). Therefore, Denise’s link between St. Elmo’s fire—the representation of her mother’s infidelity—and the sobs of the catering woman symbolizes the disastrous, painful effects of her mother’s affair. Denise is plagued by this pain; she has inherited the consequences of her mother’s choices and feels trapped by her memories of the past.
Although Violet and Fame desperately attempt to escape the tragic inheritance of their families, their attempts prove futile. Violet’s first effort to separate herself from her family is abruptly brought to an end when the strange death threats being sent to her father force her to return to her family. When she arrives home, Violet worries about what others will think of her family. She knows that some people will say they are not surprised, “that certain people [just] attract peculiar troubles” (Munro 224). Aunt Ivie seems to feel similarly, as she laments, upon discovering that her own daughter, Dawn Rose, is the author of the death threats, that the town will “say [they] got a queer streak in [their] family now, for sure” (227). The story’s title, “A Queer Streak,” therefore represents the perpetual, strange trouble inflicted upon Violet’s family. It is this queer streak that derails Violet’s life as Trevor cuts off their engagement. As a minister, Trevor cannot have a wife with scandal in her background or any form of “hereditary taint” (230), like Dawn Rose’s letters. Painfully, Violet feels her whole life—her hopes, her future, her love—being violently torn away from her (231). The only way she can console herself and leave her pain behind is to give up these dreams, to declare that her purpose is to look after her family, to “[l]ive for others” (232). Yet, although she changes her outlook, Violet ultimately feels that her life has become a tragedy. Her sisters grow up and move on, leaving Violet feeling useless as she no longer has anyone to care for. When driving away from her sister’s home after being turned away because Dawn Rose was too busy, Violet has an epiphany that her life is tragic, which blinds her and causes her to run her car off the road. She runs from the scene of the crash because she does not want to be found—she wants to hide (234), to get lost just like she contemplated doing when she was little (208). It is Violet who ends up inheriting the queer streak of her family.
Nevertheless, she tries again to avoid this queer streak: after her mother passes, she sells the farm and moves to town (235). Dane, the son of Dawn Rose, recalls a past moment when he went to church with his father. On this day, Violet chooses to enter the church through the door used by townspeople instead of country people. This angers Dane, who states that, in choosing the town side, Violet “showed an acceptance of status, perhaps even a wish for more” (237); he feels that she is being disloyal or arrogant. However, since Dane does not know Violet’s past, he misses the point of Violet’s entering through the town side—that she is trying to reclaim her agency over her own life after it has been repeatedly robbed from her. Still, as Violet ages, Dane sees her queer streak surface. He compares her to the South American women he saw on TV who believe spirits possess them. The difference, he says, is that Violet does not want to be possessed— “[n]othing in her want[s] to be overtaken…with a memory…out of control, bulging at random through the present scene” (244). In short, In short, Violet’s tragic past possesses, entraps her. Her memories are unavoidable; they assert themselves in the present, leaving Violet to give the side of her head a quick slap in an attempt to get rid of their “unwelcome presence” (244).
In comparison to Violet, Fame also attempts to evade the tragedy of her family. As Shruti Das and Deepshikha Routray assert in their article on the dialectics of trauma in Munro’s stories, Fame affirms “the transmission of trauma from mother to daughter” (93), claiming that “[t]here was a cloud, a poison, that had touched [her] mother’s life. And when [she] grieve[s] [her] mother, [she becomes] part of it” (Munro 13). The cloud, or poison, described by Fame becomes symbolic of the trauma experienced by Marietta. As much as Fame has tried to escape this trauma, the grief from her mother’s death causes her to become a part of the cloud, with the cycle of trauma transferring to her. Fame’s very name confirms this tragic inheritance, as Fame inherits her grandmother’s name (7). The Greek name Euphemia alludes to the Christian saint who was martyred in 304 AD (“Great Martyr Euphēmia the All-praised”). Through this allusion, Munro suggests that the grandmother becomes a sort of tragic martyr. She threatens her death to defend herself and her marriage, as her husband is “interested in some [other] girl” (21). The religious connection of martyrdom is also intriguing as Marietta herself becomes highly religious after her mother’s death and is forced to defend her religion to many (4), even her own husband (6). Finally, the narrator’s nicknames are also significant, linking her to the idea of martyrdom just like her mother and grandmother. Since the narrator disliked the name Euphemia (7), she was instead called by a chain of nicknames: Phemie, Fame, and Joan. Symbolically, these nicknames serve as Fame’s endeavor to reject the tragic inheritance of her mother and grandmother, as she is rejecting her inherited name. However, the meaning of the nicknames exhibit how Fame is cannot do so. The name Fame conjures the idea of stardom or even sainthood. In addition, the name Joan can allude to the famous, female martyr, Joan of Arc. Therefore, both nicknames chosen by Fame are still linked to the tragedy of her grandmother, demonstrating how the trauma in her family is inescapable.
Just like the wallpaper in Fame’s old home, you can try and suppress the past, to hide it under a layer of paint, but the memories of the past will always be there, peaking through just like the design of the cornflowers on a white ground (27). In sum, Coral Ann Howells maintains that “the stories, and griefs, the old puzzles you can’t resist or solve” (Munro 14) from Fame’s mother and grandmother “do not end but go on circulating in [Fame’s] memory” (91). In other words, Fame will forever be entangled in her mother’s and grandmother’s trauma, as she will continue to turn to past memories, trying to solve them like puzzles to figure out what went wrong. Fame even accepts an altered version of the memory of her mother burning her legacy to come to terms with this memory and its consequences. While Fame knows that the true situation did not include her father, she chooses to continue believing a version of the event where her father stands in the kitchen with her mother, not just permitting her to burn the money but protecting her while she does (30). In burning her father’s legacy, Marietta destroys the money that could have permitted Fame to go to high school, which Fame so desperately wanted to do (8). Thus, Marietta’s choice to burn the money has lasting, negative consequences for Fame. It also becomes another way that Marietta’s hatred is passed down to her. Yet, to reject this inheritance, Fame decides to see this memory, not as one of hatred or lunacy, but as one of love (26). She deliberately alters the memory because the only way she can forgive her mother and stop the cycle of trauma is to see it from a different perspective.
Munro’s short story collection, The Progress of Love, demonstrates how memories can be inescapably confining for an individual. Furthermore, through these memories, Munro reveals how trauma and tragedy can become intergenerational, both inevitably linking but also destroying any form of connection between generations. To return to Murphy and Das and Routray, both of their articles bring attention to the way that storytelling can be a powerful medium to deal with and understand the complexities of life (44; 89). In fact, Murphy maintains that “[w]riting can be that act of reconciliation” (44) between memories and identity. In each of the three stories analyzed, the characters of Fame, Violet, and Denise all struggle to forge their own identities with the weight of the past pushing back against their efforts. While these characters are not explicitly writers like some of Munro’s characters—for instance, Del, in Lives of Girls and Women, or Almeda, the poetess, in “Meneseteung”—, they nevertheless share their stories, as Murphy elucidates, in an effort to come to terms with the way the past has affected their present. As Munro herself states, “[m]emory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories…. We can hardly manage our lives without a powerful ongoing narrative” (“A Conversation with Alice Munro”). Our memories are stories that, when put onto the page, can be a valuable way for the writer to understand their own life in a way that is important to them. However, writing is not only an act of reconciliation for the writer, but for the reader too. It can form connections or bridge divides—writing is healing for all those involved.
Works Cited
“A Conversation with Alice Munro.” Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, http://knopfdoubleday.com/2010/01/08/alice-munro-interview/. Accessed 5 December 2021.
Das, Shruti and Deepshikha Routray. “Dialectics of Trauma in the Short Stories of Alice Munro.” SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts and Humanities, vol. 3, no. 2, 2021, pp. 89-97. https://doi.org/10.3126/sjah.v3i2.39426.
“Great Martyr Euphēmia the All-praised.” Orthodox Church in America, 16 Sept. 2020, https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2020/09/16/102626-great-martyr-euphmia-the-all-praised.
Heble, Ajay. “‘It’s What I believe’: Patterns of Complicity in The Progress of Love.” Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Alice Munro, edited by Harold Bloom, Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2009, pp. 57-80.
Howells, Coral Ann. “The Art of Indeterminacy: The Progress of Love.” Alice Munro, Manchester University Press, 1998, pp. 83-100.
Munro, Alice. The Progress of Love. 1986. Vintage Books, 2000.
Murphy, Georgeann. “The Art of Alice Munro: Memory, Identity, and the Aesthetics of Connection.” Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Alice Munro, edited by Harold Bloom, Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2009, pp. 41-56.
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