Coming of Age in Alice Munro’s short story Red Dress-1946: The Influence of Gender, Society, and the Role of Parents.

Abstract

Through fiction, Alice Munro projects to explore and reveal the human complexities in her short stories, especially in a specific stage of life and at the heart of the patriarchal society. The purpose of this research is to reveal the social and other impacts on females, especially adolescent girls, and how this factor touch the family structure to influence their personality and choices. Using analytical method, this extended essay sheds light on a teenage girl and her possibilities to establish her own principles compared to her mother’s special qualities and personality, focusing on the role the mother in shaping the typical choices for the daughter. The mother within the story was chosen to play the greatest role in directing the girl into the path in which she is the master of her choices. In the end, the girl reaches to control her own life. This study answers the question regarding the correlation between the mother and her adolescent daughter, and how this relationship influences making choice when it comes to establishing the self from childhood into adulthood.