Does he hate me, does he like me, does he love me, wedding

Alice Munro , Nobel Prize in Literature 2013

Does he hate me, does he like me, does he love me, wedding (originally Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage , 2001) is a short story by Alice Munro . It is one of the author's most published works. In the collection of the same name from 2001, the work is 51 pages long in English. The German translation was published in 2004.

The story is about life plans and how unexpected events or planned interventions can create opportunities for decisive change. This is illustrated by two female characters of different ages who, however, have little to do with each other in the story itself.

action

The adult protagonist Johanna implements her decision to send someone else's furniture and buy new clothes. The young protagonist Edith, in the presence of her neighbor Sabitha of the same age, had created a new relationship for Johanna, who is the maid of the grandfather, with whom Sabitha lives, by writing fictitious love letters. Because of the letters, Johanna and the furniture set off on the long journey to Saskatchewan, to a man (Sabitha's father) whom she has seen once before. On the occasion of the news from Baby Omar, Edith ponders the peculiarity of how fatefully her fingering the letters and this new creature are connected and what the future may mean.

characters

Johanna Parry, later Johanna Boudreau "Station agent" Mr. McCauley, Johanna Parry's employer Mrs. Willets, former and beloved employer of Johanna Parry "Milady herself", owner of the Milady clothing store Ken Boudreau, son-in-law of Mr. McCauley Sabitha Boudreau, granddaughter of Mr. McCauley Edith Schultz, Sabitha Boudreau's neighbor Roxanne Huber, Sabitha's aunt Marcelle, Sabitha's mother / Mr. McCauley's daughter

Marcelle's mother, grandmother of Sabitha, wife of Mr. McCauley "Waitress" Herman Schultz, father of Edith Mrs. Schultz, mother of Edith “Uncle Clark”, Sabitha's uncle Mary Jo, Sabitha's holiday friend Stan, Sabitha's vacation friend "A man in front of the garage" "A young woman" "An older one" Omar Boudreau, son of Johanna

Interpretations

Like many of Alice Munro's works, this story is astonishing: what a somersault can change in a steadily flowing life. Johanna gave up her job as housekeeper for the prospect of a new love "dry and without emotion", said Bernhard Keller. Munro tell with charming casualness and subtle malice how human longings and hopes can be fulfilled even with the help of a “stupid intrigue”.

So far loved by a person, by an old lady whose paid nurse she was, Johanna returned her love without feeling betrayed by her death, Mona Simpson analyzes the starting point in The Atlantic Monthly . Edith, in turn, the one who creates a new opportunity for Johanna's love, is another example of a clever girl "from the wrong side of the tracks", as she likes to read Dickens even though she is the daughter of a shoemaker.

This story shows how different, open and unpredictable life paths can be, at least different from what patriarchal institutions prescribe, says Klaus P. Stich. Johanna seeks her grail by going to see a man from whom she expects something for her life. Edith uses reading to discover herself and to solve process-oriented questions. For Edith, a kitchen table, where homework is done, turns out to be a place to search for the Grail. The Latin homework that Edith has to solve at the end of the story is the first line of an ode by Horace , which contains the famous request " Carpe diem ".

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage are among those works of Munro that deal with letters that demonstrate the vanity or falsehood or even the maliciousness of their writers, according to Margaret Atwood in her twelve-page introduction to Alice Munro's Best .

Munro's mastery is also evident in the fact that, on less than one page within the short story, she reveals the whole sad and frustrated life of the owner of a clothing store called Milady's in dialogues that outwardly appear perfectly ordinary.

It is often said of Munro's way of writing that she works with epiphany at certain points , but David Crouse counters this by saying that Munro's stories are not about the people themselves, but about a certain insight in their relationship to the world. The moment in Hates he me, does he like me, does he love me, wedding , in which Edith introduces herself to Johanna and her new family, comes very close to an epiphany. But, argues Crouse, even this case can almost be seen as a countermovement to epiphany, because it is less about restricting self-awareness than about gaining further possibilities.

expenditure

• Included in the collections: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001, first published), No Love Lost (2003), Vintage Munro (2004), Carried Away: A Selection of Stories (2006), Alice Munro's Best: A Selection of Stories (2008) and New Selected Stories (2011).
  • In German included in the collection Heaven and Hell. Nine stories . Translation by Heidi Zerning. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-10-048819-9

filming

With the title Hateship, Loveship the story was filmed in 2002 based on the script by Mark Poirier and directed by Liza Johnson ; Actors were Kristen Wiig , Hailee Steinfeld , Guy Pearce , Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nick Nolte . The work premiered on September 6, 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Some stories by Alice Munro have been included in English-language collections more than three times, including" The Moons of Jupiter "(1977/1978)," The Progress of Love "(1985/1986)," Meneseteung "(1988/1990 ), "Differently" (1989/1990), "Carried Away" (1991/1994), "A Wilderness Station" (1992/1994), "The Albanian Virgin" (1994), "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" ( 1999/2001) and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" (2001). "
2. ↑ Does he hate me, does he like me, does he love me, wedding, by Alice Munroe ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Review of the story with a quote from the farewell letter to Mr Mc Cauley, by Bernhard Keller, ten.de / Weltliteratur / The 10 best modern stories, April 29, 2011, last accessed on October 23, 2013.  
3. ↑ Review-a-Day: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories, by Alice Munro , by Mona Simpson, The Atlantic Monthly , December 4, 2011, last accessed October 23, 2013.
4. ↑ Klaus P. Stich: Munro's Grail Quest: The Progress of Logos. In: Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne , January 2007, last accessed on October 17, 2013.
5. ↑ Margaret Atwood, Introduction , in: Alice Munro's Best. Selected Stories , Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006, pp. Vii-xviii.
6. ^ Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Example of the title story, with the corresponding text passage in a longer quote as part of the review of the collection. From Nige, thedabbler.co.uk , May 8, 2013, last accessed October 17, 2013.
7. ↑ David Crouse, “Honest Tricks. Surrogate Authors in Alice Munro's Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage “, in: Alice Munro , edited by Charles E. May, Salem Press, Ipswich, Massachusetts 2013, ISBN 978-1-4298-3722-4 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-4298-3770-5 (ebook) Table of Contents , pp. 228–241.
8. ^ Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001), p. Iv.
9. ↑ Hateship Loveship ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , tiff.net . last accessed on September 7, 2013.