Narrator

The narrator and protagonist of the story is a Canadian woman who recounts various events and aspects of her childhood. She grew up in a rural area in southwestern Ontario, where most young adults left school before finishing in order to work or raise a family. However, the narrator completed school.

She now lives in Vancouver and thinks with a mixture of nostalgia and objectivity about her childhood years and the lives of her parents during those years. She is highly interested in literature, as she was as child. Like many of Munro’s narrators, she appears to be based in part on Munro herself.

Mother

The narrator’s mother grew up on an impoverished farm, but she aspired to one day to be relatively wealthy. She was interested in clothing, and she always dressed according to the fashions of the times. This was an expression of her...