Marian Engel Bear Excerpt
Darci Carlton
Munro was born on July 10, 1931, in the small town of Wingham, Ontario, in Canada. Her father owned a silver-fox farm on the outskirts of the town. The author began writing stories as a teenager during her lunch hours at school because it was too far to walk home, as other students did. Since writing was not looked upon favorably in the small town, Munro never showed her writing to anybody, but she has described these early works as passionate stories, full of horror, romance, and adventure. Munro did well in school, and in 1949 she earned a scholarship to the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.
Munro has been consistent in her writing career, publishing a story collection every three or four years. In 1978, she published Who Do You Think You Are?, which was also published as The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose (1979). From 1979 to 1982, Munro traveled throughout Australia, China, and Scandinavia, but this did not interrupt her publishing pattern. In 1982, she published the collection The Moons of Jupiter, which was followed by The Progress of Love (1986). The same year, Munro was awarded the first Marian Engel Award, which is given to a woman writer for an outstanding body of work. In 1990, Munro published her seventh book, Friend of My Youth, which included the story "Meneseteung."
The first section, like all of the other sections of "Meneseteung," starts out with a short piece of poetry by Almeda Joynt Roth, a nineteenth-century woman. The narrator, whose gender is never noted, gives some background about the publishing details of Roth's one and only book, Offerings, and then gives a description of Roth herself, based upon a photograph that the narrator is looking at in the front of the book. The narrator quotes from the preface of the book, which gives a short history of the poet's life, including her family's move to the frontier of Canada West (modern-day Ontario) and the death of her entire family. Roth talks about her love of poetry, which she turned to because she lacked the skill for other crafts common to women of her time, such as crochet work. At this point, the narrator takes over the story, giving a list of the various poems that are in the book, most of which are about nature or family.
The second section begins with the narrator talking about Roth's life in 1879, following her parents' death, when she lived alone in their house on Pearl and Dufferin streets. The narrator compares the home to the modern-day home, indicating that she is in the same area of Ontario as she relates the story. The narrator gives details about the daily life in Roth's small town, which the narrator read in the Vidette, the local newspaper. Some details include the fact that school is only in session four months out of the year, which leaves adventurous boys with time to harass others or otherwise get into trouble. One person whom the boys continually harass is a woman nicknamed Queen Aggie, a drunk whom they dump into a wheelbarrow and roll all over town. The narrator paints a picture of danger, noting the confidence men, thieves, and other disreputable types that inhabit the town. They are particularly prone to hanging out at the end of Pearl Street, which is farthest from Roth's home.
This section introduces the character of Jarvis Poulter, who arrived a few years ago and who lives two lots down from Roth. Poulter is a widower who is known for his tendency to take water and coal supplies, in an attempt to save money. This fact is alluded to in the Vidette, which, according to the narrator, spreads rumors and innuendos that would be libelous in today's newspapers. Poulter came to the town seeking oil but discovered salt instead and has become a wealthy businessman. Poulter and Roth are seen speaking together about his business, prompting a thinly veiled note in the Vidette that indicates they may be a couple. The narrator talks about the fact that Roth is not quite an old maid and that she is thinking she would like to marry Poulter but, as is proper for the times, is waiting for him to make the first move to indicate his interest. The narrator says that Roth does not want a man whom she has to mold as other women mold their husbands. Roth waits anxiously for a sign of Poulter's interest, but, at the same time, she would be disappointed if they were to go out on a countryside date, because she could not reflect on nature in silence as she usually does.
The narrator says that Roth takes sedatives that her doctor has prescribed for sleeplessness but avoids nerve medicine drops because they give her vivid dreams. The doctor believes that Roth needs to be more active and that her problem would be solved if she got married. She decides one day to make some grape jelly, and when she goes to bed, the grape pulp is still straining. She wakes up to noises outside and realizes they are coming from the rowdy denizens of
Pearl Street. She tries to ignore them but thinks she hears somebody being murdered. She plans to go check it out but falls asleep before she can get up the nerve to go. She wakes at dawn and in her half-awake state dreams she sees an imaginary bird that tells her to move the wheelbarrow. This word, which seems odd at first, recalls the wheelbarrow used by the youths to transport Queen Aggie.
Indeed, when Roth looks outside, she sees that there is a woman pressed against her fence, who Roth assumes is dead. In a panic she runs out of her house in her nightclothes and fetches Jarvis Poulter to come and help her with the dead woman. Poulter is at first annoyed and gets even more callous when he sees that the woman on Roth's fence is not dead but merely passed out from drinking too much. The woman's animal-like behavior shocks Roth and makes her feel sick, as does Poulter's callous behavior. Poulter, on the other hand, likes the vulnerability that he has seen in the desperate Roth and finally asks her to accompany him to church.
When Roth gets back to her house, she realizes that part of her sickness is from the bloating of premenstruation. She decides that she is not well enough to go to church and leaves a message for Poulter on the front window stating this. She makes herself some tea and adds several drops of nerve medicine. The medicine affects her, making the room around her seem to come alive. In her delirious state, Roth starts to think about poetry and has the wish to create one poem that will contain all of her experiences. She is so caught up in her delirium that she does not notice the grape juice bin overflowing, and she is so far gone that she does not think anything is real anymore.
Unlike previous sections, the final section is told entirely through two Vidette clippings and some present-day commentary by the narrator. The first news clipping describes the mental decline of Roth and her death, which the newspaper suggests was due to harassment by youths like those who used to harass Queen Aggie. The second news clipping describes the death of Poulter, less than a year later. In the final commentary, the narrator describes going to Almeda Roth's grave in the present day and talks about how people make connections from historical clues. Then in the last paragraph, the narrator shares a revelation, indicating that everything that has come before has also been extrapolated from historical clues and that the narrator does not know if the story really happened that way or not.
The doctor gives Almeda "bromides and nerve medicine" for insomnia. He advises her to do housework and to exercise but not to read. It is his opinion that "her troubles would clear up if she got married," despite the fact that he prescribes nerve medicine most often for married women.
The narrator is a person of unspecified gender who relates the tale of Almeda Roth, the story inside Munro's short story, but who admits at the end that he or she is not sure the story happened that way, since he or she has guessed on many of the historical details. The narrator's presence is most noticeable at the beginning and ending of Munro's story. In between, the narrator gradually fades into the background, and the story focuses more and more on specifics in Roth's life that the narrator could not possibly know, such as Roth's thoughts during individual events. At the end of the story, the narrator visits Roth's grave, where the authenticity of the story is called into question.
Jarvis Poulter is the initial love interest of Almeda Roth in the narrator's story. Poulter, a widower, arrived a few years before the main action of the story takes place. He lives two lots down from Roth and has only shown casual interest in her, talking with her on occasion but never making a formal show of interest, such as asking her to walk to church with him or accompany him on a trip to the countryside. Poulter has become rich through a number of businesses, most notably salt mining, but he still has the tendency to collect coal from alongside the railroad tracks and take water from the public pump. When Roth comes to him early one morning in a panic, telling him about the dead body against her fence, Poulter realizes that the woman slumped against Roth's fence is merely drunk and roughly makes the woman leave. Attracted to Roth's desperate vulnerability, Poulter asks her to church, but Roth ultimately refuses, and the two never pursue a relationship. Poulter dies less than a year after Roth.
The narrator's story also explores the darker aspects of the human experience. Although the tale starts out with Roth ignoring the most realistic parts of humanity, preferring to look at life through rosetinted glasses, the incident with the drunk woman forces her to come face to face with the dark side of human nature, and she sees humans as little more than animals. When Roth first sees the woman, she thinks of her in animal terms: "Almeda can't see her face. But there is a bare breast loose, brown nipple pulled long like a cow's teat, and a bare haunch and leg." This bestial style of language continues when Poulter examines the woman and "nudges the leg with the toe of his boot, just as you'd nudge a dog or a sow." Roth's association of the woman with her base, animal nature becomes complete when the woman lifts her head, which is covered with blood and vomit, and begins to bang it against the fence. "As she bangs her head, she finds her voice and lets out an openmouthed yowl, full of strength and what sounds like anguished pleasure."
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