I. Munro's short story,The Jack Randa Hotel, holds many secrets. One significant secret is the fact that Gail pretends to be Ms. Thornebe in the letters she writes to a man named Will. This is a secret until revealed to Will about the truth.(PG.188)
II. Another secret in this short story is Gail's landlord is aware that Ms. Thornebe, had died, therefore she was aware that Gail was lying. Tension between these two builds as the landlord holds this secret.
III.These secrets did not effect me from understanding the short story, but as in almost all the other novels and short stories read in class, such as Blackbird, there is an open ending, and curious readers want to know what happens next. In the end of this short novel I am curious as to whether Will returns to her letters, or if he feels the way Gail does.
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4 comments:
BA #6:
I agree with Lien that this story ends with questions left unanswered, as with the rest of Alice Munro's work. Interestingly, Lien commented on a feature in the story that I never noticed before. In her blog, she discussed the relationship between the landlord and Gail. I didn't dwell much on this relationship but I feel that it is in fact important in understanding the narration. It never occurred to me that Gail's landlord was "keeping" a secret for her.Therefore Gail shared a secret not only with the reader (about her impersonating Mrs. Thornebe)but also with the landlord. One does wonder why he didn't blow up her spot.
BA#5
After reading what Lien and Kate had to say about the landlord keeping a secret about Gail's identity, I am not so sure I agree with them. The landlord didn't know that Gail was here from to stalk will and that she changed her identity to hide from him. He also didn't know she was writing the letters because we see him tell Will that the old lady has died and that it would be impossible for him to be receiving letters from her. The landlord didn't have any idea about what Gail was hiding and therefore could not have given her identity away even if he wanted to. No on except for Gail knew, until the end, what she was doing there.
BA#5
I disagree that these secrets are not important to the story because they have to do with the entire story. What would the story be without these secrets? I do agree with her when she says that many questions are left unanswered though. I hated the way the story ended and how many questions were left hanging. I also didn't concentrate as much on the relationship between Gail and teh landlord like Kate said. I didn't think it was as important as the relationship between Gail and Will.
These secrets are important to the story in every aspect of it. If Gail never went to his house in Australia then she would have never have had the opportunity to be Ms Thornebe making the entire story significantly different.
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