Not real but true : evolution in form and theme in Alice Munro's Lives of girls and women, The progress of love, and Open secrets

Through the use of detailed textual analysis, this study explores the relationship between form and theme in Lives of Girls and Women, The Progress of Love and Open Secrets. A close reading of Munro's deceptively simple narrative style reveals a rich combination of formal techniques that has evolved to reflect the author's increasingly complex artistic vision. While the author consistently explores questions of female identity and the nature of reality, her focus is shown to widen from a close-up on one developing artistic consciousness to a cinematographic panning of various characters' attempts at making meaning from the world around them. This shift in focus is traced throughout the stories of all three collections, demonstrating movement from a reliance on what Munro refers to as a "single path" through a story, to an increasingly complex labyrinth in which characters' lives and visions intersect in unexpected and inexplicable ways. Munro's writing is shown to have evolved over time, most recently leading her to pursue a quest similar to that of Will in "The Jack Randa Hotel": "Perhaps it is my age--I am 56--that urges me to find connections" (172