Analysis of The Office by Alice Munro - Essay Example

“The Office” a short story by Alice Munro deals with a woman’s struggle to carve her identity as an independent writer, which would give her life more meaning, than just being merely a housewife. The story can be seen as a creative person’s search for fulfillment of their dreams, where the narrator vents her frustrations at being merely a mother and wife but finds that the obtrusive behavior of society, displayed by the landlord Mr. Malley, does not allow her to fulfill her desires.

The narrator feels that she is so “bound” to her domestic life that she refers to this as - “A woman is the house” itself and looks for a role beyond this tiresome, mundane and traditional one.In “The Office” Alice Munro brings out the harsh reality of female stereotyping that exists in society, where the position of a woman is confined to being a homemaker and a provider. Women are also seen as inferior, a fact brought out into the open by the nasty attitude of Mr.

Malley when his advances are spurned by the narrator. Mr. Malley, on learning that the narrator is single, begins to woo her relentlessly, unaware that the narrator has taken up an office to divide her professional identity from her societal one, and not for the fact because she craves company. The narrator’s feminine instincts make her sympathize with Mr. Malley, but when he begins to take advantage of the situation, she is helpless and realizes that “This is a test and I did not pass it”. Mr. Malley pursues her relentlessly, refusing to acknowledge the narrator’s need for independence and to stay unfettered, and when she shuts the door on him he accuses her of being immoral and abnormal.

The narrator is left with no choice but to leave her new life with “absorbing depression”.Alice Munro painted a true picture of what many women like her have to endure when they decide to chart out a new course for themselves. The frustrations of a woman at her inability to fulfill her creative longings and the need to be emancipated from things that bind her, find an echo in all women who are making a professional life a priority for themselves. The author has also highlighted the pitfalls which such women have to endure and how in the end, they are often forced to sacrifice their dreams at the altar of society that is a male creation.

In this story, Alice Munro uses the image of an apparently satisfied woman, to show that beneath an exterior of calm fortitude, there is much tumult, which can be calmed down only when the self needs of the individual are fulfilled.