“After all . . . useless”: Utilitarianism and Aestheticism in Alice Munro’s “Dance of the Happy Shades”
This essay on Alice Munro’s short story “Dance of the Happy Shades” begins by looking at the ending of the story, which features an epiphany, but one that is unusual and only vaguely defined. After considering the ending of the story, the author develops his theory that the story is about utilitaria...
שמור ב:
| הוצא לאור ב: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| מחבר ראשי: | |
| פורמט: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| שפה: | Anglais |
| יצא לאור: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2023
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| גישה מקוונת: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| סיכום: | This essay on Alice Munro’s short story “Dance of the Happy Shades” begins by looking at the ending of the story, which features an epiphany, but one that is unusual and only vaguely defined. After considering the ending of the story, the author develops his theory that the story is about utilitarianism and its limitations: the narrator and her mother are presented with an unusually powerful aesthetic experience that leads the narrator to question and eventually jettison the utilitarian “paradigm” in which she had previously operated. The narrator looks back on the experience she describes in the story as a key moment when she realized the importance of the aesthetic and art for art’s sake. |
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