“Honey, Where Are the Kids?”: Motifs of the Past, Water, and Photography in Munro’s Stories Featuring Dead Children

Abstract

As indicated by many critics, the death of children features prominently in Alice Munro’s short fiction. This paper approaches the theme in six of her short stories from the standpoint of her personal experience to establish shared elements that combine to build the narratives, reverberating in her writing. These elements are the past, water, and photography. The argument and literary exploration are grounded on previous literature on the author, short story theory, and photography theory, and ultimately pursue a double objective, i.e., to develop an interpretation of the figure of the lost child in Munro’s work, while providing supporting evidence for the autobiographical nature of her literature.