[“Anything Was Possible”: Gaps, Hypotheses, and Multiple Meanings in Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”] PDF Free Download
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[ostrava journal of english philology—vol.16, no. 1, 2024-literature and culture]
[ISSN 1803-8174 (print), ISSN 2571-0257 (online)]
[DOI: 10.15452/OJoEP.2024.16.0001]
[“Anything Was Possible”:
Gaps, Hypotheses, and
Multiple Meanings in Alice
Munro’s “The Bear Came
Over the Mountain”]
Pavlína Studená
Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic
[Abstract] Through a literary analysis of Alice Munro’s short story
“The Bear Came Over the Mountain” (1999), the article explores the
theme of indeterminacy and gaps in the text and their impact on
readers’ interpretation. Drawing on the concepts of Iser’s implied reader,
Kukkonen’s embodied reader, and Abbot’s acceptance of unknowability,
the article reveals how Munro engages readers in constructing hypotheses
and continuously challenges them by introducing new insights, prompting
revisions of interpretations. By exploring the deliberate indeterminacies
in Munro’s narrative, this study aims to elucidate the interplay between
authorial intention and the reader’s interpretive agency. The article also
mentions the lm adaptation of Munro’s short story by the Canadian
director Sarah Polley, Away from Her (2006), and highlights the use
of indeterminacy within the visual medium.
[Keywords] egregious gaps; embodied reader; indeterminacy; textual
gaps; narrative ambiguity; reader interpretation; unreliable narrator
This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license for non-commercial purposes.
6[ostrava journal of english philology -literature and culture]
[Pavlína Studená—“Anything Was Possible”: Gaps, Hypotheses, and Multiple Meanings in
Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”]
[ 1 ] Beyond the Text: Gaps, Ambiguity, and
Reader Engagement
The length and scope of all literary texts are inherently limited. No matter how detailed,
a story cannot possibly mention every character’s background and describe every set-
ting; thus, it inevitably contains numerous places that are not explicitly specied. These
spaces of uncertainty do not hinder comprehension of the text; instead, they invite read-
ers to participate in the meaning-making process by lling these gaps and assimilating
the text into their relevant contexts. Beyond these inherent gaps, authors oen employ
deliberate indeterminacy – the intentional inclusion of gaps and ambiguity – to enhance
the depth of their narratives, further engage readers by evoking curiosity and building
suspense, and create open-ended narratives. Indeterminacy in ction not only challeng-
es readers to form hypotheses about characters and events; it also allows for multiple in-
terpretations and diverse meanings, fostering interactive engagement with the narrative.
Thus, readers inadvertently shape their interpretation of a literary text with their unique
knowledge, experiences, and imaginations.
The concept of indeterminacy and gaps in the text gained scholarly attention in the
1930s and has since been linked, inter alia, to postmodernist paradigms, cognitive sci-
ence, and predictive processing theory. These intellectual frameworks have contributed
to our understanding of how readers interact with literary works, highlighting the active
role readers play in shaping the narrative. The implications of indeterminacy for the no-
tions of authorship and reader response have given rise to diverse approaches regarding
readers’ entitlement to formulate their own hypotheses about the meaning of the text.
Drawing on the theoretical foundations of Roman Ingarden and Wolfgang Iser, supple-
mented by more recent theories of Karin Kukkonen and H. Porter Abbott, this paper ana-
lyzes the utilization of indeterminacy in Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over
the Mountain” (1999). These theoretical concepts provide a lens through which the arti-
cle explores how the author harnesses the power of deliberate gaps and indeterminacies
in her text in order to actively engage readers. Furthermore, the article aims to illustrate
how readers are prompted to form hypotheses, continuously rening and revising their
interpretations as the story unfolds. “Anything was possible,” states Munro in the short
story (319), encapsulating the essence of reader engagement with the indeterminate
spaces within her narrative.
[ 2 ] Indeterminacy in Literary Theory: From
Ingarden to Cognitive Perspectives
In the early 1930s, scholarly attention turned to the concept of indeterminacy within
Roman Ingarden’s phenomenological studies on the philosophy of art and his analyses
of literary works. However, the application of Ingarden’s theories in Anglo-American
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[Pavlína Studená—“Anything Was Possible”: Gaps, Hypotheses, and Multiple Meanings in
Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”]
literary criticism remained relatively rare, likely due to the delayed translation of Ing-
arden’s studies into English, which occurred only in the 1970s. By that time, Anglo-Amer-
ican literary criticism had already shied towards analytical philosophy, a method that
emphasizes logical analysis and linguistic precision based primarily on close reading
of literary texts (Řehulková 9-10).
In his seminal study The Literary Work of Art (1931), Ingarden coined the term “spots
of indeterminacy” to describe the schematic nature of objects and themes in literature.
He posited that “every literary work is in principle incomplete and always in need of fur-
ther supplementation” (251). Readers are inherently bound to ll certain gaps in the text,
drawing upon their individual knowledge and experience – a process Ingarden referred
to as concretization. This mechanism prompts readers to establish unspoken conne-
ctions, activate their imagination, and relate the text to their own experiences. Jan Tlustý
observes that according to Ingarden, the concretization of gaps in the text primarily
occurs at an unconscious level, driven by individual imagination and mental schemes
shaped by personal experiences – though also inuenced by learned cultural paradigms
and even the reader’s physicality (33). This aligns with how Brinker summarizes Ing-
arden’s view that the transformation of a literary work into an aesthetic object rests with
the reader (203). Thus, readers’ active engagement in constructing hypotheses about the
text is essential for bringing the text into meaning.
Expanding on Ingarden’s work, Wolfgang Iser introduced his perspective on inde-
terminacy in the late 1960s through aesthetic response theory. He argued that the spots
of indeterminacy, which are not explicitly communicated in the text, play a crucial role in
engaging the reader and facilitating the meaning-making process, constituting a funda-
mental condition for the aesthetic eect of the literary text. By purposefully leaving gaps
and unexpressed or empty spaces, the text avoids predictability, banality and monotony,
actively involving the reader’s imagination and preventing a mundane reading experi-
ence.
A central idea in Iser’s theory is the “implied reader”, an active participant in the
reading process who constantly modies interpretations and hypotheses in response to
new information encountered during reading. In this sense, Iser sees reading as a dia-
logue between the text and the reader, mirroring the dynamic nature of real life (275-6).
Additionally, he proposes the notion of the “virtual dimension of the text”, a conceptu-
al space where the text and the reader’s imagination converge (279). From this perspec-
tive, an open-minded reader engages in a continuous dialogue with the text, constantly
challe nging their own preconceptions and allowing them to be transformed by the in-
terplay between their interpretations and possibilities within the text. Tlustý highlights
that according to Iser, transformations and their correction occur spontaneously during
the reading process; the text does not necessarily have to invite such activities explicitly
(56). Unlike Ingarden’s one-way process where readers ll the gaps in the text through
concretization based on their knowledge and experience to complete the ctional world
of a literary work, Iser’s theory extends beyond the ctional realm. He proposes that
readers actively create new models of the real world by engaging with and inferring gaps
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[Pavlína Studená—“Anything Was Possible”: Gaps, Hypotheses, and Multiple Meanings in
Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”]
within a literary text (Brinker 210). According to Iser, the meaning of a literary text trans-
cends its mere textual boundaries. The active process of reading enables the transfer of
experiences and facilitates a reciprocal exchange between the ctional world and reality.
Within the evolving eld of literary theory, the 1980s witnessed the rise of cogni-
tive science, followed by the emergence of predictive processing theory in the 1990s,
both signicantly inuencing the exploration of indeterminacy and reader engagement.
Predictive processing theory posits that the text functions as a framework of probabili-
ties, with readers’ interpretations shaped by their knowledge of other texts and broader
cultural contexts, which form their mental library (Tlustý 158). In 2014, Karin Kukkonen
built upon these developments and further elaborated on Iser’s exploration of reader en-
gagement by introducing the concept of the “embodied reader” (367). This perspe ctive
expands the notion of the reader’s role and emphasizes the dynamic interaction between
the reader’s mind, body, and text during the reading process. In Kukkonen’s view, em-
bodied readers not only draw upon their personal experiences to construct meaning
but also immerse themselves in the protagonist’s experiences. Engaging in a process
where they imaginatively experience what the protagonist might be feeling, the reader
“translates this experience into predictive inferences about the storyworld… and judg-
es the degree of condence she assigns to each of these embodied predictions” (378).
Kukkonen asserts that the reader’s journey through the narrative involves a dynamic in-
terplay between cognition, physicality, and the text itself. This interaction allows readers
to anticipate narrative developments and evaluate their probability in relation to the story
structure. Consequently, the spots of indeterminacy within a literary text enable readers
to ll the gaps with their own content, choosing what they nd most plausible, and infus-
ing the text with their unique emotional responses shaped by their own life experiences.
As a result, dierent readers perceive the same literary text in varied ways, attributing
distinct meanings to its narrative mosaic.
[ 3 ] Narrative Ambiguities in “The Bear Came
Over the Mountain”
Alice Munro (b. 1931), a Canadian author awarded the Nobel Prize in 2013 for her short
stories, oen employs indeterminacy to evoke ambivalence and tension in her narratives.
As H. Porter Abbot notes, Munro constructs her stories around ordinary lives that may
appear familiar to readers; yet, within these narratives, she embeds elusive “moment[s]
of insight that allows us at one and the same time to see a character anew and to see that
there is more we can’t see” (133). In Munro’s stories, just as in real life, it is rarely pos-
sible to nd explicitly positive or negative characters or events. Opting for a fragment-
ed and indeterminate narrative structure, Munro compels readers to continually adjust
and re-evaluate their views with each unfolding piece of the plot. Rather than passively
observing the story, readers are actively engaged in assembling the scattered pieces of
the narrative puzzle. Munro’s deliberate use of indeterminacy consistently encourages
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readers to become active participants, unwittingly weaving their interpretations into the
fabric of the story.
Alice Munro’s works emerge within a unique literary context rooted in the Canadian
literary tradition and are strongly inuenced by her experiences growing up in Ontario.
Much of her writing aligns with the genre known as Southern Ontario Gothic, charac-
terized by blending mundane daily events with an underlying sense of terror and evil
inherent in the ordinary. Munro’s narratives oen challenge conventional story struc-
ture, oering readers an immersive experience that resonates on a deep emotional level.
Typi cally, traditional plotlines are minimal in Munro’s stories, emphasizing fragmenta-
tion and indeterminacy. This deliberate authorial choice “stresses the hidden, ambiva-
lent meanings, expresses fears beyond logic and rational understanding” prompting
readers to explore deeper layers beneath the surface of everyday experiences (Berndt 3).
One such exemplary short story is “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”, originally pub-
lished in The New Yorker magazine in 1999 and later included in the collection Hateship,
Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001).
The narrative follows the life story of Fiona and Grant, a seemingly harmonious up-
per-middle-class married couple nearing their ieth wedding anniversary. Although
their marriage appears relatively stable, even spiced with playfulness and mutual ban-
ter, we gradually learn about Grant’s numerous aairs with his female students during
their marriage. He believes, however, that he managed to keep them secret from his
wife and that they had no eect on their relationship. At the age of seventy, Fiona be-
gins showing symptoms of a degenerative disease – potentially Alzheimer’s or another
form of senile dementia. While Grant ponders whether the symptoms are another one
of Fiona’s little jokes, it is Fiona who insists on moving to Meadowlake Nursing Home
as soon as possible. During her adaptation month in Meadowlake, she forms a deep con-
nection with a temporary resident named Aubrey. This bond prompts Grant to reect on
their seemingly solid relationship. When Aubrey is taken back home by his wife Marian,
Fiona is so devastated that Grant decides to ask Marian to let Aubrey re-establish regular
contact with Fiona, or even consider his permanent relocation to Meadowlake. Marian,
constrained by nancial limitations, declines. However, the unusual situation raises the
possibility of a romantic relationship between Grant and Marian, which they consider.
Whether and how the relationship between Grant and Marian develops we never learn,
but at the end of the story, Grant brings Aubrey to see Fiona at Meadowlake.
The indeterminacy and ambiguity of the short story’s interpretation begin with its
title, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” – which may appear perplexing since there
are no direct references to mountains or bears in the narrative. Although Grant, a profe-
ssor of Anglo-Saxon and Nordic literature, specializes in wolves in Norse mythology, and
he and Fiona enjoy cross-country skiing, there is no direct relevance to the story’s title.
To decipher the meaning behind the title, we must turn to North American folklore.
The title originates in the children’s folk song “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” de-
picting a bear’s journey over the mountain only to nd the other side of the mountain.
Literary critics have oered various interpretations of Munro’s choice of title. Héliane
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Ventura, for example, suggests that Munro intentionally blurs “the frontiers between the
world of childhood and the world of pensioners, the world of ordinary existence and the
world of fabulous creatures” (3). Robert Lecker notes the tautological nature of the folk
song, pointing out the cyclical structure of the story to express that “nothing changes
in the story – the ending reects its beginning” (5). Marlene Goldman and Sarah Pow-
ell emphasize the signicance of “the game of communication” and irony in linking the
similarities between child(ish) plays and jokes to early manifestations of Alzheimer’s di-
sease (88).
Similarly, we can only speculate about Munro’s decision to replace the original verb
“went” in the nursery rhyme with “came” in the title of her story. This alteration could
signify either a change in the characters’ trajectories within the narrative or the read-
er’s perspective from which the “bear” is perceived as coming, not going. The bear of the
title may also symbolize the protagonists, whether Grant or Fiona, embarking on a jour-
ney to “the other side” to gain new perspectives on their relationship and themselves.
Literary critics also diverge in their interpretations of the identity of the bear in the title.
Katrin Berndt and Jennifer Henke read the bear as Grant, who “decides to ‘come over’
to make an eort to approach Fiona in order to remain emotionally close to her” (207).
Conversely, Ventura identies the bear as Fiona, who embarks on a journey leading her
“to a dierent world called Meadowlake” (4). The winter setting of the story further en-
hances the struggle to discover what lies “on the other side” – be it the other side of a rela-
tionship, their self-awareness, or their life stories.
The children’s folk song “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” is itself a clever play on
words, a tautological parody, and a playful joke, mirroring the ironic playfulness in Mun-
ro’s choice of using a children’s song as the title for a story centred around old age and
aging. In addition, at the outset of the story, Munro incorporates a tautological an-
ecdote involving German patrols on the Czechoslovak border during the war. The pa-
trol dogs were labelled Hund simply because they were Hunds1 (276, emphasis mine).
Munro’s pointing out the deliberate statement of the obvious may serve to highlight the
theme of preserving the status quo – or, conversely, it may draw the reader’s attention to
the hidden meanings beneath explicit statements. Moreover, the recurrent use of words
like “joke,” “fun,” “game,” or “play” in the narrative reects the ambiguous nature of
the story, lea ving readers to ponder whether the words convey playfulness or a sense
of feigning.
This uncertainty is further complicated by Grant’s status as an unreliable source
of information. Munro tells the story from a third-person point of view, but readers
are allowed intimate access only to Grant’s thoughts and emotions, while Fiona’s in-
ner world remains veiled. Thus, doubts about Fiona’s health condition are recurrently
raised throughout the narrative. While some critics, such as Goldman and Powell, con-
tend that Fiona has developed symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, it is crucial to note that
nowhere in the text is this claim explicitly stated. Conversely, since Grant serves as the
lens through which readers perceive Fiona’s condition, his subjective interpretations re-
peatedly raise the pivotal question of whether Fiona genuinely experiences the devas-
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tating eects of a degenerative disease or whether she is possibly “putting on some kind
of a charade” (293). Grant’s subjective viewpoint introduces biases and selective percep-
tions, challenging the reliability of the information presented. These subtle hints oer
multiple possible hypotheses, and the reader may or may not notice them or take them
into account. Some readers might conclude that Fiona is faking her disease as a plan
to emancipate herself from an unsatisfactory marriage, possibly aware of Grant’s extra-
marital aairs. This interpretation could cast her actions as revenge or liberation, where-
upon, from the perspective of those readers, Grant would be getting what he deserves.
On the contrary, if readers miss hints of Fiona’s possible feigned illness or nd the hypo-
thesis less credible, they may take the information about Fiona’s disease as a fact and
may sympathize with Grant, mourning the loss of his beloved lifelong partner. This
inten tional ambiguity of the text not only deepens the emotional engagement between
the reader and the characters, but also leaves the narrative open to a myriad of interpre-
tations.
Indeed, Munro encourages readers to engage in speculative interpretations by em-
ploying what Abbott terms “egregious gaps” – those gaps in the narrative that “we can-
not ll but that, at the same time, require lling in order to complete the narrative” (112).
The text then inevitably raises numerous unanswered questions: Was Fiona genuinely
aicted with Alzheimer’s disease? If so, how did she and Grant respond to the diagno-
sis? Did they try to ght the disease or resign themselves to it? Did they ever consid-
er the option of keeping Fiona at home or hiring a caregiver? Alternatively, could Fiona
have been feigning her symptoms? If so, what motivated her? Was she seeking revenge
against Grant, or had she simply grown weary of him and yearned for an escape? While
we may never denitely ascertain Fiona’s true condition, once we decide on one option
regarding these possibilities, it signicantly inuences our reading and understanding of
the entire text. However, akin to real-life situations, we can also succumb to conrmation
bias. Forming premature hypotheses might lead us to unconsciously seek evidence that
supports our initial views, inadvertently dismissing references that challenge our estab-
lished beliefs.
Grant’s portrayal as an unreliable source of information amplies the indetermina-
cies in the story, compelling readers to navigate through Grant’s perspectives, emotions
and doubts, and ultimately shaping readers’ interpretations of Fiona’s character and
actions. Grant oen reects on his life with Fiona and the moments they shared, describ-
ing her as having “the spark of life” (275). Le alone, he evidently misses her, especially
during her adaptation period at Meadowlake, which he perceives as “the longest month
of his life” (281). On the other hand, he also acknowledges his role as “a philanderer who
took advantage of the promiscuous opportunities of the late 1960s” (Berndt and Henke
209). However, we observe his eorts to downplay his indelities “without making the
error of a confession” (Munro 285) and to justify his multiple aairs by concealing them
from Fiona. His declaration that he “had never stopped making love to Fiona in spite
of disturbing demands elsewhere” and that he “had not stayed away from her for a sin-
gle night” while asking whether “it [would] have been better if he had done as others
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had done with their wives and le her” (285) suggests that he tries to portray himself
in a favourable light. In the rare moments when the author allows the reader glimpses
into Fiona’s memories as Grant remembers them, she uses images of “fences,” “bars,”
or “depths of winter” – hinting that, from Fiona’s point of view, their marriage may not
be as harmonious as Grant tries to portray it. As Berndt and Henke note, “the reader can
never be sure that Fiona even knew about Grant’s aairs, or if she did, whether she was
bothered by them” (209).
Additionally, Grant’s marked insensitivity towards women, demonstrated by his
lack of sympathy when Fiona faced challenges related to her reproductive health, since
he “had always avoided thinking about all that female apparatus” (278), reveals deep-
er layers of his character. The absence of little things like owers becomes a poignant
symbol in their relationship, which is emphasized when Grant visits Fiona at Meadow-
lake and buys her owers for the rst time. He chooses daodils, a choice interpreted by
Carmen Concilio as a reference to the mythical Narcissus, who is incapable of loving
anyone but himself (109). Grant’s thoughts about Marian further reveal objectifying and
sexualizing tendencies, as he fantasizes about how “her face and neck would most like-
ly continue into her cleavage, which would be deep, crepey-skinned, odorous and hot”
(321). This presentation of Grant’s character and his relationship with Fiona can evoke
varying impressions among dierent readers, depending on their individual experiences
and perspectives. Some may perceive the narrative as depicting a relatively harmonious
marriage, where the husband struggles and grieves over his wife’s rapid cognitive decline,
her move to a nursing home, and the new relationship she establishes there. However, for
other readers, the story may trigger a dierent set of emotions, prompting them to notice
clues that suggest an alternative perspective, where Grant, a former university professor
and philanderer, appears to be an unreliable character. This dierence in interpretation
leads to contrasting emotional responses to the story.
The egregious gaps in the literary text signicantly shape how not only readers but
also literary critics interpret and understand the narrative. Ventura, for instance, views
Grant’s arrangement for Aubrey’s return to Meadowlake as an act of selessness and re-
pentance for Grant’s philandering past, arguing that he “sacrices his honour and his
pride” for Fiona’s well-being (6). Other critics, however, propose an alternative perspec-
tive, suggesting that Grant “abandons Fiona to another man so that he can take up with
that man’s wife” (Lecker 5). Just as we encounter dierent interpretations of Fiona de-
pending on whether she is considered to be feigning her disease or not, we also encoun-
ter distinct portrayals of Grant – one as a loving and repentant husband, and the other
as an incorrigible philanderer seizing an opportunity for a sexual liaison. Notably, the
text does not provide conclusive evidence to conrm either hypothesis. The absence of
denitive answers leaves room for diverse and sometimes conicting interpretations
among readers. Following Kukkonen’s concept of embodied readers, as we immerse
ourselves in the story, we engage in speculation about these gaps while simultaneous-
ly evaluating the plausibility of our interpretations. As the narrative unfolds, we might
recognize the need to revise our hypotheses based on new information. Consequently,
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the array of interpretations among readers can be remarkably surprising. Drawing from
their unique life experiences, each reader lls the narrative gaps dierently, arriving
at dierent conclusions. However, Abbott argues that leaving these narrative gaps
unlled might challenge our innate desire to explain motives and uncover the truth –
though he also sees “wisdom in accepting with a full cognitive embrace the fact that there
are things we simply do not and cannot know” (115).
While the textual medium allows readers to t their interpretations into the gaps
in the text, in the visual presentation of the story the spots of indeterminacy assume even
greater signicance. In her lm adaptation of Munro’s short story, Away from Her (2006),
Sarah Polley must deliberately make choices regarding the point of view presented to
the audience. Polley does not question Fiona’s manifestations of Alzheimer’s symptoms
and opts for “a less complex portrayal of Grant as a classic romantic lead” (Goldman and
Powell 82-3). Focusing on the romantic storyline, Polley’s lm is thus primarily a poi-
gnant exploration of love, aging, and memory that nonetheless invites viewers to con-
sider various perspectives on Grant’s actions and intentions, questioning whether they
stem from selessness or selsh desires. In this way, Away from Her exemplies the power
of adaptation to retain the ambiguities inherent in the literary work. The gaps shaped
by a visual medium may oer alternative perspectives, further enriching the interpre-
tive experience for the audience. Like Munro’s story, the lm deliberately leaves certain
gaps unlled, encouraging audiences to confront the limitations of knowledge, as Abbott
suggests. On the other hand, the visual medium of lm inevitably uncovers some un-
spoken aspects of the literary text, leading viewers to accept certain pre-made decisions.
For instance, unlike Munro, Polley gives voice to many of Grant’s words through Fiona,
which removes an entire dimension of Grant’s character, that of Grant as an unreliable
narrator. This portrayal helps to maintain sympathy for a philandering husband who
appears unconditionally devoted to his once-scorned wife, and his further indelity is
presented as self-sacrice in pursuit of his wife’s happiness (Chivers 88). This example
of a bold adaptation of Munro’s story – a text which oers so many ambiguities and ways
of interpretation – shows the unique possibilities of both media. While the literary work
hides its secrets in spots of indeterminacy and gaps in the text, the lm inevitably passes
o certain hypotheses as truth and challenges the audience to grapple with contrasting
shades of interpretation. Both mediums prove their art in this interplay of ambiguity and
explicitness, leaving us to ponder the endless possibilities hidden in the unlled spaces
while contemplating the revealed fragments illuminated by the silver screen.
[ 4 ] Conclusion: Embracing Uncertainty
In a literary text, the signicance lies not only in what is explicitly intended, but also in
the gaps in the narrative that allow the reader to complete the literary text, bringing the
ctional world to life within their imagination. These spots of indeterminacy, whether
explicitly unlled gaps or unspoken meanings that readers have yet to deduce, trigger
diverse reactions in readers, leading to the formulation and reformulation of hypothe-
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ses about the text, whether they turn out to be correct or remain forever unconrmed.
In Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” the narrative unfolds
with deliberate ambiguity, inviting readers to explore the experience of uncertainty. This
intentional obscurity serves as a canvas upon which readers project their interpretations.
In this way, Munro purposefully employs Grant’s unreliable perspective to enhance the
enigmatic aura of the story, encouraging readers to actively participate in the construction
of meaning.
Hence, Iser’s reader actively engages within the evolving story, modifying the details
of the ctional worlds in response to the shiing narrative landscape. The story then serves
as a piece in the puzzle of understanding the dierent views of the real world that litera-
ture can communicate. However, Munro thoughtfully refrains from oering denitive an-
swers. Kukkonen’s readers further add an emotional dimension allowing them to immerse
themselves in the text and not only ll the gaps but also evaluate the probability of their
interpretations. Initially, the author presents readers with ambiguous characters and sit-
uations, such as Fiona’s symptoms and Grant’s intentions, prompting them to formulate
an initial interpretation. As the story progresses, readers encounter new information and
insights, challenging their initial hypotheses. The indeterminacies in Munro’s storytelling
allow readers to immerse themselves in the character’s dilemmas and motivations, leading
to a continual renement of their interpretations. But when Grant’s motivations, especially
his relationship with Marian, are hinted at but not conclusively conrmed, Abbott’s reader
resists the craving for certainty, allowing for a multitude of interpretations to coexist with-
out imposing a singular meaning onto the story, embracing the wisdom of unknowability.
Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” is a testament to the
power of indeterminacy in literature, oering a rich, multilayered reading experience.
Whether embracing gaps or seeking answers, readers actively shape the meaning of the
story, making it a uniquely personal journey. Munro’s masterfully constructed narrative al-
lows for multiple, even contradictory, interpretations without any of these interpretations
being refuted as incorrect. Thus, when reading for pleasure, the reader naturally and un-
wittingly lls the gaps and spots of indeterminacy in the ctional story, without disrupting
the ow of the reading experience. Such a reader may not even realize that the story could
be understood in any other way. Thanks to Munro’s sophisticated use of indeterminacy,
when reading the story, readers experience the assumed or projected emotions with the
characters, evaluate the probability of possible options, ll the gaps in the text, and com-
plete the story according to their hypothesis and worldview – which, as it is dierent for
each person, allows for a completely dierent interpretation of the story within the same
text.
In the case of Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,”
Fiona’s condition, Grant’s intentions, as well as other details of their relationship remain
veiled. Lecker notices that the word “seemed” appears 21 times in the short story, mak-
ing it the most repeated verb in the text, which “emphasizes the ways in which this story
is focalized on deception” (3). However, it is entirely upon us, readers, to judge whether
this deception relates to Fiona’s possible feigning of illness, Grant’s numerous indelities,
15
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[Pavlína Studená—“Anything Was Possible”: Gaps, Hypotheses, and Multiple Meanings in
Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”]
or perhaps whether we take it personally as a deception on us, readers, because the text
leaves so many unanswered questions. Did Fiona suer from Alzheimer’s? Why did she
give up so soon, and move to a nursing home so early? Did Fiona know about Grant’s extra-
marital aairs? Did she know that Aubrey was at Meadowlake? Was she faking her feelings
toward him? Was Grant sleeping with Marian? We never nd out. While one reader may
sympathize with Grant, relate to his loss and see the arrangement with Marian as a su-
preme sacrice stemming from pure love, another reader may read the message of the story
in reverse, seeing Grant as a hypocritical adulterer who takes advantage of his wife’s illness
to establish a sexual relationship with another man’s wife, and yet another reader can view
the story from the perspective of Fiona’s liberation from a troubled relationship, or perhaps
as an insight into how a rapid cognitive decline aects people’s lives and relationships.
There is, however, the option that we leave these narrative gaps unlled. The unan-
swered questions echo in our minds, reminding us that sometimes the deepest under-
standing we can reach is the acceptance that certain mysteries are destined to remain un-
solved. Perhaps therein lies the magic of storytelling: the recognition that some secrets are
meant to endure, and that we will never know.
[Notes]
1 “Hund” is the German word for “dog”.
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feld: transcript Verlag, 2017. 203–224.
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Chivers, Sally. The Silvering Screen: Old Age and Disability in Cinema. Toronto: University of
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Alice Munro’s ‘The Bear Came over the Mountain’ and Sarah Polley’s Away from Her.”
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https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/pdf/1121. Accessed 18 June 2022.
[Address]
Department of English and American Studies
Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University
Arna Nováka 1, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic
pstudena@mail.muni.cz
Pavlína Studená holds a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature
from the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic),
where she is a doctoral student of Literatures in English. Her research explores
the portrayal of aging in contemporary Canadian ction, mainly through
female characters who employ the power of irony to navigate the challenges
of aging and confront sociocultural stereotypes. Her research interests include
the female Bildungsroman and artist’s novel, postcolonial, feminist, and age
studies. Away from university libraries, she embraces the spirit of adventure,
nding relaxation in the thrill of travel and the tranquility of hiking trails.
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