Short Story Reading Worksheet: "Walker Brothers Cowboy"
You may read some general notes on Munro from me to future students here.

Historical/Regional setting. We might be able to fill all these in for the Munro stories with “Munro Country.” Back of nowhere Canada west of Lake Huron and far from Toronto. History here—the 1930’s
Social/ economic/ class factors. 1930’s was the tail end of the great depression. Family had been in fox furs—a kind of luxury item business, and had failed. Now dad ekes out a living door to door. Mother feels the sting of having come down in class.

Cast of Characters (Brief descriptions).
Mom—trying to put on airs, much to the profound embarrassment of the daughter.
Dad: (Ben Jordan). Has a friendly and seemingly positive outlook. Times are hard, but he is still out in the world looking at the lake and singing on his way to the sales calls.
Narrator—young girl. It is for her to have the epiphany in this story—something about history and what it is that is concealed by history. That which is unknowable in the present, from a single dimension.
Nora Cronin. Old girlfriend of Ben. Earthy, frank, but somewhat embittered herself by the straits she finds herself in (alone on an isolated farm, caretaker of her mother, no man in her life).
Her Mom. Blind. Another marker for history, with her own faulty memory and perceptions, her tendency to float in and out of the present.
Young Boy. With no memory, no history, only a kind of set of primal urges.

Primary Action of the story:
The primary action is the trip with the dad to Nora’s. There is no wasted descriptions, however, so the account of the different kinds of walks with Mom are important, the discussion of the lake and its own progress over time is important, even the trip before they meet up with Nora is important.
Quirks, twists, surprises:
What seems a bit quirky about this story is the way that memory works in the story, and the different iterations of history.
Tone or voice of the story:
It is the mature voice of the narrator but which also captures the limited understanding of the child (which the narrator was at the time of the story).
Some significant lines from the story.
12—the sentence which includes “or the old lady, because there is one. . .”
6. “Even the dirty words chalked on the sidewalk are laughing at us.”
12. “her laugh abrupt and somewhat angry.”

What the story conveys (the moral, the message, the larger implications).
Borders and boundaries are spatial and temporal. So we leave the known world of the child (pg. 4) to “pass a factory with boarded-up windows. . .” But it is the part of town “we used to know.” The last paragraph details the way the girl comes to perceive of herself as being in (incomprehensible) time.
History for the mother. She wants time to have stopped when they were back at Dungannon. (Here the narrator pretends to remember less than she does).
History invoked in the way the think is described—the 1930’s. There are the particular things, but there is also the sameness—no more vivid than when the children can find no colors besides grey and brown to use in I Spy.
Here is a kind of refrain—“Just don’t tell your mother that.” (concerning the pee-pee. But later, Nora gets the whole story, even more than the story.)