English Literature

The story, The Found Boat by Alice Munro is an interesting story that uses setting to achieve certain things in the piece.  It is about a group of friends who love to play in the river riding log rafts.  Later, the friends find an old damaged boat and they spend time repairing the boat with pieces of lumber that they have collected.  The friends then take the repaired boat to the river and take turns riding it until they all decide to take it further.  The group, two on the water, and two running on the bank of the river, head to an old, abandoned railway station where they have a makeshift picnic and play games.  Later, they all decide to go skinny dipping in the river, and while the girls went out of the water, the boys took the boat and left the girls behind.  The story takes place mostly in the Wawanash River and its banks during the turn of winter, while the ice melted and spring was on its way.  In the later part of the story however, the setting shifts to become the old railroad station.  The two settings in the story are used as platforms to symbolize childhood, friendship, and the loss of innocence.

In using the setting as a symbol of childhood the author attributes it with elements of growth, immaturity, and development.  In the earlier part of the story, the river is described as, Light reflected off the water made every- thing bright and cold, as it is in a lakeside town, and woke or revived in people certain vague hopes of disaster, (Munro) suggesting the glow of childhood as well as the tendency of this stage of life to awaken uncertainty among adults.  In addition, we also have the author infuses the early part of the story with games of childhood such as trying to make a raft, from lumber they had salvaged from the water, (Munro) an active imagination as in the lines describing the log river trip, Suppose it was the sea, thought Eva. She thought of drowned cities and countries. Atlantis. Suppose they were riding in a Viking boat-Viking boats on the Atlantic, (Munro) and fearlessness as in the dialogue exchange between the boys and the girls, she yelled at them.Youd be scared to come out here, this water is ten feet deep Liar, they answered without interest, (Munro), qualities consistent with childhood and innocence.  Based on the textual evidence, we see how the author uses the attributes of the setting, as well as the descriptions of it by the characters to represent certain elements of childhood.  The setting does this by serving as a mirror of emotion as well as a platform for ideas to emerge.

Other than just childhood, the setting is also used to represent friendship.  The author, characterizing the characters, used the setting as a backdrop for the friendship of the characters.  This is also evident in the text, such as when they were already trying out the boat in the river and the boys decided not to name the boat There was no name on it, after all. The boys could not imagine that it needed any name to keep it separate from the other boats in the world (Munro) the author suggests that friendship, regardless of where it occurs, does not need to be qualified.  Then the author offers an analogy in the story, And the thing about being in a boat was that it was not solidly bobbing, like a log, but was cupped in the water, so that riding in it was not like being on some- thing in the water, but like being in the water itself. (Munro) which could be interpreted as an analogy of friendship that friendship is not being over or on each other but being in or into each other.  So, other than just using the setting as a venue for the nurture or development of friendship, we see how the author uses it in this story to actually symbolize friendship and if there is childhood and friendship, the loss of innocence follows suite.

Although the loss of innocence is first implied in the line, Before she went to sleep a picture of Clayton came to her mind she saw him sitting astride the boat, tar painting, with such concentration, delicacy, absorption. She thought of him speaking to her, (Munro) which suggests that Carol had felt attracted to Clayton, the representations of the loss of innocence happen mostly in the second setting which is the old railroad station.  Of course, we also have the author introducing a contrast between the two settings with the line, They did not know how far they had gone on the river, but things had changed- the water had got shallower, and the land flatter. (Munro) portraying perhaps the coming of age, when the depth of childhood gradually vanishes.  Initially, we have the description of the station as, dark, cool. All the windows were broken. Glass lay in shards and in fairly big pieces on the door, (Munro) which is a description symbolic of the broken perceptions of adolescence or adulthood as well as the unpredictability of adult life.  Then the group plays a game of truth or dare in which they all dare each other to strip during which period, the author describes the experience as, They felt as if they were going to jump off a cliff and fly. They felt that something was happening to them different from anything that had happened before, and it had to do with the boat, the water, the sunlight, the dark ruined station, and each other. (Munro)  This line says it all.  It implies brand new feelings resulting from exposure to a situation where new things happen  the author attributes this brand new feeling  to the primary setting, the water which had gone shallow  childhood vanishing, and each other  attraction.  So, it is obvious in this particular part of the story that the setting was used to serve as a backdrop for the development of a conscious awareness of each other as well as the newfound sensations of this awareness.

The setting in the story serves a very interesting purpose and the author is able to achieve this in different levels.  The setting is successfully able to convey the ideas of childhood, friendship and loss of innocence in this cleverly written tale by Alice Munro.