Friend of My Youth

The narrator and her mother interpret the story of the Grieves sisters very differently. How do their different interpretations show the generational differences between the two of them?

How do you understand the character of Robert Deal, and his role in the story? Why do you think that he is so absent in the mother’s telling of the story? Why is the narrator so curious about him?

How do you interpret the isolated concluding paragraph in the story? What is its effect? How do you think that it relates to the rest of the story?

The narrator is a fiction writer. How does her profession inform her telling of the story? Is her version of events reliable?

The narrator describes her feelings towards her mother, at the end of the story, as a “bitter lump of love” (26). Where do you think that this bitterness comes from? How does her mother’s illness inform the narrator’s way of seeing her?

The story of the Grieves sisters is well-known among their neighbors. What is the neighbors’ attitude towards the family, and how does this attitude change over time? What do these shifting attitudes tell you about the values of the small provincial town?

What is the role of forgiveness in the story? Why does the narrator reject the forgiveness she receives from her mother in her dream?

The story of the Grieves sisters is told by a first-person narrator who has heard the story from her mother. Why do you think that Munro chose to tell the story in this indirect way? Are there ways in which this mode of narration allows for a fuller understanding of the story?