Touch and Affect in Alice Munro’s “Nettles”; or, Redefining Intimacy

Authors

  • Christine Lorre-Johnston Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3

Keywords:

Intimacy, Skin, Trauma

Abstract

Abstract
The skin, and the sense of touch it is linked with, is often an essential way to approach the world in Munro’s stories, and brings the focus onto affects.  This study focuses on touch and the skin in “Nettles” (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, 2001), a particularly luminous instance of story in which skin and affect together play a key role in creating a sense of intimacy.

Résumé
La peau, et le sens du toucher auquel elle est liée, est souvent un moyen essentiel d’aborder le monde dans les histoires de Munro, et met l’accent sur les affects. Cette étude porte sur le toucher et la peau dans « Nettles » (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, 2001), exemple particulièrement lumineux d’une histoire dans laquelle la peau et l’affect jouent un rôle clé dans la création d’un sentiment d’intimité.

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Author Biography

Christine Lorre-Johnston, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3

Senior Lecturer, English Department

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Published

2017-12-01