Perceiving the Imperceptible: A Close Reading of Alice Munro’s “Wild Swans”

“Wild Swans”, written by the Canadian author Alice Munro, and published in the collection of short stories Who Do You Think You Are? (1978), narrates the train journey of a young girl, Rose, from a small town of to the big city of Toronto. During this trip she will have an intimate encounter with a man who is not a real minister, pretending to be real but dressed as if he is not. This story is a fundamental example of how the practice of reading literary works can directly, or indirectly, teach us humans how to be better readers of the earth at large. The thesis concludes with some thoughts on how being better readers of the earth might be one of the most important ways to avoid extinction.