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Dimension
The Pursue of Happiness

"Dimensions" by Alice Munro is a tragic story that talks about self discovery and the courage to start all over again. Doree is a woman who has been broken in every way, but refuses to give her right to continue to live. The story describes Doree's psychological and emotional metamorphosis from an innocent young girl who has to face many difficulties to become a woman. All the circumstances that she goes through helps her mature, think more critically, and find the strength to pursue the happiness that she yearned. Doree was sixteen when her mother died of an embolism; and was sheltered, to a certain point, by Lloyd. Doree was a girl who had to leave her adolescence behind at an early age to become a wife/mother/woman and due to her lack of experience in all aspects, she had to depend on her husband, Lloyd. During their whole marriage Doree was isolated from others; having no social skills due to her lack of interaction, she could not establish a bond with any other person strong enough to overcome her need for Lloyd: “It was Lloyd and Doree and their family that mattered…the bond was not something that anybody else could understand”(Munro,6). At that exact moment in her life, she found in Lloyd the love that she desperately needed; especially after the lost of her mother she felt helpless. Lloyd represented a father figure for Doree; he replaced the family that she had lost to become part of a new one. Throughout the story Doree always acts tactfully and diplomatic, seeking not to provoke Lloyd’s temper, on the other hand, she started questioning his reasoning and behavior that was inappropriate sometimes. Doree’s way of seeing and analyzing life was changing from a child mind to a more mature one, as if someone remove the eye bandage from her: “he was still the closest person in the world to her, and she felt that everything would collapse if she were to bring herself to tell someone exactly how he was” (Munro, 7). Doree

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