{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02456778889899909, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004549590536851683, 'mean_word_length': 5.432748538011696, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Hostess, Ghost, and Apocalypse: Reconsidering Alice Munro’s “Carried Away”

ABSTRACT The global COVID-19 pandemic affords contemporary readers a unique perspective for reinterpreting the relationship between Jack and Louisa in Alice Munro’s short story “Carried Away.” This alternate reading prioritizes Louisa’s difficult experiences with illness and rejection and reconsiders Jack as an abusive interlocutor who takes advantage of Louisa’s status as town librarian and the era’s social mores, its calamities, and the fog of war to exert control over a woman he desires, but could otherwise not be with. In this reading, Jack uses Louisa’s professional ethos of availability and her public workspace to reorder an otherwise heterotopic space and establish a system whereby he can anonymously surveil her and keep her under his control. Louisa’s pandemic-associated anxieties are acutely present for contemporary readers who are experiencing the most impactful global sickness of the past 100 years. This reading positions Jack as an intentional bad actor rather than as a man simply “carried away.”