Gender and Space in “The Albanian Virgin”

Abstract

Beginning with Coral A. Howells’ claim that “gender awareness” is crucial to Alice Munro’s writings, Dorota Filipczak explores the way gender and space are managed in one of the most unusual stories in the Canadian writer’s output “The Albanian Virgin.” Examining a rigid division into male and female worlds in the traditional Albanian society, Munro brings to light the only exception that violates sexual segregation: the construction of a sworn virgin. Unsexed as a result of her own decision, approved by the patriarchal world, the sworn virgin who consorts with men is looked at in the article from the perspective of Judith Butler’s critique of gender. Does the construction confirm Butler’s stance or does it undo her “undoing” of gender? Acutely aware of prohibitions and taboos that beset women in her own country, Munro creates a Canadian character who is then albanized to be later reclaimed and canadianized anew. Her story is mediated to the reader due to the framing provided by the narrator, a bookshop owner preoccupied with Mary Shelley, whose take on gender and space is both reflected and subverted in the choices of Munrovian women.