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CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN TWO SHORT
STORIES BY ALICE MUNRO: “FIVE POINTS” AND
“THE ALBANIAN VIRGIN” — ECHOES OF THE BALKANS
—t1o>
NIKOLA TUTEK’
“That was a lie in one way and in another way true.”
Alice Munro, “Five Points”
ABSTRACT
In this paper I will analyze the literary presentation of characters of Croatian
and Albanian origin in two short stories by Alice Munro, “Five Points” and “The
Albanian Virgin”. The analyses will be conducted mainly from the point of view
of Cultural Appropriation, and based on three main points: 1. The inevitable
shift in meanings of all cultural information that crosses the Atlantic and the
reflection of that shift in literature; 2. How the reinterpreted (semantically
shifted) features of Balkan cultures/mentalities form preconceptions which
become the basis for identifying and understanding certain national groups/
minorities overseas, and how these constructed notions about Croats and
Albanians were used by Alice Munro in creating narration and characters;
3. Scrutinizing every detectable instance of cultural appropriation and
reinterpretation in these two short stories with regard to Balkans. As a
conclusion, I will provide an overview of possible strengths and weaknesses of
literary production which are partially or entirely based on the elements of the
reinterpreted features of distant cultures in the two short stories.
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION, ARTISTIC RE-INTERPRETATION OF CULTURE,
AND BENIGN CULTURAL ROMANTICISM
Cultural Appropriation
The definition of cultural appropriation accepted by the Writer’s Union of
Canada, approved June 1992 and cited in an essay by Bruce Ziff and Pratima
V. Rao, states that cultural appropriation is “the taking — from a culture that
is not ones own — of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts,
1 University of Rijeka.
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