Fictional pieces often depict life as a sharp up and down roller coaster, with extreme moments of happiness and sorrow occurring sequentially. However, human nature and experience can be more accurately referred to as a slow and steady change between states and emotions. This leads to a constant feeling of uncertainty at various levels, a state that Alice Munro masterfully describes in the short story “Floating Bridge”. The structure of “Floating Bridge” serves to reflect, both through content and narrative techniques, the symbol of life as a floating bridge, from the title to the conclusion of the story. The author structures the story according to different turns to portray the uncertainty that we inevitably experience on a daily basis. Jinny, the main character, suffers from cancer. He manages to come to terms with this news, but now he must experience another change. Through a three-part flashback narrative technique, the author presents the readers with the latest news regarding her health in the final part of the story. Jinny recalls the doctor saying: “I don't want to say that the battle is over, just that this is a favorable sign… we don't know if there might not be other problems in the future but we can say that we are cautiously optimistic” (76). Jinny recalls this crucial change during a casual conversation. While readers would expect this shift toward the positive to bring her joy, Jinny actually reacts negatively, a fact demonstrated by her internal reflection: “It was too much. What he had said made everything more difficult. It forced her to go back and start over this year” (77). Jinny had finally gotten used to knowing that she might die soon from cancer, and now she had to deal with the likelihood of her survival. This is… the center of the card… In the end In the end, Jinny has now moved, as a result of all her experiences with the teenager, to a happier state of being: “what she felt was a kind of lighthearted compassion, almost like laughter. A jolt of tender hilarity, which prevails over all its wounds and voids, for the time allowed” (85). The author ends the story with the words “for the time allowed” to describe how life will always continue to be a slowly moving floating bridge, for Jinny and all of us. Jinny seems to realize that not only is she futile in her attempts to keep the bridge of life stable and certain, but that among all the changes there are many positive ones. He decides it's better to embrace the entire process instead of fighting it. Works Cited Munro, Alice. “Floating bridge”. Hate, friendship, courtship, love, marriage: stories. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2002. Print.