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摘 要

本文从女性主义角度研究《逃离》中的女性角色。《逃离》由爱丽丝门罗撰写，其作品常以女性为主题。本文以书中发生在女性角色身上的事为基础。本文目的在于探究女性逃离的原因及书中隐含并仍存于现实中的社会问题。虽然“逃离”在文学作品中较常见，本文作者尝试思考在逃离之后遗留的问题。文末，作者提出了对现代女性的一些要求和建议。

关键词：爱丽丝门罗；逃离；女性主义

Contents

1. Introduction....................................................................................................1
2. Literature Review...........................................................................................1
3. Alice Munro and Her Runaway……………………………………….....2
4. Female Figures of the Book……………………………………...……......3

4.1 A failed escape……………………………………………………...…...….3

4.2 The life of Juliet……………………………………………….......……..…5

4.3 Grace’s passion……………………………………………………….......….7

1. The Social Phenomena Revealed in the Stories…………….……..….......8

5.1 Dependent women…………………………………...……….…………..….8

5.2 Stereotyped impressions of women………….…………………………..….9

1. Enlightenment for Modern Women………………………….…..……...10

6.1 Dare to challenge……………………………………………………...10

6.2 Become independent…………………………………………….….....….10

6.3 Pursue equality………………………………………………….………..11

1. Conclusion…………………………………………………..…………...…13

Works Cited……………………………………..………...………………..…14

1. Introduction

A clear fact is that even if Alice Munro has not publicly stated that she is a feminist writer, she is a woman and her writings are about women and the purpose of writing is also for women. So there is a strong feminist thought in her work, Runaway is no exception. I analyzed the stories of the three female figures in the book and evaluated them from a feminist perspective. I think reading and analyzing the story of female characters in this book can motivate people, especially women, to recognize what is the real reality. In addition, we should pay attention to the social phenomena revealed in the book. In the face of these problems, what can modern women do? So the purpose of this article is to get some feminist enlightenment by analyzing the stories of the female characters in Alice Munro’s Runaway. At the end of the thesis, I made some suggestions for modern women.

2. Literature Review

It was not until Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013 that she was well known in China. Before Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in literature, there were relatively few translations of his works in China. These translations include The beggar maid, Too much happiness and so on. In 2013, Yilin Press has published Munro"s seven translated works in Chinese. The emergence of a large number of translation works has paved the way for the study of Munro’s works and provided a new platform for academic research. The research on Munro"s works in China mainly focuses on the female themes, narrative techniques, text analysis and comparative analysis of short stories.

Zhao Huizhen analyzed the interpersonal relationships between ordinary people, such as relationship between mother and daughter, relationship between husband and wife, and relationship between friends. Wang Zhe analyzed the unique ecological perspective of women, advocated the equal coexistence of men and women, and encouraged people to live in harmony with nature. From the perspective of spatial criticism, Mu Yonghua analyzed the close relationship between female living space and female self-identity construction. Fu Qiong expressed the process of the heroine"s attempt to escape the suppressed family life and the inner struggle from the perspective of narratology.

Although domestic research on Munro"s works has made some achievements, at the same time, there are still many problems. Firstly, research lack of in-depth study and systematic monograph. Secondly, research is unbalanced. Research is too focused on some of the popular works and overlooks other works. Thirdly, the selection of the topic of her works is not broad enough. There is less overall research and comparative research on authors. We should strengthen exchanges with scholars at home and abroad and open up new prospects for the study of Alice Munro’s works.

3. Alice Munro and Her Runaway

Alice Munro is a Canadian writer. She was born in 1931 and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Much of Munro"s work exemplifies the literary genre known as Southern Ontario Gothic. (Becker 3) She published her first collection of short stories Dance of the Happy Shades in 1968 and won the Governor General"s Award, which is Canada"s highest literary prize. Her works were translated into 13 languages and published worldwide. Munro focuses on the love, family and inner world of women. Her novels have concise language, ingenious conception and gentle narration. She is good at describing the ordinary life of women. She portrays the struggle, difficulty and the escape of these ordinary women and expresses her idea in her detailed depicting.

In Canada in nineteenth Century, sex discrimination was extremely serious. Women were excluded from the whole society. Women"s movement as a social and political movement entered the Canadian historical arena at the end of the nineteenth Century. For hundreds of years, women in Canada have struggled in order to achieve their own liberation and achieve the same political and social status as men. They have experienced two large waves of women"s emancipation. The first large-scale wave of women"s moment was from the end of nineteenth Century to 1920s. The movement provided women with opportunities to participate in social practice, while women"s property rights, the right to education, and the conditions of work had been greatly improved. The second large-scale wave of women"s movement was from 1960s to 1980s. The purpose of this movement was to get rid of the inequality between men and women and improve women’s social status. The movement involved all aspects of women"s rights and interests. Both in depth and in breadth, the movement has surpassed the first large-scale wave of women"s movement, shaken the male centered social structure and their values, and greatly improved the social status of women. The second women"s movement is one of the most successful and influential social movements in Canadian history. The women"s movement undoubtedly influenced Munro"s writing. “I find that many things in life are related to social status. So I integrate it into my works.” She said in an interview. (Wachtel 273) Her works explored topics such as female space, female survival, and female status. Her novels have her own style. The tragic endings of the female characters and the details in the story reflect the problems in the society. Many famous writers have made high evaluations of her.

Runaway is a book of short stories by Alice Munro. First published in 2004, it was awarded that year"s Giller Prize and Rogers Writers" Trust Fiction Prize. Runaway consists of 8 short stories. These 8 stories are Runaway, Chance, Soon, Silence, Passion, Trespasses and Tricks. Three of the stories ("Chance", "Soon", and "Silence") are about a single character named "Juliet Henderson". Every story in the book gives readers different feelings and inspirations. Through the description of different female images, the novel shows readers the psychological process before and after the escape of female characters.

4. Female Figures of the Book

4.1 A failed escape

The first story Runaway has the same name as the book Runaway, from this point we can see the importance of the story. At the beginning of the story, Munro describes Carla’s reaction when Carla saw Mrs. Jamieson came back from vocation. Carla shrunk back to prevent Mrs. Jamieson from seeing her. And Carla also mentioned another person, Clark. This makes us think about the relationship between them. Actually, Mrs. Jamieson was Carla’s neighbor and Clark was Carla’s husband. From Munro"s description we can easily see that the relationship between them is very subtle. Carla cried to Mrs. Jamieson that she wanted to escape from Clack.

What made Carla get the idea of escaping from Clack? We can answer the question from three aspects. First of all, she wanted to escape from a life that is not happy. Carla and Clark made a living by teaching others to read horses. I wonder if Munro’s description of the weather also suggests that Carla and Clark’s life was not going well. That was a rainy summer, the road was muddy and no one went there to practice riding. It can be speculated that their economic conditions were not very good. Carla made up a story that Mr. Jamieson had molested her and for this reason. A fabricated story has aroused the interest of Clack. Clark wanted to ask Mrs. Jamieson for money. This made Carla feel embarrassed. Secondly, the loss of the special pet goat Flora was also a great blow to her. When Mrs. Jamieson mentioned Flora, Carla burst into tears. It"s obvious that she was not just crying for the loss of Flora, she couldn’t put up with Clark anymore. Munro showed us what kind of person Clark is by some examples. Clark used to fight with others and also quarreled with others. He pretended to be friendly but in the end, he was easy to get angry, even a rainy day could affect his mood. He looked down on Carla and he was always angry with her.

Flora played a significant symbolic role in the whole story. It is not just a pet goat, it is even her incarnation. When Carla was with the horse, she was tender and strict. By taking care of the horses, she could gain self-confidence and superiority. But Flora allowed her no sense of superiority. From this point of view, it can be proved that Flora was different and they were equal in spirit. Flora"s growth was very similar to Carla"s growth. At first Flora had been Clark’s pet entirely, following him everywhere, dancing for him. When Carla fell in love with Clark, she was so lovely and devoted too. But as Flora grew older it was more attached to Carla and this kind of attachment seems to be smarter and more stable. After three years of marriage, Cara also knew more about what the real life is.

After Carla lost Flora, she dreamt of it twice. These two dreams have important symbolical meanings, reflecting the awakening of her feminine consciousness and her subconscious desire to escape. In the first dream, Flora has a red apple in its mouth. When we see the red apple in literary works, we can easily associate it with the red apple in the Garden of Eden. The red apple in mythology can make people distinguish between good and evil, eating the red apple will increase wisdom. This is a metaphor for the awakening of her female consciousness. In the second dream, Flora led Carla to a barbed-wire barricade. It still ran away even if its leg was injured. Flora disappeared in the dream. Barbed-wire barricade symbolizes the cruel reality. Flora was hurt in this cruel reality, so it insisted on leaving. Flora’s leg injury can also be regarded as Carla’s pain. This dream expressed her strong desire to escape and seek freedom.

So with Mrs. Jamieson’s help, Carla decided to escape from this place. This was actually the second time she had escaped. Munro uses flashbacks to tell us that she had left her parents in order to be with Clark. On the bus to Toronto she realized Clark still kept his place in her life(Munro 34)，she felt confused and at last she dialed his phone. The escape failed this time.

Later, when Clark talked to Mrs. Jamieson at night, Flora came back. But Clark didn’t tell Carla about it. Finally Carla learned from Mrs. Jamieson’s letter that Flora was back. Even if she later saw the skull in the grass, she refused to believe the fact and decided not to go to the grass again. After returning, she could only bury her desire in the bottom of her heart, converge her true feelings, and continue to endure. She was not strong enough to change her life, she could not escape from her life completely and eventually she was hopeless.

It was such a sad ending. After the struggle for the patriarchy，she felt frightened, anxious and confused and finally returned to the male dominance voluntarily. Carla’s first escape was for love, she escaped from her parents. Her second escape was for freedom, she escaped from her husband and marriage. But at this time, she failed. The same way of escape but has different results. From this we can see that her female subjectivity is developing in a roundabout way and the reason for the failure is that her own female consciousness is not mature enough and not firm enough.

4.2 The life of Juliet

Juliet was a beautiful scholar who took up ancient language, but people around her said the problem is that she was a girl. As a woman scholar of classical literature, she was incompatible in this male dominated field. (Liu 242) Her teachers and parents were all worried about her life. She escaped from her original life, and then she sat on the train to Vancouver and felt in love with Eric. She did not marry Eric and gave birth to a girl named Penelope.

When Penelope was 13 months old, Juliet took her to Juliet’s parents’ home. In this town where she grew up, she had a further understanding of the relationship between her parents. The process always involves some kind of severing of the interperson bridge. (Kaufman 15) Her mother wanted to seek understanding and compromise, but Juliet wanted to escape. The old mother was thinking about the daughter in her past memories and Juliet chose to look ahead.

Time flies, Penelope grew up while Juliet was getting old. At this time, her identity as a mother was relatively prominent and her scholarship was relatively diluted. She loved Penelope so much and didn’t want to separate from her daughter. But things changed when Penelope left her without telling her in advance. Penelope just sent some cards to Juliet but never said where she was. It made her feel anxious but had no way of finding her daughter. Many years passed, she quit her job at the television station and studied Greek literature. She has been missing her daughter for so many years. She was very excited when she finally got the news of her daughter. But at the same time she understood that it was just a way that Penelope has found to manage her life.

Although when Juliet’s was old she accepted everything, from her early experience of leaving home, we can still find that she is an independent and rebellious woman. At first Eric appreciated her very much. Juliet could show her knowledge and talk about her hobbies happily, which made her feel relaxed. But he never married her, and the passion and love have gone away. He could not understand her pain. Her daughter left her forever. These two things caused a great blow to her. She failed to find real happiness, and finally returned to the real world. As a female scholar who was not be recognized by others because of her female identity, she wanted to surpass her female identity. Juliet thought that the menstrual blood is more dirty than the blood of suicide. The disgust and irritation of menstruation also show the refusal of the female identity. Juliet was a woman but she wanted to get rid of this identity, which is undoubtedly a very contradictory behavior. This reflects the development of women"s self-awareness.

4.3 Grace’s passion

Grace was also an ordinary girl living in a small town in Canada. She was young at that time and she was in love with Maury. Marriage and raising children temporarily had nothing to do with her.

Grace and Maury saw a movie called Father of the Bride, Grace hated this movie but she could not tell why she hated the spoiled rich girls in the movie. Perhaps Grace herself did not find that she has feminist consciousness. Firstly these spoiled rich girls didn’t have any burdens, no one asked them to do anything. They only wheedled and asked for things to others. These girls attached themselves to wealth that created by other people, it is obvious that they are not independent. On the contrary, Grace was a very independent girl, her job was a waitress. She was too poor to the college, let alone held a grand wedding. If she wants to have a wedding like the girls’ in the movie, she needs to save money for many years to pay the cost herself. But she was not ashamed of being poor and needing to save money, Maury also had respect for her ideas. As an independent girl, Grace could not bear to see those spoiled rich girls. Secondly she was angry about the stereotyped impression of women. Some people thought the behavior of the spoiled rich girl in the film was what girls were supposed to be like. Girls were labelled with all kinds of labels: beautiful, naïve, treasured by others, spoiled, stupid, delicate and selfish. These two points made Grace angry. But even if she was a thoughtful girl and had feminist consciousness, she still hoped to cater for others through her own efforts so as to get others" affirmation or appreciation in the real world. She thought “beautiful” is a kind of prejudice but when she met Maury, she deliberately dressed up beautifully. This shows a swayed idea of a girl influenced by the social environment. The male dominated society makes women unable to fully identify their female identity and the values that imposed on women by society. The role of women in society and life is still constrained by the social culture. Women themselves are also full of doubts about the awakening of female consciousness. That"s why Grace did something different from her idea.

Just like Carla and Juliet I mentioned before, Grace also ran away. Maury fell in love with Grace the first time he saw her. But Grace thought she was different from Maury, she was a special and thoughtful girl. She was attracted to Maury’s brother, Neil. On that day, they eloped. Finally, Neil sent Grace home. In the morning, Grace was informed that Neil died in a car accident. Because of the betrayal and Neil’s death, she could not get along with Maury’s family any more. At last Maury’s father gave her a cheque for one thousand dollars. As an independent girl, her first thought was to refuse and tear the cheque. Even after 40 years, she still thought it was a great thing to do. However, she took this cheque because this money could help her start a new life. Forty years later, when she came back here again, there were confusions and obligations in her mind. This could be regarded as a compromise for her life.

5. The Social Phenomena Revealed in the Stories

Escape is the pursuit of independence after the awakening of female consciousness. The return after escaping reflects the helpless of women in the life. These stories tell us in a world dominated by men, women as vulnerable groups can only struggle to survive. We can find some social phenomena in the stories.

5.1 Dependent women

In the context of male centralism, women must rely on men or please and satisfy the men to get their own survival and development space. In the first story, Carla would get away if she could but there was a very awkward thing: she didn’t have any money. Where could she go with no money? It was because she was not financially independent, so once she left her husband, she had nowhere to go. With the help of Mrs. Jamieson, Carla decided to leave Clark. As it said in the book, Mrs. Jamieson’s presence had surrounded her with some kind of remarkable safety and sanity. (Munro 31) Mrs. Jamieson even regained her confidence. But did she become independent from this moment? From Munro’s narration we know that Carla was far from being independent. Carla kept recalling the days with Clark. It is a reflection that she was not mentally independent. What made her feel more crumble was that she did not know how she should live after she left him. Carla was going to an unfamiliar city without Clark. Assume that Clark was a challenge in her life, when Carla succeeded in escaping from him, what would replace him as a new challenge? It"s obvious that she was lost in the way of life. Now we advocate that women need to have three goals: Independent thoughts, Independent ability, Financially Independent. Unfortunately, she did not achieve any of the goals, so was many other women in the real world. In the feudal period, women depended on men for a long time. Men had absolute dominance over women and they were firmly in control of women. Women seemed to be the pets that could be bossed around by men. Flora was Carla’s pet in Runaway, in a sense, Carla was Clark’s pet. With the development of society and the rise of the feminist movement, more and more women are aware of the importance of independence and some of them do be financially independent. Although some modern women are financially free from the attachment to men, they are still emotionally attached to men. Just like Carla, some women feel confused when they leave the men. This is not the real independence. Meanwhile, people who do not have the ability to live independently could not be truly independent.

5.2 Stereotyped impressions of women

The heroine of the second story Juliet was a beautiful ancient language scholar liked by the professors, but at the same time, these professors were worried about her. They were worried about the fact that she was a female scholar. Actually, it is a stereotyped impression of women. They thought that she may not continue to study if she gets married. This is the first kind of stereotype people have on women: once a woman gets married, she will neglect her work. It seems that women will devote themselves to their families after marriage and waste all their work. Their second opinion is that women become isolated and bleak if they are not married. This is also the view of many contemporary people who believe that women will have psychological problems if they are not married. The third point is that men are more likely to get promotions than women because men need to support their families, in this way a woman may give up current job and choose another job that is easier to get promoted. This clearly shows the discrimination against women in the profession. This completely reflects the inequality between men and women. Women need equal employment opportunities and opportunities for promotion, too.

6. Enlightenment for Modern Women

6.1 Dare to challenge

As mentioned before, Carla has escaped two times. Carla’s parents didn’t like her, her stepfather called Clark a loser, a drifter, a bug. When she argued for Clark, her stepfather was impatient to listen to her explanation because she was not his own daughter after all. It can be seen from this point that her stepfather was very arrogant. Her mother did not think of her choice at a woman"s point of view and blamed her with her stepfather. In this family she did not feel the love of her parents and she felt in love with Clark, she longed for an authentic life. So she chose to run away. She ignored patriarchy and chose to escape for love, which could be said to be the awakening of her feminine consciousness. When modern women are oppressed by men"s rights or are treated with unfair treatment, they should dare to challenge. Tolerating it only makes the situation worse.

6.2 Become independent

For a long time, many people think that women are fragile and weak. Women seem to have nothing to do with the word "power". They believe that the beauty of women lies in the fragile and weak, and women who rely on men can get a variety of support. For thousands of years, under the patriarchal background and culture, it seems to be a default fact that women are the weak. Today, there are still many girls who are worried about their gender identity. But women are not really weak. With the development of the society, more and more women are pursuing independence.

As I mentioned before, women not only have to achieve the goal of financially independence but also to achieve mental independence and live independently. In the early period of feminist movement, the "departure" of literary women was very concerned, because women"s departure is a direct manifestation of women"s resistance to consciousness.(Li 1) Ibsen"s A Doll"s House exposes the conflict between the patriarchal society and the liberation of women, at the end of the play Nora left home. For a hundred years, lots of people have tried to write the story about what happened after Nora left home. It may be simple to escape, but what’s more important is the problem of survival after the escape. The escape is far from the end, but is the beginning. Just like Carla, if a woman can’t be mentally independent or don’t have the ability to live independently, she will eventually fail in the struggle against male power.

I suggest that women armed themselves with knowledge. We can enrich our mental world and increase our confidence by acquiring knowledge. Grace was angry at the stereotypes of women. She studied a variety of subjects even Physics and Chemistry, Trigonometry, Geometry, and Algebra, though these subjects were considered particularly hard for girls. When she had time to rest, she chose to read. She did this to prove that women are not as stupid as others say. This is also an embodiment of ideological independence. Mrs. Jamieson was a college teacher with a high degree so she is thoughtful. She supported Carla"s pursuit of the new life. She also helped Carla to clarify her thoughts and made plan to help Carla escape from Clark. By contrast, Carla, whose education is relatively low and she was weak and hesitated. From this we can come to the conclusion that acquiring knowledge is very important for pursuing independence.

Nor can we comprehend the word "independence" too narrowly. Does independence mean be alone? Only women who leave men can be called independent women? Is an independent woman a capable woman in work? In my opinion, if a woman can take care of herself and live with dignity, she is independent. Only when you take care of yourself can you better take care of others and integrate into the society and contribute to society. Independence means you have to be responsible for yourself. You have to be responsible for every decision you make. You need to have a comprehensive understanding of yourself, accept your past and make a plan for the future. Independence also means recognizing that you truly are unique. You are as good as anyone else. You are not inferior to men, so you do not need to be attached to men. Independent women should pay more attention to inner world, work hard and enjoy every day.

6.3 Pursue equality

Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men.

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