Blurry Identities, Idea Of Struggle And All-round Narrative Skills

Alice Munro is the first Nobel Prize winner for literature in Canada. Most of her stories take place on Munro Area, western Ontario, Canada. The nation’s unique history and special geographical location have both influenced the topics and techniques in Munro’s novel.Based on the national background, this thesis focuses on Munro’s blurry attitudes of cognition and explores its effects on shaping the Canadian identity. Differ from the total taking over in traditional literature or the reverse, Munro’s typical blurry attitude between prosperity and barrenness as well as city and countryside is the unique identity full of subjectivism, which can be easily observed from the illustration of themes and the utilization of narrative skills. The idea of struggle is a major theme in Munro’s novels, and this thesis presents it in three perspectives-the description on dilemma, the call for ideals and the way to compromise, and explains causes and results of the idea of struggle as well as its characteristics. However, unlike other writers’ strong contrast, Munro’s all-round narrative skills deeply impressed readers—the overlapping of memories and the feelings from the first person perspective, both assist Munro to swing from cruelty and kindness, and to buffer the conflicts in the real world.This thesis focuses on the details of Munro’s works and compares her with other writers of short stories in terms of artistic qualities. Furthermore, this thesis puts its research basis on the combination of Canadian literature and the world’s short stories, bases itself on the realistic linguistic context as well as balances the exploration of theme and the interpretation of narrative skills so to achieve the integration of formality and content.