Escape As An Exploration Of Self-identity

Two kinds of phenomena exist in Canadian literature from the late 1960 s to the beginning of 1970 s. One is short story in blossom, and the other is that female writers gain huge attention. Alice Munro(1931-) is one of the most outstanding writers in this movement. She is especially good at describing women’s desperation and confusion, which demonstrates in her works as women’s sensitive and troublesome spiritual life, with especial concerns of their love, family and inner world. Some critics focus on the important cultural connections between Munro’s personal identity(as Canadian writer, woman writer and short story writer) and Canada’s national identity(as post-colonial country and post-modernist country), which exerts great influence on Munro’s works.From the start of the Canadian literature, the Canadian writers were dedicated to exploring their identities consistently. Canada is a nation of a large population of immigrants and has a special multi-cultural background. Its colonial history, geographical wildness and cultural and economical subordination generate an ex-centric cultural tendency in Canadian culture. This tendency is reflected in the national consciousness as a sense of marginality, which suggests a post-colonial stance towards identity and a consistent anxiety of nationalism and identity. Because of the pressures from the man-centered world and the inborn weakness and vulnerability, Canadian women in mentality presents a confusion of self-identity and in action a tendency of escape as a beginning to explore self.From the perspective of the Canadian’s confusion and pursuit of identity, through a comprehensive interpretation of the female protagonists’ escape actions in Who Do You Think You Are? and Runaway, this thesis argues that,for the protagonists in these two texts, escape is an attempt to explore and seek for their identity. It explores the reasons and positive social significance of the action of escape. Through a close reading of these two texts and a consideration of the historical and cultural background, this thesis is going to reveal the profound cultural implication of “escape” in Munro’s works. For the escapers in Munro’s works, escape provides them with a chance of reviewing and adjusting, and it is also a beginning for women to confront the problem and to explore themselves.Apart from the introduction and conclusion part, this thesis is composed of three chapters. Chapter one focuses on cultural context of the Canadian identity and the struggle for identity. As a Canadian woman writer, Munro’s life and works are greatly influenced by this cultural context. Through analyzing the cultural background of Canadian identity and Munro’s life experience, this chapter reveals the reasons of the Canadians’ confusion of identity, and the followed escape complex.Chapter two examines the female protagonists’ escape actions in Who Do You Think You Are? and Runaway from the perspective of women’s confusion and pursuit of identity. Through an analysis of the reasons and significance of the protagonists’ escape from family, sexual relationship and self restraint, it revels the escapers’ contradictory mind during the process of escape.Chapter three reveals the cultural implication and living wisdom contained in “escape”. Though all the escapes end with failure, it does provide the female protagonists a chance to learn more about self. Through escape, they obtain a thorough knowledge of self-identity and escape, which makes them learn to face their confusions actively.