An Interpretation Of Alice Munro’s Runaway From The Perspective Of Symbolism

Alice Munro, a prominent Canadian female writer, is known as the queen of shortstory. In Munro’s novels, she focuses on all sorts of mental pressure, spiritualawakening and pursuit of spiritual independence of modern women in daily life. Andthis kind of writing style is incisively and vividly manifested in her masterpieceRunaway which makes her win the Nobel Prize for literature in2013. Few articlesmake systemic analysis about its exquisite symbolism. But the use of symbol can notonly deepen the theme but also often miraculously arouse the reader’s imagination,which endows the work with distinctive meaning. Therefore, interpretation of thesymbols plays a vital role in better interpretation of the text. In view of this, this articleis going to discuss the application of symbolic art in Runaway on the basis ofpredecessors’ research results. It tries to classify and analyzes the various symbolsrevealed by symbol theory and shows the significant role in the process of revealingthe theme.The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the author, herworks, literature review, the purpose and significance of the thesis. The second chapterpresents the symbolism method adopted in this paper and expounds the definition ofsymbol and symbolism, and the application of symbolism in literature. The thirdchapter discusses the use of symbolism in Runaway, in which divides the symbols inRunaway into three major categories, namely symbol of natural settings, symbol ofdetails and symbol of characters. Through the analysis of the implied meaning of thesesymbols, the thesis emphatically discusses and summarizes the rich symbolism. Thefourth chapter makes a summary of the function of the symbols in Runaway from twoparts, theme of Runaway and function of symbols to present the theme. The fifthchapter makes a brief conclusion of this thesis. In short, this thesis interprets thedestined failure of the characters’ runaway by the means of symbol theory, whichprovides a new perspective and reference for other readers and researchers who areinterested in Munro’s Runaway.