The Study Of Female Images In Munro’s Novel From The Perspective Of Field Theory

After winning the Nobel prize for literature in 2013, the name of the Canadian woman writer called Alice Munro has quickly got into the eyes of people around the world. As a female writer,Munro has given a special attention to women. Bourdieu is a famous sociologist in France. His field theory is so famous that causes many people’s attention. The concepts of "capital" and "habitus" are often used by scholars. Both domestic and foreign researchers are often study Munro from single feminist, but few people combine feminist with Bourdieu’s sociological theory to study Munro’s novel. This paper aims to analyze the female images in Munro’s novel from the perspective of Bourdieu’s field theory and feminist theory.This thesis is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction. Firstly, it summarizes the research of Alice Munro both at home and abroad. Then it introduces the concepts of field, habitus and capital in Bourdieu’s field theory. Finally, it shows the innovation of this thesis.The second part is the first chapter of the main text, which mainly discusses the construction of the Canadian small town field in Munro’s novel. Firstly, the paper discusses the elements of the Canadian small town field, and that is, the objective relationship, which mainly includes the domination relationship and the relationship of the subject. Secondly, it summarizes the main characteristics of the Canadian small town field, which mainly includes the features of relationship, struggle and independence.Finally, this part analyzes the reasons of the establishment of the Canadian small town field from subjective aspect and objective aspect.The third part is f the second chapter of the main text, which mainly analyses the unequal distributions of capital to women in the field of Canadian small town, which include the dependence of economic capital, the marginal of social capital, the lack of cultural capital and the whitewash of symbolic capital. The dependence of economic capital discusses from the women’s different periods, including childhood, unmarried girls and married period. The marginal of social capital discusses from the female individual’s possession of social capital and the power of use family’s social capital they have. The lack of cultural capital is discusses in the forms of three kinds of different cultural capital, which are the cultural capital of concrete status,the cultural capital of objective status and the cultural capital of institutional status. Finally, the whitewash of the symbol capital is from the language, the physical act, etc.The fourth part is the third chapter of the main body, which discusses the female images with habitus. These female images are divided into three categories. The first is the recipients of habitus. The second category is the spoilers of habitus, including the rebellion of marriage habitus, knowledge habitus and work habitus. The third category is the vacillated female between the recipients of habitus and the spoilers of habitus, which include people who accept habitus in early stage and rebel it in later stage and who rebel it in early stage and accept it in later stage.The fifth part is the fourth chapter of the main text, this part discusses the significance of the female images in the Canadian small town. On one hand, it is true writing of women’s individual survival state in the field of, including the personal pursuit of love and the value of individual’s existence; on the other hand it is also the exploration of women to construct their own field, and this exploration includes the leave of space and the escape of spirit.