Anguish And Free Choice In An Absurd Life

Alice Munro is a famous Canadian short story writer who is esteemed as "Canadian Chekhov". She had published successively 14 works and won a lot of awards and honors including the Nobel Prize in Literature as a "master of the contemporary short story" in 2013. She is good at capturing complex mental activities of her characters in daily life with her keen insight and plain narration. Also she is skilled at the changing dimension of time and space, artful strategy of narration, rich perspectives and delicate wording, presenting the realistic problems and expressing her concerns over all sorts of social issues.The research of Alice Munro at abroad is relatively mature with multiple angles. Comparatively, the domestic study is still at the beginning stage. Related books, papers or translated works are not as abundant as the ones in other countries. There is a gap needs to fill regarding domestic study of Alice Munro.Runaway was published in 2004 and awarded the Book Prize in 2009. There are 8 stories that are together seen as a "collection of conception". Although the background, experiences and emotional life of every character varies from each other, they all, due to the dissatisfaction of current situation or the yearn for different life, are desperate to run away. However, after escape, they began to understand the life anew. This is a theme that echoes with Sartre’existential ideas of "absurdity", "anguish", "free choice" and "responsibility". Therefore, this thesis takes Runaway as an example to explore Munro’s existential philosophy so that it will contribute a bit to the study of Alice Munro in China.In the Introduction part of this thesis, firstly it is a brief of Alice Munro and her Runaway. The second part is a summary of the studies of Alice Munro home and abroad. The third part introduces the basic ideas of Sartre’s existentialism. The last part is the originality and layout of the thesis. In Chapter 1, the impact of the absurd outside world to the living status of characters is analyzed. The death of God directly results in the crisis of belief and morality. The isolated and alienated relations among people causes the collapse of human mentality. In Chapter 2, the discussion will focus on the contingency and nothingness that is brimming in life. All efforts and struggles of human beings are fruitless, leaving no space to change to anguish and suffering that men encounter. In Chapter 3, the main topic is choices that the characters made in face of difficulties and setbacks and the responsibilities they have to take for their own choices. The last part is a summary of the analyses, drawing the conclusion that Sartre’s existentialism can be a key to unlock the works of Alice Munro who expresses similar philosophical ideas with Sartre. The world is absurd and contingent. Human beings are born with freedom of choice but also are bound to accept all the results and responsibilities.