The Power Entanglement Between Women And The Society:Distinctions In Alice Munro’s Works

Alice Munro is skilled in unfolding the real life of ordinary women through her unique female perspective. It is easy to perceive that in Munro‘s works, most of the female characters come from lower classes and suffer from multiple power pressures caused by their class, regional, and gender disadvantages. ―Distinction‖ is an important power stratification phenomenon in Munro‘s short stories. According to Bourdieu, it is a power mechanism of the society to consolidate the domination of the privileged group over the disadvantaged group, and it exerts its influence in such a subtle way that the people at the lower strata may be unaware of the oppression because the distinction is instilled into their consciousness and habitus. This paper takes the ―distinction‖ theory of Bourdieu as the starting point, and interprets the power oppression phenomenon of ―distinction‖ in Munro‘s works from the perspectives of class, region and gender. In addition, this paper utilizes related feminism theory to discuss the effects of women‘s choices when facing these forms of distinctions on their existence states and subjectivities, so as to reveal Munro‘s consideration over women‘s happiness and relief in predicaments.This thesis contains five parts. The first part is the introduction to the life of Munro, literature review, the theory of distinction, and the significance of the thesis. The main part is divided into three chapters, and in each chapter, women‘s struggles and compromises in the power oppression of each form of distinction are analyzed to show the mechanism of the stratifications and the effects of women‘s choices on their lives and subjectivities. It turns out women who compromise to distinctions belong to two different groups, one group compromises unconsciously since they are instilled the ideological manipulation of distinctions and lose the subjectivity; the other group of women compromises voluntarily after balancing the pursuits of life and liberating themselves from the self-consciousness level, more importantly, they obtain subjectivity and relief in the process. Women who struggle in distinctions also fall into two groups according to their subjective consciousness. One group tries to surpass distinctions through self-deception, which not only fails to provide women with power but also leads them to greater confusion; the other group of women recognizes the essence and logic of power distinctions and improves the power status by working hard to increase capital possession.This thesis finds that, the female characters in Munro‘s works suffer from power distinction pressures from three perspectives, which are class, region and gender. All of these three forms of distinctions are the dominating strategies of the privileged group to dominate the disadvantaged group by shaping their habitus and tastes so as to affect their conception of the world. Since power distinctions are backed up by the huge social power system, it would be an arduous task for women to fight for equality and subjectivity. However, whether a woman is free or suppressed is actually not determined by her class, regional and gender background, but is caused by the formation of her subjectivity. There are two approaches for women to obtain subjectivities in power distinctions: the first approach is to liberate themselves from the self-awareness level and be clear of their life pursuit; the second approach is to accumulate capital procession through diligence so as to break away from the disadvantaged position. Both approaches can improve the self-determinate abilities and initiatives of women so as to construct their subjectivities and to make them the masters of their lives. This not only shows the essence of real life, but also reveals Munro‘s consideration over how women can achieve happiness in predicaments.