An Interpretation Of Runaway With Bergson’s Philosophy Of Life

The Canadian writer Alice Munro has been honoured as one of the most celebrated women writers in contemporary times for her plain language, attracting plots, profound themes, as well as flexible narrative skills. Her masterpiece Runaway is a collection of eight short stories, which delicately depict various aspects of women’s daily life and reveal their living predicaments.The thesis aims at revealing that the final target of women’s running away behaviors is to look for the freedom of life by applying Henri Bergson’s Philosophy of Life, marked with internal time, intuition, and freedom of life, to the interpretation of the women’s life phenomena and life choices in Runaway.In addition to Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis consists of four chapters.Introduction briefly introduces Alice Munro and Runaway. By making a literature review of the book both at home and abroad, the thesis then draws forth the research significance of applying Bergson’s Philosophy of Life to the interpretation of Runaway.Chapter One is the theoretical foundation. By combing the whole development of Philosophy of Life, the thesis transfers the focus to Bergson’s Philosophy of Life. Bergson holds that the “internal time” a social man has is different from the “external time” which can be calculated by scientific units. Instead, it is of the same nature with the stream of life. Intuition, relative to intellect, is the most direct and accurate way to get hold of the changeable life though it cannot provide people with experience and shortcuts by serious analysis and speculation. But no matter it is the balance of time, or the choice of intuition to get hold of life, they will all return to the road of searching for the freedom of life at last.Chapter Two sets off from time to analyze the two heroines’ devoting too much of themselves to their internal time and then provides Bergson’s way of solution. According to Bergson’s definition of the external and internal time, and their dialectical relationship, the first section reveals the heroines’ unbalanced management of time and their tragic fate because of it. Then the second section attempts to give the right solutions to their cases based on Bergson’s understanding of time and his suggestions for people.Chapter Three makes explanations for the heroines’ “irrational” behaviors from the perspective of intuition. The first section highlights the specific living dilemmas of women in life. The second section interprets the three women’s life choices represented by Carla with intuition and its difference with intellect. Through the analysis, it points out that their behaviors which are hard to be understood by others are the results of choosing to follow intuition instead of intellect to master their life.Chapter Four is the return and sublimation of the previous two chapters from the perspective of freedom. The first section makes a review of the heroines’ behaviors of searching for freedom and the obstacles they meet. The second section tries to find effective solutions to them based on Bergson’s interpretation of freedom. These solutions have also offered the right attitude modern people should have hold for life and for freedom.The Conclusion points out that although it seems Munro only depicts the ordinary women’s common life and their living straits in Runaway, it in fact refracts the whole society, the whole status of human beings’ pursuing freedom but seldom achieving it. Although Bergson’s philosophy has inclined to be idealism, his method of getting hold of life with the flexible intuition based on the balance between the external time and the internal one, can definitely provide suggestions for people in stepping out of the living predicaments and searching for the freedom of life.