Analysis On Female Gothic Elements In Alice Munro’s Short-story Collection Runaway

Short story writer Alice Munro is not merely the pride of Canadian literarature but also one of the most influential writers in the English world. She has established her status in literary world with the winning of Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Her works draw attention to women’s unsetting inner world under the surface of everyday ordinariness. She depicts those small-town lives, especially women’s ordinary and tragic small-town lives. She has thus been referred to as “the Canadian Chekhov”. Published in 2004, Munro’s short-story collection Runaway consists of eight short stories. It records women’s frustrated runaways as well as their emotional and moral conflicts during their runaways. Runaway has been selected by the Swedish Nobel Committee as one of Munro’s most representative works. The study on Runaway has been increasingly expanded both at home and abroad during the last few years. Researches on the title story “Runaway” and the three linked stories are particularly outstanding(“Chance”, “Soon”, “Silence”). Much attention has been paid to the traditional narrative techniques, female images, feminism and characteristics of her regional writings.By adopting the text-based intensive reading, this thesis intends to investigate the employment of female Gothic elements in Runaway; how the employment of female Gothic elments reflects women’s hidden fear and repression in small-town’s everyday lives; in what way female Gothic elements embody women’s inner conflicts during the runaways. Aslo, Munro’s concerns about women’s survival in today’s patriarchal society will be examined. The thesis is composed of six chapters. The research background, research purpose, research purpose and significance as well as structure of the thesis are explained in Chapter One. Chapter Two is literature review which includes related studies on Runaway at home and abroad, comprehensive introductions of the term “Gothic”, the emergence of Gothic fiction and the development of female Gothic fiction. Chapter Three is theoretical foundation in which female Gothic characterizations, female Gothic settings and female Gothic narratives are given. Chapter Four and Chapter Five are the main body of the thesis. Chapter Four summarizes and analyzes the female Gothic elements presented in Runaway, which contains the dichotomous Gothic images, patriachal confining spaces and subjective Gothic narratives. Chapter Five elaborates textual and thematic significances of female Gothic elements presented in Runaway. It emphsizes on how Runaway echoes to female Gothic theme of “women’s victimization”; the textual charm of psychological realism and speculations on women’s existence and survival. Chapter Six draws conclusion to topics, research findings, as well as limitations and suggestions for further study.