Della's Growth And Exploration Of Feminine Subjectivity In Lives Of Girls And Women

Alice Munro is a well-known Canadian woman writer who started her creative writing since girlhood.She is apt at short stories and has won Governor General's Award three times and Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.Lives of Girls and Women is her only full-length novel which is made up of eight relative chapters.This novel is regarded as a novel of Bildungsroman of a countryside girl in Ontario-Della.It represents that in Della's growth,she has experienced the realistic woman lifestyle of the elder and the peers etc.She ponders over the conflicts between traditional man-dominated convention and woman-independent modern ideas,as well as rebels unconsciously against the traditional convention which is an impediment in her growth.What's more,she boldly explores the sexual difference between the two genders.Munro depicts the heroine Della's growth and rational pursuit in reality;meanwhile focuses the imperceptible influences from her parents,aunts,peers,neighbours etc.Different ideas or concepts are reflected vividly in conflicts between the characters Munro has created,of which the most significant is women's life style and pursuit in the inextricable interweaving situation of both tradition and modern.In terms of Bildungsroman,this thesis tries to proceed with the feminine subjectivity concept of Luce Irigaray to deal with the perplexity,rebellion and epiphany in Della's growth.This thesis seeks for the regular process of a common girl's maturity and self-recognition.Luce Irigaray holds the view that the equality between men and women is more than the reflection on the aspect of love and sex;more significantly,is supposed to be based on the respect for sexual difference so as to realise sexual equality and pursue subjects' spiritual freedom.This is a recognition of independence and equality towards man and woman;and is also the rational recognition of a woman herself in her self-pursuit.This independence and freedom for subjective spirit is also the base of harmonious relationship or marriage between men and women.Through the research,the conclusions are drawn as follows:In Della's development,she keeps on exploring her subjectivity.After the experiences of perplexity,collision and rebellion,she final gets the epiphany in her adulthood:the idealised status for love and sex is equality and harmony in which they interact and develop mutually.However,in a relationship,only when women become subjects in spirit can they acquire spiritual freedom and make their rational choices so as to determine their own future.The growth is a journey of physical and mental maturity.The everlasting pursuit of subjectivity still needs unceasing exploration.This epiphany not only reflects in Della's growth,and it is also concluded in women's rational pursuit of Munro's other creations.From the macroscopic point of view,Munro's ideas about woman's life relate to those turns and changes in the middle and late period of 20th century.The meaning of this thesis is that through the analysis of Della's growth and epiphany,it indicates the significant meaning of feminine subjectivity-equality of love and sex,reciprocal respect,harmonious life and spiritual independence and freedom.The feminine recognition of Della surpasses the radical ideas concerning supremacy of woman's rights and female domination,which reflects woman's maturity and development of self-recognition.