Postfeminist Elements In Alice Munro's Stories

Alice Munro's stories revolve around the emotions and lives of females in a complex network of human relationships.Her female characters pursue freedom and independence,but they are not in a polarized relation with males.They express their gender identity in a natural way,subverting the feminist binary thinking and moving into the flexible,diverse,and transcendent postfeminist cannon.Based on the theory of gender performativity of postfeminist theorist Judith Butler,the thesis examines the three postfeminist elements embedded in Munro's five selected stories from Lives of Girls and Women and Runaway.First,the thesis investigates the writing of gender fluidity.The exposure of the masculinity in female and the femininity in male breaks the long-standing gender stereotypes,blurs the boundary of gender,diffuses the opposing gender relation,thereby revealing a more honest and inclusive life of women.Second,the thesis probes the subversion of heterosexual matrix through the interrogation of the normative restrictions of marriage and the challenge of homosexual taboo and incest taboo,committed to the natural exude of human desire.Third,the thesis attempts to analyze the construction of a compatible mode of existence through holding on to the real livable life and achieving the reconciliation between self and others,as opposed to the internal strife and marginalization of one party.The postfeminist strands embedded in Munro's stories have moved beyond the simple feminist concerns for humanism,obscured the radical and opposing gender conflicts in traditional feminist fiction,diffused gender differences in a more flexible and inclusive way.Munro thereby reveals a more honest and real life of women.The thesis pierces the traditionally perceived feminist literary criticism on Munro's stories,and sheds light on how a new postfeminist interpretation of Munro's stories can be pursued.