An Analysis Of Exiled Characters In Mavis Gallant's Short Stories

The famous Canadian short story writer Mavis Gallant has recurrently depicted characters in exile in her short stories.In this thesis,characters in exile in several short stories of Gallant are picked out and analyzed with the textual analysis method from the perspective of space,namely "The Ice Wagon Going down the Street” “Overhead in a Balloon” “An Alien Flower” “The Other Paris” and “Varieties of Exile”.Trauma theory of,space theory of Henry Lefebvre and acculturation theory of John Berry are employed to analyze Gallant's exile characters,including European war refugees,sojourners in Europe and transnational immigrants from three aspects---psychological space,living space and cultural space.This thesis is composed of five parts.The introduction provides a brief introduction to Gallant,her stories and the concept of exile.A literature review on the study of Gallant both at home and abroad is conducted as well.In Chapter One,trauma theory is applied to analyze one type of the exile characters---war refugees.The female protagonists in “An Alien Flower”,Bibi and Helga and the male character,Felix in “The Other Paris” are war refugees.Bibi and Helga suffer from PTSD caused by war and the emotional traumas the male dictator figure in their family,Julius,brought them.In “The Other Paris”,Felix's life is completely changed by war.He is stuck in the traumatized state of life.The traumas of Bibi,Helga and Felix are not healed because the postwar social and domestic circumstance fail to provide them with fundamental conditions for recovery.Alienation from community and marginalized position result in failure of their traumatic healing.Chapter Two analyzes the struggle for living space between outsiders and natives,including their physical space struggle and differences between their social space.Space theory of Henry Lefebvre is applied to analyze the sojourners in Europe in Gallant's “Overhead in a balloon” and “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street”.In“Overhead in a Balloon”,Gallant delineates the struggle for living room between Walter and Parisian and displays their different living habits which implies different sense of identity with the urban space of Paris.While in “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street”,the Frazier couple are exiled from Canada to Europe.They constantly changes their dwelling places,seeking to make their fortune and establish relationship with upper class.However,They are rejected by the Switzerland upper class,represented by the Burleighs.The vast space of Europe just do not belong to them.But they are still infatuated with the upper class living style of Paris.In Chapter Three,the cultural space of transnational immigrants is studied.The“third space” concept of Homi Bhabha is introduced to help analyze the cross-cultural identity problem of transnational immigrants.The multicultural identity appeal and multicultural identity construction of transnational immigrants in short stories“Overhead in a Balloon” and “The Other Paris” are analyzed employing the acculturation theory of John Barry.Walter and Carol are two typical transnational immigrants who seek cross-cultural identification.Their appeal for establishing a new identity have different endings.In fact,it is very difficult for foreigners to integrate into the mainstream culture of Paris because on one hand,immigrants take precautions against Parisians,on the other hand,Parisians squeeze out the immigrants.Gallant shows her critical attitude towards the closeness and exclusiveness of Parisian social class.Gallant pays attention to the exiled groups and describes different types of exiled characters in her short stories.An analysis of characters in exile in Gallant's short stories from the space perspective provides a new angle to the study of Mavis Gallant.Gallant's humanist spirit is also revealed in this process.