Female Body Writing

This thesis focuses on the prominent contemporary Canadian writer Alice Munro’s short story collection Friend of My Youth.Munro’s short stories have gained her great reputation not only for her consummate narrative techniques but also for her humanistic concern running through the lines.Especially,Munro is distinguished for her deep concern over the life experiences of females.In her stories,Munro spares no effort in writing female life experiences based on her personal experiences and meticulous observation.By a close reading of the texts from the short stories in Friend of My Youth,this thesis carefully exams Munro’s writing of female body through her presentation of the heroines’ body experiences in the light of Foucault’s ideas on human body and Helene Cixous’ ‘L’ecriture feminine’(i.e.feminine writing),and aims at revealing Munro’s creative significance in breaking up the phallogocentric system and in constructing female discourse.In a word,this thesis by delving into the sensitivities,imaginaries and experiences of female body,intends to achieve a better understanding of Munro’s concerns about the reconstruction of female body and the establishment of women’s status as the “linguistic subject”(Klages,2006: 99).