Gothic Elements In Alice Munro’s Novels

Alice Munro is a famous Canadian short story writer and is known as the "Master of Contemporary Short Stories".In 2013,she won the "Nobel Prize in Literature".Munro is good at capturing the horror and grotesqueness of everyday life,writing the inner fears and anxieties,which reflects the humanitarianism of Munro as an outstanding writer.This thesis adopts the text reading method,and selects the two most common Gothic elements in Munro’s novels-Gothic characters and Gothic plots-to analyze and explore its source and ideological connotation.This paper mainly uses text perusal method to select the two most common Gothic elements in Munro’s novels-Gothic characters and Gothic plots-to analyze their cultural meanings and further trace the source and meaning of these elements.This article is divided into four parts.The first part is the introduction,which mainly introduces the reason of the topic selection,the research status of Alice Munro at home and abroad,and on the basis of a brief review of the development history of Gothic literature,defines the Gothic element as Grotesque and horrible things for the purpose of triggering fear.The second part is the first chapter of the main text,which discusses the Gothic characters in Munro’s works.This article believes that the Gothic characters in Munro’s writings first include the "tyrant" and the " weak unhappy girl" in the relationship between marriage andlove.The former often makes the latter live in depression and pain.Secondly,it includes the characters who are containing beauty in grotesque,such characters are disorganized by their own gender identity or have a "power" that transcends the real context,but Munro often gives them a good character.At last,it also contains "ghosts" that plague the family.These characters are relative "ghosts".They may not be as weird as the former ones,but they do continue to create anxiety and pain for their families.The third part is the second chapter of the text,which discusses Gothic plots in Munro’s novels.The most prominent Gothic plots in Munro’s work are murder and dangerous sexual pursuits.By portraying the psychology of the characters associated with murder,Munro showed how evil is possible among ordinary people.Sex,as a strong irrational force in Munro’s novels,helps women to get rid of the shackles of the patriarchal center and pursue their own identities,and on the other hand,to punish women with the dangerous consequences.The fourth part is the third chapter of the text,which analyzes the cultural meaning,source and meaning of the above Gothic elements.This paper believes that Munro’s growth experience,reading preferences and creative tendencies together prompted her to choose Gothic elements for creation,and Gothic elements did contribute to the expression of Munro’s novel themes and the formation of artistic style.