A Study Of The Spatial Narrative Of Alice Munro’s Novel Runaway

Alice Munro is a renowned Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 for her collection Runaway and is regarded as a master of contemporary short stories.Munro is adept at using variations in narrative structure to create her works.Her works often use the transfer of time and space to recombine memory and real life,presenting unique artistic effects.From the perspective of spatial narrative,this thesis explores the types of narrative space,the structure of narrative space,and the shaping of round characters in different spaces in Runaway.The paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces Alice Munro,her works and the theory of spatial narrative,sorts out the current situation of research on the narrative of Runaway at home and abroad,and points out significance of the study.The second chapter analyzes the four spatial types of Runaway and how the different dimensional spaces reflect the spatial narrative forms and characteristics of the novel.The third chapter analyzes how the spatial narrative structures of circle,cassette,orange petal and juxtaposition,as important bridges for the spatial construction of Runaway,reflect the profound connotation of the novel’s life cycle,the various narrative levels and the core theme of “escape and search”.The fourth chapter uses spatial representation to analyze the “round characters” who escape from different spaces,and to explore the influence of family space,gender space and self-space on the shaping of different women’s characters and their psycho-spirituality.The fifth chapter is the conclusion part,which further summarizes the main contents of the above chapters and concludes the value and significance of the study of the spatial narrative of Runaway.