On The Women’s Pursuit Of Ideal Life Style In Runaway

Alice Munro(Alice Ann Munro, 1931-), the first Canadian feminist writer awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, remains over 60 years for her distinguished writing career. The strong regional consciousness and concerns for all women have filled every piece of her literary works. Although feminism maintains a hot spot for her works, its research is concentrated to the women’s emotional experiences and their consciousness, and few articles on the ideal living state of women under the discussed comprehensively.By the study of a collection of novel runaway, we can discover the author Munro depicts the growth process where some traditional women never give up seeking for the ideal life style in the patriarchal system. Thus, this thesis aims to discuss women’s growth process in Runaway so as to explore self-pursuit of women’s ideal life style and self-realization process from the perspective of feminism criticism involving a series of topics, such as voice right, self-consciousness, and gender issues. It not only provides new perspective of the study about Munro’s works, but also it is beneficial for readers to capture the profound connotation and to enjoy the artistic charm.This paper is constituted of Introduction, Main body and Conclusion. The introduction mainly includes literature review. Literature review is a short summary of studies on Alice Munro and her works, especially runaway both in western and eastern countries. The reason and meaning of this paper will be concluded based on the review. Furthermore,Methodology focuses on Feminism criticism, particularly involving women’s voice right, and their self-consciousness. The thesis statements and its structure also will be stated.The main body is composed of three chapters. The first chapter is the process“silence” of heroines, which symbolizes no right to speak on behalf of the missing women in the patriarchal society. This course is the root cause of women’s pursuit of the balanced life. In Runaway, Carla, Juliet and Grace, the protagonists of this novel,experience a tortuous love and life in Canada. However, they all endure insults andcoldness instead of defiance against evil forces. On the basis of their life, they even have no chances to express their own ideas due to complete dependence on males’ economy, emotion and life.The second chapter concentrates to the process of “departure”, which represents the challenge to the patriarchal system. In such a cruel world, women have to safeguard their own rights with enough courage and strong confidence. Although experienced the verge of mental breakdown and depression, they still increasingly enhance self-consciousness.The third chapter focuses on “the pursuit of ideal life style”, indicating the fact that women finally find the harmonious life style. In other words, they are able to reach the harmonious balance with society, family and nature. This is women’s self-realization process as well.The last part is the conclusion. The thesis reaches the following conclusions after the argumentation of the women’s ideal life style: in the first place, this novel truly reveals women’s plight and self-restriction in this patriarchal society, which embodies that Munro always has a human touch on women’s destiny and that she lashes harshly at their unjust treatments. Then, through her detailed description about soaring aspiration after women’s ideal life style, she advocates the balanced relationship among females, nature, family and society, in a sense, her rich and individual perspective of harmony is undoubtedly displayed. Thus, Munro’s thoughts of ecological concern and feminist consciousness, contribute to harmonious coexistence among females, silent nature, family and society so as to inspire homo sapiens in the contemporary society to find out the harmonious and ideal life style among nature,family and society.