Canadianness And The Living Circumstances Of Women

Runaway is a short story collection written by Alice Munro (1931-), who is a contemporary Canadian female author writing in English. Munro’s work is concerned about ordinary women who are confronted with deep-rooted customs and traditions and trapped in a troublesome and confusing relation with society, men and the self. They try to run away from their present life for domestic or other reasons. Munro’s identity of Canadian, female author and short story writer has crucial cultural connection with Canadian identity. Munro’s short stories possess deep regional consciousness and historical solicitude, embodying the unique Canadianness.The thesis aims to explore Munro’s Canadianness and the literary expression of female protagonists in the collection Runaway. Female identity bewilderment, the marginalization and the tendency of compromise serve as the embodiment of Canadianness. Based on the concept of Canadianness, the thesis chooses five females from seven of this collection as the studying texts to probe into Canadianness and women’s living circumstances.This thesis applies Canadianness as the perspective and theoretical discourse and there is a metaphorical relationship between women and Canada in Alice Munro’s Runaway. The writing of females provides prototype for the Canadian identity and the pursuit of national identity is parallel to women’s desire to search for their own status. The female protagonists in Runaway are all trapped in troublesome and confusing circumstances and try to flee to redefine themselves. Munro is not a radical writer who advises women to resist the patriarchal order violently, but cherishes a harmonious co-existence of genders, the value of traditional family and compromise. Their return is not the silence after resistance or the submitting to life but a new choice and future after meditation about life.