The Exploration Of Female Existence In Alice Munro’s Novels

Alice Munro,a renowned female writer in Canada,has been challenged by the traditional cultural discourse power and also constrained by her multiple roles both as a wife and mother on the path of seeking female subjectivity.These experiences have enabled her to be acutely aware of female complicated existence in the 20 th century,and also realize that the process of their appeal for gender equality and pursuit of personal values are fraught with difficulties.It mainly selects typical short stories among Alice Munro’s works as the research objects and studies the issues relevant to female existence in her novels by using gender theory,sociological theory and ethics theory.It helps to reveal the specific connotation and realistic significance of female existence and exploration objectively and richly.Munro’s novel presents the inequality factors in gender constructing process against the traditional culture backdrop.Focusing on the trajectory of women’s growth,it reveals that the outside world always places women in the “second gender” position with traditional cultural discourse power at various stages.This gender-constructing model makes women unjustifiably treated in unfair environments,equitable environments,and in marital relationships so that their subjective awareness is somehow confined or has even disappeared.In Munro’s novels,the exploration of female existence is not constant.With the development of women’s subjective consciousness,the demands for changing the status quo have become more and more intense.For the potential influence of gender construction from the outside,self-awareness,value recognition and role selection have been trapped in a dilemma,and this even led to women’s false choices.Through these stories,Munro tries to make readers realize that altering others’ stereotypes cannot be achievable within a single day and it is also not advisable to take some violent measures for changing the current situation such as escaping from the opposite gender and staying away from the identity of the mother.Munro shows her solution to these problems with “reconciliation”.First of all,Munro draws upon the concept of “seeking harmony while tolerating differences” for the two genders,that is to seek harmony and understand each other while respect differences between them.Then,the concept of “homologous symbiosis” among their own role arrangements can be obtained to strike a balance in multiple-identity conflicts.Third,it is worth mentioning that Munro reveals openness and inclusiveness in terms of her vision as a female.Munro clarifies women’s experience and presents their existence in the real life to readers through her works creation.In these works,her profound humanistic concern as a female writer has been shown through explorations of female existence.The implied solution and methods have a great reference value on human’s understanding of themselves,the coordinated relationship between men and women as well as the social development process.