A Study Of "Escape" Theme In Su Tong's And Munro's Fictions

Alice Munro is one of the famous short story writers in the contemporary world literature and Canada's first female writer who is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.Munro's distinguished career has already lasted for more than half a century.Her works profoundly reflect the reality of the society and women's fight against their fates,and have also made a great contribution to Canadian literature.Su Tong is one of the outstanding representative figures of contemporary Chinese literature.His works have been translated into many different languages and been loved by readers all over the world.Both writers used to portray women who run away to promote the development of their novels and at the same time show their thoughts over women's fates.The thesis takes Su Tong's Petulia's Rouge Tin and Alice Munro's “Runaway” as two cases to have a close study on the theme of escape in Su Tong's and Munro's fictions and compares the two fictions to find the similarities and differences and also the causes behind them which can further showcase the significance of the two writers' escape to the world literature.The thesis consists of five parts.The first part explores the theme of escape in Munro's and Su Tong's fictions and gives a brief introduction to the study scholars have made.The second and third parts are the close study to the two novels and discuss specifically how escape is presented in them.The forth and the fifth part do a comparative study on the theme of escape in the two novels and the similarities and differences and further studies the causes behind them.The thesis concludes that the theme of escape is a permanent theme in both Chinese and western literature,but there is a difference between them.In Chinese literature,the theme of escape is centered on running away from the earthly difficulties such as harsh living conditions and influences of the enormous social transformations.In western literature,the implications of the theme of escapes are more diversified.They encompass the escapes due to the earthly bothering and the quest for spiritual and religious freedom.The differences of the theme of escape in western and Chinese literature is a major contributor for the distinctions of the theme of escape in Munro's and Su Tongfictions.In Petulia's Rouge Tin,the protagonists are escaping from the influences of the gigantic social transformations and their critical living conditions.In “Runaway”,the character Carla is escaping from her biological family and the marriage which confines her mentally.The differences in the writing of the theme of escape encompass the various purposes of the escape in the two novels,the different ways of the escape as well as the different social backgrounds for the escape in the two novels.The reasons for the differences are twofold which include the historical background and the social background.Through the comparative study of the works of Su Tong and Munro,the thesis further explores the significance of the two writers' theme of escape to the world literature.