Escape And Return

Alice Munro was the first Canadian writer to have won the Nobel Prize for literature for short stories in 2013.Alice Munro is known as the “master of contemporary short story” and “Chekhov of Canada”.As a female writer,Munro describes the tragic fate of ordinary people through careful and profound observation,especially that of ordinary women in family,society and even the world.Feminism and narrative perspectives are the main theories to interpret Munro’s novels.This thesis takes the short-story collection Runaway as the research object.From the perspective of Ecofeminism,this thesis aims to explore different protagonists’ hardships and joys in their spiritual progress between escape and return and analyzes the thought of Ecofeminism shown in Munro’s stories based on the detailed analysis of the text.Besides the introduction and conclusion,three chapters are included in this thesis.The introduction is about the life of Alice Munro and her works,presents domestic and foreign research status,and gives a brief explanation for the theory of Ecofeminism.This thesis analyzes the relationship between women and nature,the escape and return of women from the perspective of Ecofeminism.The first chapter mainly discusses the ecological relationship between women and nature.Women are close friends of nature,and nature is the destination of women.In patriarchal society,the fate of women is similar to that of nature.The second chapter analyzes the escape of women from the perspective of Ecofeminism,the oppression of women in the patriarchal society,and discusses the causes for women’s escape.Women and men should pursue harmonious relationship with nature and appeal for equal and harmonious gender relationship.The third chapter interprets the return of women from the perspective of Ecofeminism.Women become confused and contradictory with themselves during their escape.Finally women return to nature so that they can liberate themselves and realize their value.Women’s pursuit of self-emancipation is presented in Munro’s works through the analysis of the fate of women in Runaway.It is concluded that women should notpassively wait for the recognition in the patriarchal society.Instead women should actively struggle to achieve self-salvation and avoid tragedies so that women,nature and men have an equal and harmonious life.What’s more,women could overcome their thinking barriers and pursue their independence in personality and spirit while being financially independent.