An Analysis Of Uncertain Narration And Complex Humanity In Alice Munro's Short Stories

Alice Munro's short stories have won great honors in Canada many times and retained their popularity around the world.At present,all of her 14 collections of short stories has been translated and introduced to China,causing wide attention.Munro is known for bringing narratives that reveal thedetails of life and depth and complexities in the human nature.Basing on intensive reading of the text,this paper,taking several stories of Munro as the main study object,attempts to analyze and discuss the complexities ofhuman nature in the characters,with the combination of the uses of uncertain narratives in the stories,such as non-linear time,silence of sound,and open endings.Theintroduction briefly introduces Munro's life and creation,and summarizes the research status of Munro at home and abroad.Based on this,the study purpose and innovation of this paper are put forward.And the definition of the two key concepts----uncertain narrative and human nature,are present in this paper.The content of this paper is mainly divided into three parts.The first chapter takes "Child's Play" and "Material" as the main research texts,and discusses the non-absoluteness between goodness and evil of human nature in Munro's works.Munro's works often use non-linear narrative techniques to tell the stories.She adopts the writing skills such as the time disorder to express the complexities of human nature of the characters in the stories.Taking "The Time of Death","The Shining House" and "Executioner" as the main researchtexts,the second chapter discusses the evil side ofhuman nature in the charactersand its multiple disguise in Munro's works.With focus on the victims of the evil humanity in Munro's stories,this chapter analyzes the lack of the characters' voices in the stories to tear off the cloak of the hypocrisy of humanity and expose the real human nature.The third chapter uses "Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You","Friend of My Youth" and "Walking on Water" as the main research texts to discuss the human's final choice in picking between the two paths of good and evil humanity in Munro's works.Munro always adopts open endings in her creations,which leaves multiple possibilities for the ending of the story and arouses readers to thinking about the final path of the humanity.At the end of the paper is the conclusion.Munro's works are extraordinary in exploring the complexities of human naturein her works by means of uncertain narration.Munro focuses on the creation of short stories,and her works have created great artistic values.Her outstanding achievements have made important contributions to the rise of the status of the short story as the literary form.