A Study Of Doree In Alice Munro’s Dimensions From The Perspective Of Schizoanalysis

The collection Too Much Happiness(2009),recognized as “one of the most bone-chilling narrative works” by Nobel laureate Alice Munro,marks the peak of Munro’s fiction creation.The book won the Booker International Prize for Literature and was also the favorite to win the Giller Prize.As the first entry in the short story collection Too Much Happiness,Dimensions portrays Doree,a woman who unwisely chooses to remain married to her mentally unstable and abusive husband.However,few scholars and critics have conducted extensive and in-depth research on Dimensions.In view of this,this thesis attempts to use schizoanalysis,which has not been used by the predecessors in the interpretation of Dimensions,to interpret the work in order to fill the gap of schizoanalysis in Munro’s study and promote its in-depth development.Under the influence of both the reality hammer of patriarchal society and Doree’s own internal factors,the heroine Doree is unable to make accurate judgments about her own situation and future,unable to find the meaning of her existence,and is an empty body without organs in Deleuze’s sense.But in the end,in the process of saving the life of a boy,she gets rid of her psychological attachment to her husband,completes her independence and growth,truly achieves self-redemption,and forms a full body without organs.By becoming woman and imperceptible,she seeks spiritual comfort and strength in her lonely and helpless life,and learns to look at the ever-changing and evolving world with a moving and changing perspective.A series of deterritorialization conducted by Doree is her active behavior to break away from the restriction,repression and shackles of the patriarchal society.This thesis finds that the external environment and women’s own weaknesses cause Doree to be completely emotionally dependent on a demon,deny herself,lose her correct outlook on life and values,and become an empty body without organs.Fortunately,Doree has the courage to deterritorialize,and through forming a full body without organs,entering into an active process of becoming,overcoming secondary reterritorializations and achieving the absolute deterritorialization,she finally achieves spiritual flight and gradually awakens her self-consciousness.By interpreting Munro’s Dimensions from schizoanalytical perspective,the author hopes to give some thoughts and inspirations on how modern women can obtain self-seeking when facing their own difficulties.At the same time,the author also wants to encourage people to reflect on the plight of women’s lives in contemporary society,and then strive to transform it in order to build an ideal state of women’s existence,especially an abundant state of women’s spirituality,so that women can exist in a more reasonable way and eventually achieve the harmonious development of both sexes.