Abjection Of Females In Alice Munro’s The Love Of A Good Woman

The Love of a Good Woman,a collection of eight stories by Alice Munro published in 1998,with its consistent concern for women’s predicaments,portrays vividly an abjection of females,a sociopsychological phenomenon prevalent in Canadian small towns during the mid-twentieth century.Beginning with the examination on the academic development of the concept abjection,this thesis defines abjection as the mental repudiation and exclusion of the undesirables threatening the borders of normative subjects,which provides the insight into the predicaments of the women living in Munro’s fictional world.This thesis firstly expounds on the abjection of females in this collection manifested in the emotion of disgust generated from the society’s constructing female bodies as the embodiment of evil and inferior animality,which can be further attributed to the conservative and backward social values of the fictional Canadian small town Walley rooted in Victorian Christianity and which thereafter intensifies female vulnerability.Secondly,the abjection of females is also manifested in the emotion of fear towards the self-actualizing mother Jill triggered by the social stigma of maternal monster attached to her,which is further analyzed as the result of the normative sacrificial motherhood and the mean-spiritedness in the small-town society Munro has depicted and which consequently stresses the mother out while creating spiritual confinement that suffocates her.Thirdly,the abjection is also manifested in females’ shame of themselves which can be regarded as their self-abjection.This thesis demonstrates that in the stories it is social discourse stigmatizing the little bride’s writing desire and Iona’s emotional outbursts that are responsible for their emotion of shame,which ultimately leads to their helplessness and powerlessness.Last but not least,this thesis demonstrates some possible resistance to abjection suggested in this collection,which is represented in the character Jill’s successful defiance of abjection and in the narrative strategies adopted by Munro in order to evoke the empathy of readers,who might be concerned with women’s sufferings both inside and outside the fictional world.In conclusion,The Love of a Good Woman reveals that mid-twentieth-century Canadian small towns are patriarchal societies featuring conservative religion and narrow social values,where females undergo abjection for their bodies,rebellious spirit and creativity and where the invisible abjection insidiously damages their autonomy as well as hinders their self-fulfillment.Examining the collection in the light of abjection helps to show Munro’s concern about women’s living conditions and her call for a world with more understanding and tolerance for women.Besides,this thesis also has practical significance since it mirrors the misogyny ubiquitous in today’s society and calls for more reflection on it.