摘 要

艾丽丝·门罗是当代著名加拿大女作家，至今已创作了许多优秀的短篇小说， 被誉为当代加拿大文学的“契科夫”。门罗擅长平凡生活的写作，尤其是平凡女 性。这篇论文详细地研究了其三篇短篇小说——《快乐影子之舞》、《我是如何遇 见我丈夫的》与《荨麻子》中的三个女性形象，并着重分析门罗如何通过这三名 不同年龄的女性形象的塑造来传达其对现代加拿大女性身份的理解。

关键词：艾丽丝·门罗；人物刻画；《快乐影子之舞》；《我是如何遇见我丈夫的》；

《荨麻子》；身份

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. The Old Woman—Miss Marsalles in Dance of the Happy Shades 2
      1. Characterization of Miss Marsalles: A Woman Warrior 2
      2. Significances of the Characterization of Miss Marsalles 3
   2. The Young Nurse—Edie in How I Met My Husband 4
      1. Characterization of Edie: A Pure Girl Who Achieve Her Maturity 4
      2. Significances of the Characterization of Edie 6
   3. The Middle-aged Woman —“I” in Nettles 7
      1. Characterization of “I”: A Woman with Sense and Sensibility 7
      2. Significances of the Characterization of “I" 8
3. Conclusion 9

Works Cited 11

Bibliography 12

An Analysis of Female Characterization in Alice Munro’s Three Short Stories

Introduction

Alice Munro, as a Canadian feminine writer, is regarded as the “Chekhov in Canada”. In 1968, her career began when she published her first collection of short stories Dance of the Happy Shades, which helped her win the “Governor General’s Literary Awards”. Her latter 14 works are also proved to be great and highly spoken of by readers. In Oct. 10th, 2013, Alice Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, and then was praised as the master of contemporary short stories by Swedish Academy.

Born in Ottawa and spending most of her time living there, Alice Munro gradually formed her writing style which is that she always wrote in the theme of ordinary life of ordinary female in small town. It can also be said that many Munro’s works reflect the southern Ontario gothic style.

As the 13th female winner in the history of Nobel Prize in literature, Alice Munro never acknowledged that she was a feminist writer, but it is undeniable that most of her works are written in the view of females and filled with various female characters. Alice Munro refers her works to the life experience of her mother and herself and chooses some important points of people’s life such as adolescence, marriage and death as the themes to start her short stories which show power and weakness of females and bring a kind of truehearted emotion to readers.

Being an important writer of modern short story, Alice Munro has widely received critical comments and her works have been studied from different perspectives. The overseas study of her short stories can be classified into the following aspects: the narrative technique, interpretation of the female characters, text and textual research, relationship between Munro’s work and regional background, and the style of realism. Domestic studies of Munro’s works are much less than those

in foreign countries and only few articles can be discovered in CNKI，among which the focus is the analysis of narrative technique and themes in her short stories. While there was a Munro’s fever after she won the Nobel Prize and many Chinese scholars have begun to explore the female characters in her works as well as her writing style. However, their studies are less systematic and balanced with the comparison of the