艾丽丝·门罗短篇小说中的男性形象之英语分析

本文是一篇英语论文，本论文发现：门罗小说中的男性形象来源于她生活中的男性；男性形象的变化是随着女性身份和叙述视角的变化而变化的,反映了门罗的意识的发展，即从对女性性别、语言、权利等诸多社会问题的思索逐步上升到对人类整体文化身份的探讨和追求。

Chapter Ⅰ The Authoritative and Privileged MaleImages in the Early Period of Munro’s Writing

A. The Authoritative Father in Boys and Girls
Boys and Girls is an about-8000-words growing-up story. It is the ninth story inthe collection of Dance of the Happy Shades, which is Munro’s first collection ofshort stories and won the 1968 Governor General’s Award for English fiction. Thecollection concerns about what a young girl sees and hears in a small, remote townand about her dilemmas in growing up.
The story begins with a portrait of a typical Munro’s family. It is an Ontariopeasant family consisted of father, mother, sister and brother. This typical familypattern can be widely found in Munro’s following works.
In this story, the 11-year-old sister is the narrator. She is curious about the outsideworld. And she worships her father’s power and authority and longs for therecognition of her own strength and ability. In the eyes of the little girl, her father hasabsolute authority like God and his willing can not be violated. Munro unfolds thefather’s power by comparing his role in family with the mother’s and highlights thebasic model of gender roles in patriarchal culture.
The girl’s father is the supporter of the family. The little girl notices that all thefemale members in family depend on father. They live in father’s house with a foxfarm. Father’s social status determines theirs. They are defined as the fox keeper’sfamily. The definition limits their social behavior, lifestyle and life expectations. Thesocial and economic factors determine father to be in the position of domination.
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B. The Privileged Men in Flats Road
The Flats Road is the first story in Munro’s second collection Lives of Girls andWomen. The collection is regarded as a short story cycle (sometimes referred to as astory sequence or composite novel), which is considered autobiographical. All thestories are concerned about the life of a young woman, Del Jordan. The collection isoften criticized as expressing many feminist ideas with only a few male figuresplaying important roles. Uncle Benny, the hero in Flats Road is one of the few.
In Flats Road, Munro’s typical family pattern appears again. The story takesplace at the same region and same era as in Boys and Girls. The town’s name isreplaced by Jubilee. The family is doing the same fox fur business. The narrator is stillthe sister whose name is replaced by Del. The girl’s observation is transferred fromher father to her father’s hired laborer, Benjamin Thomas Poole (nicknamed UncleBenny by Del). Through Del’s narrations, Munro’s male image changes from males infamily to males in society.
Flats Road depicts a poor man Uncle Benny. One day, he comes acrossadvertisement for marriage on a small newspaper. To everyone’s surprise, UncleBenny marries the young woman named Madeleine as soon as they meet for the firsttime. Soon, Madeleine is discovered half-crazy. She is full of violence and oftenabuses her child Diane. She eventually runs away with her child. Uncle Benny tries tofind them but in vain. Narrated in Del’s first person, Munro highlights the seeminglyinnocent character of Uncle Benny in contrast to other cruel and indifferent maleimages. Though Uncle Benny has a simple and caring personality, he obviously isspeaking and acting following the patriarchal ideology.
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Chapter Ⅱ The Self-centered and Fantastic MaleImages in the Middle Period of Munro’s Writing

A. The Self-centered Men in How I Met My Husband
In 1974, Munro published her third collection Something I’ve Been Meaningto tell you. The third short story How I Met My Husband tells a love story. The womanEdie recalls her memory of how she meets her husband. After leaving school, Ediegoes to babysit at the Peebles at the age of fifteen. During her working there, she getsto know a pilot named Chris Watters. Edie soon falls in love with him. However,Chris soon leaves the town with his promise that he will write to Edie. Edie then waitsfor his letters by the mailbox day after day until one day she realizes that Chris forgetsabout her. To her surprise, the mailman starts to date her. Two years later, the mailmanbecomes Edie’s husband.
Munro applies the traditional pattern of romantic love stories. The setting, thelanguage tone and the story arrangement, all the narrations seem to give a hint thatEdie and Chris get married at last and they live happily ever after. However, thesupposed husband is not Chris. The whole story is telling how Edie meets Chrisdespite of the story title: How I Met My Husband. The misplacement of the supposedhusband and the real husband, and the imbalance of narrations are made by Munro onpurpose to expose how female’s views on love change from romantic to realisticunder the pressure of patriarchal culture.By comparing the two male images ofopposite types, Munro unfolds Edie’s longing and disillusion of love and the self-centered nature of Chris and the mailman. The transformation of Edie’s outlook onlove comes with great pain. It can be seen from her different memories of the twomen.
The pilot Chris represents Edie’s early romantic views on love. His occupationsymbolizes the image of the intangible.26Every time confronting Chris, Edie can feelthat her affection towards him is growing stronger. In their last meeting, Chris kissesEdie. Edie recalls that “Those little kisses, so soft, I can’t ever let myself think aboutthem. It was lovely in the tent, that smell of grass and hot tent cloth with the sun”. Incontrast to Edie’s intense and sincere love, Munro reveals Chris’ nature as a playboy.He keeps running away from his fiancée and having love affairs with other women.With the exposure of Chris’ selfish and irresponsible actions, Munro indicates Edie’sdisillusionment of love.
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B. The Fantastic Man in Beggar Maid
Who Do You Think You Are? won for Munro the 1978 Governor General’s Awardfor English Fiction for the second time. The collection revolves around protagonistRose, in her journey from childhood to womanhood, a trip that takes her from aningrown, rude life in a small town, to college, marriage, motherhood, and later afamous professional TV programmer.
The Beggar Maid is the fifth story in the collection. This story hasautobiographic features, showing the emotional suffering experienced by femalestransferring from working class to upper class through marriage. Rose and Patrickfirst meet in the college library where Rose works in her part time. Patrick Blatchfordfalls in love with her, but Rose is never sure about her feelings. Rose is a county girlsurviving on scholarship while Patrick is from wealthy upper class. The relationshipbetween them is the mirror version of Munro and her first husband James Munro.“Patrick Blatchford was in love with Rose. This had become a fixed, even furious,idea with him. For her, a continual surprise. He wanted to marry her.”
In terms of psychological needs, Rose’s presence satisfies his knight fantasy. Thefirst time he meets Rose in the library, she is being harassed. Patrick acts as a flowerguardian. Knights are a traditional image in Europe in the middle ages and theyrepresent male virtues of outrages and devotions. The knight role Patrick plays in thelibrary cast out his fear of lacking masculinity.
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Chapter Ⅲ The Vulnerable Male Images in the Later Period of Munro’sWriting.............................20
A. The Masked Men in Before Change............................ 20
B. The Isolated Men in Face and Wood...............................24
C. The Self-redeemed Men in The Bear Came Over the Mountain...................28

Chapter Ⅲ The Vulnerable Male Images in the LaterPeriod of Munro’s Writing

A. The Masked Men in Before Change
Before the Change is seventh story from the collection The Love of a GoodWoman. It concerns about the discussion on female’s rights of reproduction andabortion. It tells a story of a doctor who secretly gives abortion to women in timeswhen it is forbidden by law. Set in a small-town in Ontario in 1960, the story takes theform of letters to her ex-fiancé, from a young woman who has returned to the home ofher father, a widowed doctor who lives with his maid, Mrs. Barrie.The story isnarrated in the daughter’s first-person. At the beginning of the story, the narrator andher father are watching a TV debate between Kennedy and Nixon. The descriptiongives a subtle hint of social reform. In 1960, the first televised presidential debate wasof great significance. It had not only a significant impact on the election results, butalso opened a new era. The use of new media accelerated the progress of the society.Nine years after the debate, Canada passed the bill to legalize abortion, which was thekey word in Before the Change.
There are two key male images in the story. One is the narrator’s father Dr.Strachan, the other is her fiancé Robin. Dr. Strachan supported women’s reproductiveautonomy with secretly doing abortion operations for them; Robin believes that everydecision should follow the principle that females should act for the best interests ofmales. By comparing the two different male images, Munro unfolds the collision ofdifferent ideas in the wave of social reform. Both males choose to live with masks.According to Carl Jung, everyone must deal with the relationship between externalrules from society and internal desires within oneself. In dealing with the problem,one must put on a mask (it is called persona by Jung) which is the compromisebetween the inpidual and the collective.
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Conclusion

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