A Study on Narrative Strategies in Runaway

Linglin Chen

Xi'an Technological University,Xi'an,China

Email:applecll@163.com

[Abstract] Runaway is one of the Alice Munro's representative works.It vividly shows the ordinary life of women and their deep desire to run away from the present life.The paper analyzes the narrative strategies in this story.Diversified narrative strategies play an essential role in displaying personalities of characters,echo the theme of the story,shorten the distance between the readers and characters,make the story more compact and enhance the readability of the story.

[Keywords] Alice Munro;Runaway;narrative strategies

Introduction

Alice Munro is a contemporary short story writer from Canada,widely regarded as one of the most fruitful female writers in the world.She won the Noble Prize in literature in 2013,awarded as the"master of the contemporary short story".Runaway,published in 2004,is one of the Munro's representative works.Runawayconsists of eight short stories and the paper will analyze the narrative strategies in the first short storyRunaway.This story vividly shows the ordinary life of women in different ages and express their deep desire to run away from the present life in the small town of Canada.According to the researches home and abroad,many scholars approachedRunawayfrom the perspectives of feminism,psychology and writing style,but few people analyzed it from the point of narratology.The paper analyzes the narrative strategies inRunawayand aims to explore the narrative perspective and narrative plots in this short story.Diversified narrative strategies play an essential role in displaying personalities of characters,echo the theme of the story,shorten the distance between the readers and characters,make the story more compact and enhance the readability of the story.

Narratology studies the essence,form and function of narratives and it attempts to describe narrative capabilities in a broad sense.It is a study that regard temporally ordered contexts and events as a verbal mode in a narrow sense.Gérard Genette thinks narrative is to study the relationship between story text and narrative texts,which is in the narrow sense in his narratological studies.InNarrative Discourse,he represented the theoretical system of narrative works including narrative elements,narrative structure,narrative style and other modes,which promoted the formation of narrative text.

Narrative Strategies in Runaway

Multiple Focalization

Focalization is an important term in the narratological studies.Genette gave a more precise term of focalization:"focalization refers to the knowledge,imagination,and perception"(Genette,1980,p.103).It is usually the perspective of a particular role.In practice,focalization includes many ways of specification especially in selecting and transmitting narrative information,which is unable to ensure that the conservation from some characters are true,or not.There are three types of focalization.They respectively are zero focalization,internal focalization and external focalization.

Zero focalization

Zero focalization is omniscience perspective;the narrator is an omniscient one.The omniscient narrator just like God's perspective.The narrator know everything.The narrator controls the development of the plot,as well as the reader's focalization.There does not exist fixed perspective because the narrator know everything.That is to say,any of the character knows less than the narrator.

InRunaway,when Carla took Sylvia's suggestion and went to unfamiliar town,she sobbed suddenly and unconsciously.When our reader confuse about her strange behavior,the omniscient narrator gives us a detailed description of Carla's inner thoughts.

A life,a place,chosen for that specific reason---that it would not contain Clark.

The strange and terrible thing coming clear to her about that world of the future,as she now pictured it,was that she would not exist there.She would only walk around,and open her mouth and speak,and do this and do that.She would not really be there.And what was strange about it was that she was doing all this,she was riding on this bus in the hope of recovering herself.As Mrs.Jamieson might say---and as she herself might satisfaction have said---taking charge of he own life.With nobody glowering over her,nobody's mood infecting her with misery(Munro,2004,p.34).

The omniscient narrator's observation highlights Carla's inner struggle for running away.She is eager to make changes in the future,but she is bound by various matters in the past.Such contradictory mood and unfirmed belief lead her failure to escape.At that time,women have awakened and wanted to pursuit freedom and independence,however,their dream are constrained by the social environment.

Internal focalization

The internal focalization focuses on one fixed protagonist.Internal focalization means the narrator,can only tell what a certain character knows.That is the narrator and the character are in the same level of the observation.The narrator belongs to fixed perspective.Readers can use this perspective to deeply understand the inner psychological activities of the narrator.The focalization can not be changed.Moreover,the narrator cannot say anything more than that of the protagonist.That means the narrator's perception cannot surpass that of the protagonist.The chosen focalization can portray the psychological activities freely,at the same time any other characters'inner thoughts cannot be shown.

InRunaway,the internal focalization falls on two female characters:Carla and Sylvia.The conversation between Carla and Sylvia shows contradictory and complex psychological state of Carla.On the one hand,a coward Carla is presented from the perspective of Carla herself;On the other hand,a self-reliant and real-life Carla is seen through Sylvia's eyes.

From Sylvia's point of view,Carla is an active and passionate young girl.However,when she returns from vacation,she finds that Carla turns on"a sullen face"(Munro,2004,p.21).Then she encourages Carla to escape from the present life and pursuit her real happiness.Although the dialogue is taken place between two people,representing two different perspectives and viewpoints,it is more like a fierce struggle between Carla and her other self,revealing her painful status.Although it is Sylvia who pushes Carla to run away and move forward,it is precisely because of Carla's inner impulse and desire.

Sylvia helps Carla gain the "Unaccustomed confidence" (Munro,2004,p.25).But when the focalization comes back to Carla herself,she recalls her first escaping from her parents' home to her present home.She once thought if she lived with Clark,she would be happy.However,now,she has to face second runaway.She questions the value of runaway.The tears streaming down Carla's face,filled with memories of past,reveal the fragility of women.

Then she turns to Sylvia's point of view,and she finds that the note Carla left for Clark is misspelled.Carla writes a note:"I have gone away,I will be all write"(Munro,2004,p.27).Sylvia is sure Carla knows right from write.She has been talking about writing a note,so she is in state of confusion.The misspelled note implies that Carla was so nervous and scared that she did not know what to do when she made the decision to runaway.

The alternation of focalization highlights the authenticity of the story,and meanwhile shows the dilemma faced by Carla,which portrays the difficult situation of women when looking for the balance between family and herself.They hesitate and struggle with their inner selves and external oppression in the pursuit of self-independence,but finally return to the family due to their weak strength and the oppression of patriarchy society.The story no longer centers on the traditional male perspective,but instead looks at women through the focalization of female characters.In this way,the alterative of zero focalization and internal focalization strengthen the reliability of the story and weaken the male voice.

Flexible Narrative Plot

A literary work involves two kinds of time,that is,story time and text time.The latter is also known as narrative time.The narrative time is not equal to story time.Story time refers to the natural time when the story takes place,while narrative time refers to the time when the story is presented in the narrative work.In a narrative work,the main event is a linear narrative if it is arranged in chronological order.However,inRunaway,she disrupts the axis of natural time and adopts non-linear structure to create unique narrative effects,which make the story more attractive.

Non-linear Structure

For the non-linear structure,Munro mainly uses flashback inRunaway,that is,to go back to a certain point in the past from the present on the timeline to tell what happened before.The story opens with Kara and Clark running a stable.They earn little money,and Clark is looking for a second-hand shop to buy materials to repair the roof that fell off during a storm.Then,Munro provides readers with a clue to their past through flashbacks."Up until three years ago Carla never really looked at mobile home.She didn't call them that,either.Like her parents,she would have thought"mobile home"pretentious"(Munro,2004,p.7).This is a reflection of Carla's previous life.As the story progresses,we can learn about the love story between Carla and Clark.She met him in a stable when she was 18 and had just left high school.Her parents wanted her to go on to college,but she only wanted to work with animals."One day she came into the stable and him hanging up his saddle and realized she had fallen in love with him" (Munro,2004,p.28).

The flashback mainly describes their sweet and passionate past and desperate and dull present.And the readers learn that Clark is a selfish and hot-tempered man,while Carla is an innocent woman who longs for love and care.As time goes by,their conflicts are intensified.This recollection is a flashback that the author interweave with the story,complementing the story while avoiding the tedium of linear narration.

Open Ending

Conventional literary works generally have closed ending,while works with non-linear structures usually shows open ending.Open ending can not only summarize the ending of the whole story,but also encourage readers to explore the theme and meaning of the story.An open ending provides multiple possibilities and uncertainty for readers and in turn provokes readers to fill in these blanks with their imagination.

"The days passed and Carla didn't go near that place.She held out against the temptation"(Munro,2004,p.47).This is the ending of the story.The conflicts are unsolved.The protagonist—Carla are still in the confusion and does not gain the independence.It seems that Carla has returned to her family and tries to resist the temptation of the outside world.However,we do not know whether she has forgiven the past pains and whether she has found herself in the process of running away.This open ending needs readers to participate in the story and understand the dilemma of female characters.For Carla,"It was as if she had a murderous needle somewhere in her lungs,and by breathing carefully,she could avoid feeling it.But every once in a while she had to take a deep breath and it was still here"(Munro,2004,p.46).On the one hand,Carla is still longing for escaping.However,she tries her best to be a cooperator for Clark."As the dry golden days of fall came on—an encouraging and profitable season—Carla found that she had got used to the sharp thought that had lodged in her"(Munro,2004,p.46).She thinks she can get used to the present life,however,no one knows what will happen in the future."And she was inhabited now by an almost seductive notion,a constant low-lying temptation"(Munro,2004,p.47).It shows that Carla's consciousness has been awakened,the hidden temptation may arouse more intense desire for the next runaway.However,she may have decided bury this temptation forever and accept herself and present life.For Sylvia,she also in an unstable statement."Sylvia has taken an apartment in the college town where she taught.The house was not up for sale—or at least there wasn't a sign out in front of it"(Munro,2004,p.46).It seems that like Carla,Sylvia is stuck in a dilemma too.She has escaped to the college town,but she may return this old house one day.Either runaway or return is not the perfect statement of life.

Similarly,Flora's end is uncertain.Flora is an important image in this short story.In Runaway,the image of"Flora" appears many times.Flora is a lamb brought back by Clark from a certain farm.Throughout the whole story,"Flora"has obvious symbolic significance,and Flora is like a temptation to runaway.The readers have no idea where Flora went,from her appearance in the night mist to her final disappearance.At the end of the novel,when Carla,after a day's work,takes a walk to the edge of the woods,where she can see the little dirty bones in the grass."The skull with perhaps some shreds of bloodied skin clinging to it"(Munro,2004,p.47).She thought flora might have been eaten by vultures."Or perhaps not.Nothing there.Other things could have happened.He could have chased Flora away"(Munro,2004,p.47).In the story,Flora is connected tightly with Carla.Flora symbolizes the female characters like Carla in the story.Flora's runaway symbolizes the runaway of women.However,the author does not describe the ending of Flora and Carla,and explain the meaning of runaway,but leaves more blanks to readers.

Conclusion

InRunaway,Alice Munro writes about women' life experiences,feelings,and shows the deep concern about the living state and psychological changes of contemporary women.Through her exquisite and plain writing style,artistic narrative strategies,Munro shows women'life dilemma vividly and allows readers to observe their happiness and pain directly.The multiple focalizations give readers several angles to understand characters' inner thoughts,hesitation and struggles,also make the stories more reliable and realistic.The non-linear structure breaks the stable and monotonous traditional narration,and enriches the narrative rhythm.In addition,the open ending echoes the theme of the story.What is ending of runaway? Either runaway or return is not the perfect statement of life.Alice Munro does not give the definite answer but leave the questions to readers.The varied narrative strategies create the dynamic narrative rhythm,echo the themes of the story and endow the stories with esthetic features.