The ordinary and the epiphanic /death and Eros: Religious and spiritual questing in the fiction of Alice Munro.

摘要

In a culture that over the past two centuries has embarked on an unprecedented abandonment of its traditional collective religious framework, what has become of the sacred, the divine---or what is broadly referred to as the spiritual? The following dissertation focuses this broad question into a specific exploration of how religious/spiritual aspects manifest in the ostensibly secular fiction of the award-winning, contemporary Canadian writer, Alice Munro. My examination of Munro's fiction reveals that although in her writing---as in the broader culture---there is an ongoing, profound critique and an attendant decline of traditional patriarchal Christianity, religion/spirituality still continue to find expression through other than traditional avenues. To use a term employed by Canadian literary critic, William Closson James, religious/spiritual aspects in Munro's fiction---again, as in the broader culture-have "relocated.";Having established that religious/spiritual aspects in Munro's writing have survived the modern "death of God," I outline how and where these aspects "relocate" or find expression in non-traditional forms in Munro's fiction. Drawing quite heavily upon the work of noted Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, particularly his book Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, I argue that religious/spiritual aspects in Munro's writing manifest through what Taylor terms the "affirmation of ordinary Life." Taylor defines "ordinary life" as "those aspects of human life concerned with production and reproduction, that is, labour, the making of things needed for life, and our life as sexual beings, including marriage and the family" (Taylor 211).;In my examination of Munro's fiction, I pay particular attention to the following aspects of "ordinary life": Death, Eros, and the epiphanic. First, drawing primarily on works from Munro's early career, I argue that "ordinary" death is a central catalyst of religious/spiritual questing for many Munro characters. Then, drawing mostly on stories from Munro's mid-career, I explore how numerous Munro characters search---usually subconsciously---for spiritual fulfillment in the realm of Eros---that is, in sexual relationships/marriage. My discussion of the realm of Eros also addresses the profound Pauline aversion to sexuality and aspects of the bodily that we encounter in a good deal of Munro's fiction. Very importantly, however, I also argue that a countervailing, positive emphasis on the body---particularly the female body---manifests in Munro's fiction in ways that resonate strongly with the mythic Eastern Indian goddess, Kali.;Chapter Three discusses how and why many of Munro's characters fail in their quests to find spiritual fulfillment in the realm of Eros. Chapter Four---very much a companion chapter to Chapter Three---explores how a number of Munro's characters achieve relative success in their quests to find spiritual sustenance in the realm of Eros.;Chapters One through Four focus primarily on what might be called the content of Munro's implicit religious/spiritual vision as it emerges in her writing; Chapter Five shifts the focus to the actual experience of the spiritual/religious in Munro's fiction. This experience frequently manifests in epiphanic moments. In Chapter Six, I conclude my discussion of religious/spiritual aspects in Munro's writing with detailed readings of four of Munro's recent stories, three from her most recent collection.