关于诺奖获得者爱丽丝门罗的短篇小说runaway 逃离的一点思考

关于诺奖获得者爱丽丝门罗的短篇小说runaway 逃离的一点思考

everyone living in the world has their anxiety and pains. when they cannot bear the pressures or boredom of life any more, they will find a way to release and escape from the reality. especially in modern society, runaway phenomena are rather common. for example, women will go shopping to run away from family chores ; men will go to gymnasia to exercise in order to escape from pressures; the young go to the pub to dance and drink; the old go to the park to chat with others. all these are examples of running away.

to run away is to return. in the short story of runaway, the heroin Carla has run away for two times. for the first time, Carla runs away from her family where she grows up. she escapes with Clark decisively to find the so called " a real life". however, after a short time of romance of the marriage life, Clark gradually forms a very short fuse and a violent temper. there are always cold violence between them. and the contradiction between Carla and Clark deepens day by day. when she cannot stand the cold violence any more, Carla runs away from Clark with the help of Sylvia for the second time of runaway. but at the last minutes, she recognizes that she could not imagine the unknown life and the challenges of unknown life without Clark. actually, she has nowhere to run away. runaway to her at the very beginning is doomed to be a failure. eventually, she returns to her husband and restrains her thought of escape.

actually the runaway of ordinary people like Carla happens again and again. to Carla, runaway is a kind of struggle for identity and the sense of existence. however, in my opinion, there are two kinds of runaway in this short story. one is pessimistic and tragic; another is positive and active. the latter we can see from Sylvia's traveling to Greek, her traveling is a kind of runaway from the misery of her husband's death. she represents new women with knowledge and self-awareness. she has the ability to control her own life. however, Carla represents those women victims of the patriarchal society, who are not well-educated and self-awarded. this kind of women have not sense of self, advanced knowledge, independent economic ability. when they encounter unhappiness and violence in marriage life, they try to escape but have to return because of lacking of self-independence.

however, no matter which kind of runaway, it can develop a more clear understanding of self and is a way of confrontation which is destined to return.