The poetics of the short story cycle: Alice Munro's 'Lives of Girls and Women' and 'Who Do You Think You Are?'.

摘要

This thesis explores the relationship of Alice Munro's two works of fiction, Lives of Girls and Women and Who Do You Think You Are?, to the poetics of the short story cycle. Within the context of this study both Munro's own statements regarding the works in question and the interpretations of her works, by critics, are examined. Chapter one focuses on the international tradition that exists, in English, around the poetics of the story cycle form. In this chapter a comparison and contrast is made between Munro's statements and the criticism that has followed the publishing of Lives and Who. Chapters two and three, respectively, focus on the specific works in question, uncovering and identifying the series of signals that offer up proof for reading these works as members of the story cycle form. The conclusion looks backwards and forwards, setting the context of the short story cycle form and looking to its future possibilities. The emphasis throughout this thesis is to use the form of the story cycle as an entry point into new ways of reading text.