THE FEMALE VOICE OF ALICE MUNRO (THE PECULIARITIES OF THE PROSE BY THE 2013 NOBEL LAUREATE)

Abstract

This article discusses several key aspects of the literary works by Alice Munro, a prominent English-language writer who won Canada the Nobel Prize in Literature for the first time in 2013. The study appraises Munro as a contemporary classic of short stories, addressing issues highly topical since the 1950s and at the turn of the 21st century, particularly exploring gender issues. The paper specifies that the key aspects of Alice Munro’s short story prose include exploring human happiness in general and the possibility of achieving it in real life. This literary perspective is particularly evident in the stories «Wood», «A Real Life», «Face», «Chance» and «Runaway». Munro meticulously observed the relationships between women and men, striving to express their complexity and inner tension. Her main characters are often women, particularly young women, reflecting on the challenges of their personal lives. The study underscores that Alice Munro sought to understand whether the nature of women and men includes the possibility of happiness or whether such happiness is merely a phantom, an illusion, a myth created and sustained by humans. The story «Runaway» is especially representative in this regard, depicting the extremely conflictual nature of the relationship between the she-and-he couple. The article emphasizes that in the stories «Wood», «A Real Life», «Face», «Chance» and «Runaway» as well as in her other works, Alice Munro tended towards the conclusion that happiness is individually dependent, leading to the conceptual generalization that human happiness is a dramatic category and does not necessarily equate to joy.