Reflections of Self: Autobiographical Echoes in Alice Munro’s Female Protagonists

الملخص

This study investigates the autobiographical dimensions of Alice Munro's short stories, focusing on how her female protagonists reflect and reimagine the author’s own life experiences. Despite extensive scholarship on Munro’s work, limited attention has been given to the nuanced ways in which her stories blend personal memory with literary imagination to critique gender norms and explore identity formation. Addressing this gap, the study employs memoir theory and life writing approaches to analyze three key short stories—"Boys and Girls," "Dear Life," and "The Moons of Jupiter." Through close textual readings, the research demonstrates how Munro’s rural Ontario upbringing, familial tensions, and struggles with societal expectations inform her fiction, while her narrative techniques transform these personal elements into universal themes.

The findings reveal Munro’s sophisticated blending of fact and fiction, where her use of memory underscores its fluidity and its pivotal role in constructing identity. Her stories transcend self-referentiality, using autobiographical fragments to interrogate patriarchal structures, challenge cultural limitations, and critique the unreliability of memory. This research contributes to feminist literary criticism and autobiographical fiction studies by illuminating how Munro’s narratives use storytelling as a tool for sociocultural critique, personal reflection, and collective healing. The study emphasizes Munro’s distinct literary contribution in addressing the intersections of gender, memory, and identity, offering a fresh perspective on the transformative power of narrative.