Abstract:

Nettles is one of short stories in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage(2001) which was written by Alice Munro. The author uses Nettles as the title of the story. As implied by the narrator of this story, life is like the nettle, and the nettle will stab the person who encounter it black and blue all over. The novel has double themes, the explicit one and the implicit one. On the one hand, an awareness of the meaning of love is the explicit theme. On the other hand, the confusion of the middle-aged woman is the implicit one. The narrator has been in a complex emotion of hesitation, regret, confusion, compromise, revolt. We can see that the harmony between men and women, social and legal development is the key for women to get out of confusion from the historical experience of the feminist movement.

Keywords: Nettles; Double themes; Feminism; Feminist movement

摘  要：

《荨麻》选自2001年爱丽丝•门罗《憎恨，友谊，追求，爱情，婚姻》。作者用用荨麻作为小说的题目，正如小说的主人公所暗示的：生活就像荨麻，会把碰到的人刺得遍体鳞伤。小说有双重主题，一个是显性主题另一个是隐性的。一方面，意识到爱的含义是它的显性主题。另一方面，一个中年妇女的困惑则是它的隐性主题。主人公一直处于犹豫、后悔、困惑、妥协、反抗这种错综复杂的情感中。我们可以从女权运动的历史经验中看出男女和谐、社会和法律的共同发展是女性走出困惑的关键。

关键词：荨麻；双重主题；女性主义；女权运动

1 Introduction
   Alice Munro is a Canadian short-story writer. She is known as contemporary Chekhov and she also has a name of the master of the contemporary short story. She won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. Munro’s work deals with love and work, and the frustration of both. Although her writing techniques are simple and plain, she narrates dull and true life in detail. Alice Munro does not think that she is a feminist, but there is a feminist narratology style in her writing. The feminist narratology, as the name implies, is the product of the combination of the feminism and the structural narratology. In this kind of narratology, paying attention to the women’s voices is the unique critical point of the feminist narratology. She uses a very pure feminist perspective to observe and describe this world, the male in her works are just supporting roles and their presence is to show women’s marital status, the way of their thinking and their mental status. In her works, Alice Munro always talks about varieties of mental pressure of the Canadian female, their self-reflection and their efforts to pursue the spiritual survival in the modern materialistic consumption society, by using unique insight of the female.