A Lacanian Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Alice Munro’s Who Do You Think You Are?

Abstract

The short story collection Who Do You Think You Are? by Canadian writer Alice Munro, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013. It takes the heroine's pursuit of who am I as the mainline, shows the complex psychological changes and living conditions of female characters in different stages and circumstances, and reflects that the construction of female identity is a continuous process of constantly understanding, adjusting, and surpassing ego. Lacanian psychoanalysis takes the subject as the core and connects the subject, the other, and desire through the framework of the Imaginary Order, the Symbolic Order, and the Real Order. Only through the resistance and struggle of the subject can we break the confusion of the subject's illusion in the Imaginary Order and the multiple suppression of the other and desire in the Symbolic Order, and finally find the true ego. This essay analyzes Munro's deep thinking on women's problem, which is that women should hold a positive psychology and development vision to complete identity construction and establish a harmonious and beautiful life community in modern society.