A Critical Discourse Analysis of Otherness and The Abject in Alice Munro's "Dimensions" and "Child's Play"

Abstract: This thesis is aimed at investigating the concepts of otherness and the abject/abjection in the various characters' discourses in the two short stories "Dimensions" and "Child's Play" in Alice Munro's collection Too Much Happiness from a psychoanalytic perspective in conjunction with a Critical Discourse Analysis. Both texts share features of otherness which manifest in various forms in the characters. In "Dimensions" otherness has to do with insanity, domestic terror, and self-alienation in a dysfunctional marriage, whereas in "Child's Play" it concerns children's othering of a disabled young girl which eventually leads to her death. What both stories also show is that certain characters experience a sense of abjection or can be seen as embodying the abject, which eventually make them commit murder. Moreover, this thesis also argues that certain characters in both stories attempt to control and manipulate the course of events in both narratives even retrospectively. A psychoanalytical approach based on Jacques Lacan's and Julia Kristeva's theoretical framework in conjunction with Norman Fariclough's Critrical Discourse Analysis serve as the basis for this investigation.