Abstract:

“What is Remembered” is a short story written by Alice Munro who is a famous Canadian writer. It successfully creates Meryl's vivid image. It describes a woman's love and marriage, which is the essence of pursuing the perfect happiness. Different people have different marriages; different marriages have different feelings, and different feelings have different tastes. As an ordinary woman, Meryl 's life, love, and marriage are also different. First, the paper gives a brief introduction to the author. Second, it discusses Meryl's pursuit of love, showing Meryl from wife and mother to the middle aged and elderly, then analyze her in the several stages of language change, and psychological changes in her struggle of the trivial life. Based on the above analysis, it is concluded that she has desires and regrets, strength and weakness, and she is seemingly fragile but tenacious. Meryl’s pursuit for happiness reflects her expression towards equality between men and women. The theme of the story can be summarized as: love, marriage.

Keywords: Alice Munro; What is Remembered; Meryl; love & marriage; desires & regrets

摘要：

“留存的记忆”是加拿大女作家门罗的短篇小说集《爱情，婚姻，恨，友谊，追求》中的一篇小说。该小说成功地塑造了平凡女性梅丽尔的生动形象，集中描写了她的婚姻生活。爱情，婚姻的本质是追求幸福的完美。不同的人上演着不同的婚姻，不同的婚姻有不同的感受，不同的感受有不同的滋味。平凡女性梅丽尔的生活，爱情及婚姻生活也是不同的。本篇论文首先对艾丽丝•门罗小说“留存的记忆”的主要内容，故事情节等作简要的介绍，紧接着着重探讨梅丽尔从人妻与人母，再过度到中年与老年的历程，然后分析她在这几个阶段中的语言变化，以及最后在琐碎生活中挣扎的心理变化，最后基于以上分析得出结论：矛盾心理的双重性格。她有着欲望和遗憾，有着强大和软弱之处，以及由此而来的身心负重，细到入微，又复杂难解，看似脆弱却又坚韧顽强，表现出梅丽尔这位女性在追求爱情方面有超越时代性。人物环境与追求的落差与冲突，使她受到了深刻的影响。这篇小说的主题可以概括为：爱情，婚姻。

关键词：门罗，“留存的记忆”，梅丽尔，爱情婚姻，欲望和遗憾，

1 Introduction
1.1 Something about the author
The short story “What is remembered” has been well received by readers all over the world since it was published in 2001. She is one of the most excellent Canadian short story writers and novelists. Munro is known as the "Canadian Chekhov" and "contemporary master of short stories". In some way her characters are not Chekhovian in that they change their lives passively. Munro describes values of the common ordinary people, often revealing in the process hidden meanings and personal tragedies. Most of her stories deal with the lives of ordinary women.