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Runaway Alice Munro Analysis

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Different Aspects of Life
The story, “Runaway”, written by Alice Munro, suggests how human beings try to escape from their problems when they cannot manage them. The story tells how a girl in a bad marriage who unable to deal with it runs from the situation but later came back, refuses a chance of escape from her abusive husband. Even the goat Flora who cannot be fully tamed as an animal runs away and Carla is described as a girl who wants the attention from her husband that she does not get and runs away from him. Carla’s nature is like the goat Flora because they both escape from their situations. Munro shows parallels between Flora and Carla, which argues that Flora’s behavior mirrors Carla’s relationship with Clark.
To begin with, “At first she had been Clark’s pet entirely, following him everywhere, dancing for his attention. She was quick and graceful and proactive as kitten, and her resemblance to a guileless girl in love had made them both laugh” (Munro 434) shows that when Flora was young she was close to Clark, follows him everywhere. Thereby situating the behavior of Carla which is like Flora when she was young and first left home. Carla was “giddy delight” (453) on spending “more authentic kind of life” (454) with Clark and decided to run away with him from her parents as “she had fallen in love with him” (449). She was impressed by his good looks and the works he had done in his life. Clark suggested that “Flora might have just gone off to find herself a billy” (439). Similarly, Carla’s escape with Clark indicates parallelism between Flora and Carla as they both escape to find a partner for them.
Furthermore, “Goats are unpredictable, Clark said. They can seem tame but they’re not really. Not after they grow up” (460). According to Clark not only animals but human beings also cannot be fully tamed. Flora was “Clark’s pet entirely” (434) “but as she grew older she seemed to attach herself to Carla, and in this attachment she was suddenly much wiser, less-skittish- she seemed capable, instead, of a subdued and ironic sort of humor” (434). Similarly, at the very first Carla was impressed with Clark. “Clark was very smart but he hadn’t waited even to

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