Alice Munro’s Take on Canadian Landscape in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Robert Thacker’s article Reading North Through the One-Way Mirror: Canadian Literature, the Canadian Literary Institution, and Alice Munro presents an American reading on various subjects found Canadian literature. Amongst numerous subjects discussed in the article, Thacker mentioned Canadian landscapes numerous times. Using novels such as Timothy Findley’s The Wars, he described the importance put by Canadian authors on the landscape through their descriptions of sceneries. The author elucidates how this makes it harder for American reviewers to understand the Canadian point of view, “whether through ignorance or often, disdain or indifference” …show more content…
The novel’s author, although Ontarian to the core, makes a point of bringing the importance and significance of Natives’ presence in the prairies, thus bringing the readers through a geographical journey, from the prairies through the Canadian Shield and, to conclude, into the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Ontario. He does not only bring a focus to the geographic landscape of Canada but, by bringing natives into the story’s narrative, he brings forward a lesser known historical aspect of Canada into the limelight which is salient to understand the cultural background of the country in the narrative. By doing so, it is helping the readers get submerged into the story and appreciating it even further. Other stories stated in the article reflecting Canadian Landscapes are MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, capturing the city of Montreal, and copious of Alice Munro’s stories, which captures Ontario, alike Findley, but in a different light based on her own personal experience. Alice Munro’s presence in the article is, in part, due to where her stories are inspired from. She writes …show more content…
This could be based on where Alice Munro draws her inspiration from; where she lived as a child. For example, where a majority of the storyline happens the “[trade] was moving out to the highway, where there was a new discount store and a Canadian Tire and a motel with a lounge and topless dancers” (Munro 13). Large cities are not known for businesses losing their clientele over a Canadian Tire opening next to a highway. Gdynia, another significant town in the narrative, is a town in rural Saskatchewan. The municipality was described in Johanna’s narration has having “[no] sidewalk or paved streets, no imposing buildings except a big church like a brick barn” (40). Going back to the article, small towns comparable to Gdynia or prairie provinces such as Saskatchewan are not known by the international readership, yet they are an essential part of Canada’s literature. By using Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage as an example, it is easy to comprehend how someone with no knowledge of Canada’s geography would have trouble understanding this story with general
Apart from the novel's thematic development, McCarthy's setting and his detailed description of the ornate beauty of the desert southwest is deserving of praise. A lyrical quality and refined beauty are apparent in the novel's description. McCarthy's extended accounts of the pristine beauty of the desert can be seen as an artistic and visually appealing piece work apart from the plot of the novel. Such memorable accounts seem to be a lone highlight in a shockingly disturbing book (Moran 37).
Eden Robinson’s short story “Terminal Avenue” presents readers with the dystopian near-future of Canada where Indigenous people are subjugated and placed under heavy surveillance. The story’s narrator, Wil, is a young Aboriginal man who struggles with his own inner-turmoil after the suicide of his father and his brother’s subsequent decision to join the ranks of the Peace Officers responsible for “adjusting” the First Nations people. Though “Terminal Avenue” takes place in Vancouver there are clear parallels drawn between the Peace Officers of Robinson’s imagination and the Canadian military sent to enforce the peace during the stand-off at Oka, Quebec in 1990. In writing “Terminal Avenue” Robinson addresses the armed conflict and proposes
McQuade, Donald, ed. The Harper American Literature. Harper & Row Publishers: New York, 1987, pp. 1308-1311. This paper is the property of NetEssays.Net Copyright © 1999-2002
Moss, John. Sex and Violence in the Canadian Novel. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
Thompson, John Herd, and Mark Paul Richard. "Canadian History in North American Context." In Canadian studies in the new millennium. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 37-64.
Connie Fife is a Saskatchewan, Cree poet who writes using her unique perspective, telling of her personal experiences and upbringing. This perspective is revealed to her audience through the poems “This is not a Metaphor”, “I Have Become so Many Mountains”, and “She Who Remembers” all of which present a direct relationship to her traditional background and culture (Rosen-Garten, Goldrick-Jones 1010). To show the relationship of her experiences through her poetry, Fife uses the form of dramatic monologue, as well as modern language and literal writing to display themes about racism presenting her traditional viewpoint to her audience.
The monotony of life has waged war against the narrator in Alice Munro’s “Miles City, Montana.” The author depicts the narrator as a brittle woman in search of a personal identity among a community of conformity. This battle between domestic responsibility and personal satisfaction reeks havoc on the soldier of this mother and wife. Munro is a master of characterization, and through the protagonist she depicts the complexities of human nature.
Regionalism is a political ideology based on a collective sense of place or attachment, and is discussed in terms of Canadian society, culture, economy and politics (Westfall, 3). Canada is known internationally as a nation incorporating several multiregional interests and identities into its unification of culture. Its diverse population is comprised of numerous ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations and traditions; and all resides under one federal government. Ever since the founding of Canada, it has developed into regional cleavages and identities, based on various geographical topologies, lifestyles and economic interests (Westfall, 6). It is these characteristics which make it problematic for the federal government to represent all demands of its people on a national level. Regionalism is thus an issue within regards to political proficiency in the Federal government.
Filewood, Alan. “National Battles: Canadian Monumental Drama and the Investiture of History.” In Modern Drama. 38. (Spring 1995) 71-86
“The World Looks North." The Canada Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. (Primary Website)
Artistic ideals in Canada are often difficult to combine into one concise understanding given their changing nature. The colonial era as well as the late nineteenth century was significantly shaped by Pastoralism, a style that often depicted paintings of the countryside (Davis 36). The Homer Watson painting, After the Rain in 1883 is a pastoral style that depicts “nature reach[ing] its highest stage of picturesque beauty [that only occurs] when forests [have] been cleared, meadows or fields created or cultivated and farms established” (36). After the Rain shows a farmer’s field, where the land has been cleared of trees following what looks to be a major storm (38). Watson represents early Canada by placing emphasis on a secure, eerily comfortable, agrarian based society in a photographic-like piece of work. Homer Watson believed in his w...
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
Bennet, P.; Cornelius J.; and Brune, N. Canada: A North American Nation. Second Edition ed. Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1995.
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” there is a time line in a young girl’s life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind to become a woman. The story depicts hardships in which the protagonist and her younger brother, Laird, experience in order to find their own rite of passage. The main character, who is nameless, faces difficulties and implications on her way to womanhood because of gender stereotyping. Initially, she tries to prevent her initiation into womanhood by resisting her parent’s efforts to make her more “lady-like”. The story ends with the girl socially positioned and accepted as a girl, which she accepts with some unease.