Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye is the non-chronological story of Elaine Risley’s life, told in her voice through vignette flashbacks as she reminisces on her life, preparing for a retrospective of her work as an artist in Toronto.
Atwood explores the fractured Canadian identity both through the protagonist’s binary mode of viewing the world, and through the opposing Canadian landscapes on which the story is set. As Goldblatt states, Atwood’s “protagonists' early days are situated in a virtual Garden of Eden setting, replete with untamed natural environments. Exploring shorelines, gazing at stars, gathering rocks, and listening to waves, they are solitary souls, but not lonely individuals: innocent, curious, and affable creatures. Elaine Risley in Cat's Eye. recall[s] idyllic days unfolded in a land of lakes, berries, and animals” which stands in stark contrast to the landscapes of her later life (275). The transformation of the Risley family’s lifestyle – abandoning a transient, rural life for a sedentary, suburban home – marks the beginning of Elaine’s self-alienation from those deemed to be “the other.” As a result, the city itself elicits strong emotions from her: “The fact is that I hate this city. I’ve hated it so long I can hardly remember feeling any other way about it. Toronto was never dull, for me. Dull isn’t a word you’d use to describe such misery, and enchantment” (14). The division of self and the separation of protagonist from nature is also paralleled in Elaine’s later life, when she chooses to relocate to Vancouver to escape the confines of Toronto: “It’s the city I need to leave as much as Jon, I think. It’s the city that’s killing me. I buy us tickets to Vancouver, which has the advantage of being warm, or so...
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...inally evolved beyond believing human interaction relies upon us-or-them relationships, defined by the alignment with or rebellion against one of the two genders by its participants.
Similarly, Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion examines the fractured identity of Canada as a whole through the lens of his protagonist’s binary world view and migration across geographical spaces.
As Lehmann states, “Ondaatje’s fiction has been characterized by a concern for the lives of migrants. More precisely, it predominantly focuses on the questions of identity that result from the characters’ migrations” (281). For Ondaatje, the intranational migration of Patrick Lewis from the rural Canadian landscape to urban Toronto, and the binary view of the wealthy and poor classes he finds there, are parallels to the political and social conflicts present within the country at large.
This article study will define the important aspects of space and racial identity that are defined through Canadian Constitutional law in “When Place Becomes Race” by Sherene H. Razack. Razack (2002) the historical premise of a “white settler society” as the foundation for spatial hierarchies in the Canadian society, which reflect a racial divide in the community. The white settler society was based on the Anti-Terrorism Act, within Canadian law, which reflects the post-9/11 culture of the Canadian government that has become racialized in the early portion of the 21st century. Razack utilizes the important method of “unmapping” to reconstruct the racial histories that
Quebec’s social identity and defining characteristics contradict and conflict with those of rest of Canada. Since the genesis of our country, the political, social disagreements, and tensions between Quebec and the rest of Canada have been unavoidable. Utilizing Hiller’s key contradictions in the analysis of a Canadian society, we will compare and contrast the nature of the societal identity in Quebec compared to that of rest of Canada, emphasising on the major differences and tensions between the province and the rest of the country.
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
Moving from the unpleasant life in the old country to America is a glorious moment for an immigrant family that is highlighted and told by many personal accounts over the course of history. Many people write about the long boat ride, seeing The Statue of Liberty and the “golden” lined streets of New York City and how it brought them hope and comfort that they too could be successful in American and make it their home. Few authors tend to highlight the social and political developments that they encountered in the new world and how it affected people’s identity and the community that they lived in. Authors from the literature that we read in class highlight these developments in the world around them, more particularly the struggles of assimilating
I will compare the sisters background briefly to show their temperament before coming to Canada. I will discuss how choices made shaped both the sisters initial success and failure to Upper Canada. Finally, I will compare the differences in the sisters attitudes and how it is reflected in both their books.
...urnal of Black Canadian Studies 1.1 (2006): 1-4. Book Review: What We All Long For. Random House, Fall 2006. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. .
Asian’s and Black’s struggle with the legacies of cruelty which in turn has reduced the value of human life to dust—the residue from refugee, slavery, and loss; all ties in together as we view souls who live in such a colorful place, but who originally viewed the world as black and white. Toronto embodies 2.5 million faces with many of whom originate from various places of the worl...
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.
Many people to this day still do not have a collective agreement on what is the Canadian identity? Depending whom you ask you may get a wide variety of answer spanning the spectrum of possibilities, more so now, than at any point of the history of our nation. This essay will investigate how Pierre Elliott Trudeau found himself as a Canadian, and will demonstrate how it is his surroundings in which he immersed himself that shaped who he became. It is only later in his life that he truly discovered himself as well as his identity. Through the use of John English's biography as our primary reference we will investigate the development in Trudeau's character as he becomes older and experiences turning points in his life.
Canada likes to paint an image of peace, justice and equality for all, when, in reality, the treatment of Aboriginal peoples in our country has been anything but. Laden with incomprehensible assimilation and destruction, the history of Canada is a shameful story of dismantlement of Indian rights, of blatant lies and mistrust, and of complete lack of interest in the well-being of First Nations peoples. Though some breakthroughs were made over the years, the overall arching story fits into Cardinal’s description exactly. “Clearly something must be done,” states Murray Sinclair (p. 184, 1994). And that ‘something’ he refers to is drastic change. It is evident, therefore, that Harold Cardinal’s statement is an accurate summarization of the Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationship in
... a border be it physical or psychological. Examining both novels as well as doing secondary research into the Canadian border, will also help in understanding Canadian identity. A deep analysis of the two novels will also overcome the constellations of the symbolic imagery that is narration which will dramatize semantics of belonging, loss, and absence that is within the definite of the historically bound and personal context of Canadian experience.
Finally in Cat’s Eye, the cat’s eye marble does appear in the last painting, (Unified Field Theory,430), which depicts the Virgin of Lost Things holding the marble in front of her, in the place where the cold little girl had once seen a red heart (200). Beneath her is the ‘night sky’, but Elaine explains that the darkness hides all the things that are there as well, things in the ‘underside of the ground’ (431). The last painting is in other words, a depiction of darkness. What the Virgin and the marble she holds represent is Elaine’s recovery of her memory of the dark time of her childhood and also of the value of seeing that darkness.
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.
Perhaps one of the biggest issues foreigners will come upon is to maintain a strong identity within the temptations and traditions from other cultures. Novelist Frank Delaney’s image of the search for identity is one of the best, quoting that one must “understand and reconnect with our stories, the stories of the ancestors . . . to build our identities”. For one, to maintain a firm identity, elderly characters often implement Chinese traditions to avoid younger generations veering toward different traditions, such as the Western culture. As well, the Chinese-Canadians of the novel sustain a superior identity because of their own cultural village in Vancouver, known as Chinatown, to implement firm beliefs, heritage, and pride. Thus in Wayson Choy’s, The Jade Peony, the novel discusses the challenge for different characters to maintain a firm and sole identity in the midst of a new environment with different temptations and influences. Ultimately, the characters of this novel rely upon different influences to form an identity, one of which being a strong and wide elderly personal
Thomas King’s Borders portrays the limitations placed on native people in both Canada and the United States. Although multiculturalism is a celebrated trait of both countries, there are limits to the extent which one is able to display personal identity. In the story, the mother is prevented from identifying herself as a Blackfoot woman and instead must decide which broad category she fits into: American or Canadian. The story highlights the difficulty of being forced to conform to the social and cultural norms that one must in order to call oneself a citizen. The Canadian and United States, borders symbolize the restrictions that the government places on minority groups, such as the Blackfoot nation. King’s narrative reveals that governments