This project evaluates the work of Canadian author and playwright Ann-Marie Macdonald in the context of links between ecocritical, feminist and post-colonial perspectives; it seeks to understand how broader definitions for gender provide an alternative to the patriarchal binaries that limit both individual and national identities. Part of the Canadian conscious is an anxiety that questions not only the way difference impacts their culture, but also how these differences speak to a lack of a homogenized national identity. This study focuses on Macdonalds novels Fall on Your Knees (1996) and The Way the Crow Flies (2003) , in order to examine histories that have traditionally been excluded, stories outside of colonial, and later, national rhetoric. Macdonald exhumes these stories, elevating womens voices, in particular, to reveal the danger of limiting visions of personal identity. These identities, particularly national identities, implicitly reflect deeply imbedded, and often disregarded, relationships with our natural environment. Thus, national and individual identities are inseparable from ecological concerns. Fall on Your Knees uses the image and context of gardens as a means of discovery, particularly in imaging the history of colonial settlement. The Way the Crow Flies continues this work to explore the impact of modernity and the continued policies of categorization and, subsequently, subjugation. Modern visions for land development and industrialization inform perspectives about place and selfhood as landscapes experienced a form of colonization that revised definitions for natural and unnatural spaces. These definitions are similar to those for male and female, which have traditionally place the latter in a subjugate position. The inscription of femininity parallels that of the land, its traumas providing an important collusion between land and people. It is this papers contention that Macdonald uses her stories to destabilize male/female binaries and, ultimately, suggest an alternative to restrictive identities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-07022010-072448 |
| Date | 05 August 2010 |
| Creators | Hammond, Yvonne Michelle |
| Contributors | Prof. Eric Reimer, Prof. David Moore, Prof. Ann Wright |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-07022010-072448/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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