This thesis examines the methods through which Gail Anderson-Dargatz and Ann-Marie
MacDonald construct region in their novels The Cure for Death by Lightning and Fall on
Your Knees. These texts, like all successful regional novels, describe more than
geography. Their regions are also functions of time. I introduce the term "temporal
region" to describe the spaces created by this interdependence of time and place. I then
focus upon the specifics of descriptive and narrative approach that lead to the convincing
portrayal of the Shuswap and Cape Breton Island in the texts. Anderson-Dargatz and
MacDonald direct attention to the foddways of their regions, expressing the connection
between consumption choices and a society's historical and physical location. The authors
also articulate their regions by highlighting cultural diversity in the areas they describe. In
this way they deny the social homogeneity more sentimental regional texts often rely upon.
Finally, the novelists use an appropriately Canadian method of regional opposition to
define their temporal regions according to that which they are not ~ they are not
American, glamorous, or urban. They therefore must be Canadian, quotidian, and rural.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10445 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Lewis, Tanya |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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