Madness in English-Canadian Fiction - ub-dok - Universität Trier

More documents

Recommendations

Info

to by Duffy as "our certified madman"20, but the experience of a whole generation of Canadians. Set in 1763 it purports to describe the last of the Indian uprisings led by the famous chief Pontiac against the British forts of Detroit and Michilimackinac. The two forts Richardson describes are outposts of civilisation lost in a terrifying and alien wilderness, desperately defending the rituals of British culture. The only project seems to be to hold the fort, the symbol of British imperial conquest in the New World. Nature is in total opposition to culture and holds no possibility except nightmare. Civilisation itself, embodied in England and preserved nostalgically within the safe walls of the fort, is surrounded by a huge, unthinking, menacing and formidable wilderness, haunted by the Indians, the irrational children of nature. The forest formed, as it were, the gloomy and impenetrable walls of the prison house. It has no identity in its own right, it is pure projection - a psychological space that reflects the dark fears of the human mind. However, Wacousta's terror is not solely associated with nature, it is rather a feeling of menace from within civilised society as well as from without. The novel's main action grows out of Reginald Morton having, in Scotland some twenty-four years earlier, fallen in love with Clara Beverley. There he persuaded the maiden, whose misanthropic father raised her in a hidden oasis in the Highlands, to run away from the secluded eyrie, only to lose her to the envious rivalry of his deceitful friend and fellow soldier, De Haldimar, to whom she is eventually married. An idyllic order of sorts is thus shattered by treachery which leads to anguish and carnage on a grand scale in Canada where Morton and De Haldimar meet again. De Haldimar, widowed with three children, has meanwhile risen to become commanding officer of Fort Detroit. Morton on the other hand, having transported his enmity, originating in Europe, undiminished across the Atlantic, in his maniacal hatred of the husband and the family of the woman he loved, rejects the world of civilisation and sinks deeper and deeper into dementia until he not only becomes "a savage both in garb and character"21, but metamorphoses into the raging Ottawa chief, Wacousta. The course of his exile has thus led him to the frontier not only of civilisation, but also of morality and sanity, for not only does he adopt a new 'Native' self, his shifting of identities is also accompanied by a transformation from sanity to madness.22 20 Duffy, Dennis: Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada / Ontario.- Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1982.- p. 45 21 Richardson, John: Wacousta; or, the Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas.- Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991 [1832].p. 268 22 Klooß, Wolfgang: From Colonial Madness to Postcolonial Ex-centricity: A Story about Stories of Identity in Canadian Historio-graphic (Meta-)Fiction.- In: Engler, Berd; Müller, Kurt (eds.): Historiographic Metafiction in Modern 43
In all-consuming desire to be revenged for an ancient personal wrong done to him by De Haldimar, Wacousta's motive for siding with the Indian interests and with Pontiac, the great chief, and leading the Indians against the whites is above all personal vengeance. He is manipulating and using the Indians to serve his personal purpose. In Wacousta's mind, this past wrong justifies him in turning against the society in which h e was nurtured. The besieged fortress, commanded by the uneasy De Haldimar, therefore becomes the emblem of a civilisation troubled by a guilty conscience over its mistreatment of a noble and proud individual such as the former Sir Reginald Morton.23 And although Richardson creates sympathy for his gigantic outlaw, who is often depicted as a magnificent figure, a noble looking warrior and a fine fellow, he does not make him a wholly blameless figure. In his satanic defiance and rage he is still a villain, a "terrible warrior"24 with eyes that sparkle with "deep and ferocious"25 pleasure, whose presence commands increasing terror. The point is that in his metamorphosis he has gone too far. In his enormous hatred and obsession he has been driven to the outer bounds of rational experience. His lot shows us what happens when a child of nature, a free-spirited man, who exhibits an extraordinary capacity for strong feelings, transgresses the borders, when genteel surfaces are blotted out by dark and mad shadows: "[L]ove for the one and hatred for the other has rendered the savage you now behold."26 His incurable psychic wound has reduced him to the level of a creature possessed, a beast driven by a lust for evil and vengeance. He has become the embodiment of natural chaos. "Interestingly enough," as Klooß points out, "this transformation achieves a full effect only in a border situation, where civilisation, represented by the English garrison, and nature, which also comprises Pontiac's native tribes, have a disastrous encounter."27 Or as Wacousta himself states American and Canadian Literature.- Paderborn; München: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1994.- p. 63 23 MacLulich, T.D.: The Colonial Major: Richardson and Wacousta.- In: Essays on Canadian Writing 29 (1984).- p. 72 24 Richardson, John: Wacousta; or, the Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas.- Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991 [1832].p. 181 25 Richardson, John: Wacousta; or, the Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas.- Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991 [1832].p. 246 26 Ibid., p. 428 27 Klooß, Wolfgang: From Colonial Madness to Postcolonial Ex-centricity: A Story about Stories of Identity in Canadian Historio-graphic (Meta-)Fiction.- In: Engler, Berd; Müller, Kurt (eds.): Historiographic Metafiction in Modern American and Canadian Literature.- Paderborn; München: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1994.- In: p. 63 44
Page 2 and 3: Madness in English-Canadian Fiction
Page 4 and 5: Content 1. Introduction ...........
Page 6: 9.2.2 Deconstructing Reality: The A
Page 9 and 10: all literature, directly or by impl
Page 11 and 12: madness provide an informing princi
Page 13 and 14: more prone to going insane due to t
Page 15 and 16: moral corruption, God's punishment
Page 17 and 18: the treatment of those designated a
Page 19 and 20: would be able to cure them generate
Page 21 and 22: was merely part of a paternalist tr
Page 23 and 24: elements of his theory. Together wi
Page 25 and 26: withdraw from social contact and lo
Page 27 and 28: disembodied mind, which becomes the
Page 29 and 30: themselves. In transferring the bur
Page 31 and 32: madness may be a form in which "oft
Page 33 and 34: Another point of criticism which ha
Page 35 and 36: theory using linguistic and semiolo
Page 37 and 38: Extending Freud's theories now by i
Page 39 and 40: modes of psychic errancy in the flo
Page 41 and 42: Derrida makes a similar point on a
Page 43 and 44: context for the discussion of insan
Page 45 and 46: 3. Colonial Madness 3.1 The Chronic
Page 47 and 48: Both Moodie and her sister Catherin
Page 49: an important vehicle for the formul
Page 53 and 54: "you witness the destruction of you
Page 55 and 56: dangers of the environment at bay.
Page 57 and 58: with"2. In their effort to retain t
Page 59 and 60: is why all "discussion of the liter
Page 61 and 62: settlers remain spiritually alienat
Page 63 and 64: man. Blind with rage he tells her b
Page 65 and 66: inspect it, a Judith says, "to assu
Page 67 and 68: morality Grove is offering us inste
Page 69 and 70: Amundsen's farm is a model of human
Page 71 and 72: dinner; nothing but the turbines an
Page 73 and 74: women who were most often "trapped
Page 75 and 76: smother of dust upon his throat and
Page 77 and 78: Street mockery of his origins but a
Page 79 and 80: and I could feel it even on the pil
Page 81 and 82: I speak or laugh, and suddenly in m
Page 83 and 84: with mental health. Consequently, t
Page 85 and 86: especially when this assimilation l
Page 87 and 88: He had come, begging to know, to un
Page 89 and 90: horrified, into her death-glazed ey
Page 91 and 92: to Callaghan's explorations of the
Page 93 and 94: destruction of the innocent. This r
Page 95 and 96: quest, I agree with Pacey and McPhe
Page 97 and 98: 6. Madness as Escape 6.1. Madness a
Page 99 and 100: The necklace breaking, the hotly bl
Page 101 and 102:
that Flor's "cheeky outbursts, fit
Page 103 and 104:
the city to try and fill a prescrip
Page 105 and 106:
6.1.2 Margaret Laurence's "Horses o
Page 107 and 108:
He is ignoring his shrieking sister
Page 109 and 110:
The protagonist as he is presented
Page 111 and 112:
ather impressive in his awareness a
Page 113 and 114:
all that my family believes in. Whe
Page 115 and 116:
states that she "had never known an
Page 117 and 118:
I don't want to die an old fag alon
Page 119 and 120:
eing an outsider oneself. An aspect
Page 121 and 122:
who commits suicide shortly after i
Page 123 and 124:
6.2.2.4 "The Butterfly Ward" In the
Page 125 and 126:
collection of autobiographical acco
Page 127 and 128:
Great wits are sure to madness near
Page 129 and 130:
the soul, as an act of courage and
Page 131 and 132:
Inevitably it also happens that the
Page 133 and 134:
different responses to it. Sallie p
Page 135 and 136:
he breeds a freak strain out of "or
Page 137 and 138:
of Buddy Bolden is blended even mor
Page 139 and 140:
Bolden after he has run off in pani
Page 141 and 142:
vitiation of the sense of controlle
Page 143 and 144:
8. Women and Madness 8.1 Female Mad
Page 145 and 146:
essentially true for traditional Me
Page 147 and 148:
hysteria insofar as these monotonou
Page 149 and 150:
Nina Baym, taking a radically anti-
Page 151 and 152:
the age of five to seventeen - year
Page 153 and 154:
She recalls the family's trip acros
Page 155 and 156:
evisit the scene of her loss in an
Page 157 and 158:
Thus on the way to my grandfather's
Page 159 and 160:
Audrey Thomas is a good writer, but
Page 161 and 162:
my mother, and pledged that when I
Page 163 and 164:
most interesting and revealing as t
Page 165 and 166:
she has always strictly adhered. In
Page 167 and 168:
Rapunzel and the tower are the same
Page 169 and 170:
and Peter's subsequent hunting stor
Page 171 and 172:
"automatically, as though she was t
Page 173 and 174:
emotionally"146. Eating becomes "a
Page 175 and 176:
him as she has no-one else to turn
Page 177 and 178:
accommodation and a new lover, she
Page 179 and 180:
or shadow ego, which often leads to
Page 181 and 182:
she, who had already been split by
Page 183 and 184:
activities as an amateur archaeolog
Page 185 and 186:
left, they set up this barrier. The
Page 187 and 188:
does, as "no resurrection, but just
Page 189 and 190:
9. The Postmodernist Approach to Ma
Page 191 and 192:
deconstructing the structure of a w
Page 193 and 194:
egional.15 On the contrary, the pos
Page 195 and 196:
A popular misconception is that we
Page 197 and 198:
history. Near the novel's end Pierr
Page 199 and 200:
egarded as "Mr. Canadian Postmodern
Page 201 and 202:
who are into the whole notion of co
Page 203 and 204:
Eugene Utter, Hazard eventually tur
Page 205 and 206:
The narrator, who once guaranteed t
Page 207 and 208:
our common symbolisation of everyda
Page 209 and 210:
10. The Mad Worlds of Timothy Findl
Page 211 and 212:
Renalda and the strong and courageo
Page 213 and 214:
All family members are individually
Page 215 and 216:
Against the backdrop of a house con
Page 217 and 218:
Not in the least afraid of him, it
Page 219 and 220:
Living long after Robert's death, a
Page 221 and 222:
sham rhetoric that surrounds the wa
Page 223 and 224:
Asked by Margaret Laurence why the
Page 225 and 226:
She heard the crash upstairs and th
Page 227 and 228:
"What does it mean - to kill your c
Page 229 and 230:
So little was known and so much rum
Page 231 and 232:
milligrams."100 Above all, however,
Page 233 and 234:
them could be classified as dangero
Page 235 and 236:
made father suffers from impotence,
Page 237 and 238:
Wars, this sacrifice is portrayed i
Page 239 and 240:
front of his friend. While his word
Page 241 and 242:
more. Run until you drop. Run until
Page 243 and 244:
Whether the source for the picture
Page 245 and 246:
11. Concluding Remarks When dealing
Page 247 and 248:
a fashionable interest in the psych
Page 249 and 250:
Next to this approach we find the c
Page 251 and 252:
write each other's lives - by means
Page 253 and 254:
Findley, Timothy: Inside Memory: Pa
Page 255 and 256:
Thomas, Audrey: Real Mothers.- Vanc
Page 257 and 258:
Bart, Pauline: Portney's Mother's C
Page 259 and 260:
Böker, W and Häfner, H.: Gewaltta
Page 261 and 262:
Powerlessness/ ed. by Vivian Gornic
Page 263 and 264:
Davey, Frank: Alternate Stories: Th
Page 265 and 266:
Edelson, Marshall: Language and Int
Page 267 and 268:
Furst, Lilian R. & Skrine, Peter N.
Page 269 and 270:
Grove, Frederick Philip: It Needs t
Page 271 and 272:
Hutcheon, Linda (ed.): Double Talki
Page 273 and 274:
Keith, W.J.: Wild Geese: The Death
Page 275 and 276:
Landis, Carney (ed.): Varieties of
Page 277 and 278:
Mathews, Robin: Morley Callaghan an
Page 279 and 280:
Monkman, Leslie: Richardson's India
Page 281 and 282:
Pacey, Desmond: Fiction 1920-1940.-
Page 283 and 284:
Roffman, Peter; Purdy, Jim: The Hol
Page 285 and 286:
Shapiro, Laura: Perfection Salad: W
Page 287 and 288:
Stephens, J. H. et. al.: Long-term
Page 289 and 290:
Wachtel, Eleanor: The Guts of Mrs.
show all

Madness in English-Canadian Fiction - ub-dok - Universität Trier

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?