Introduction

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Sonja Lehmann
ciated with blindness. For example, he is described as “a searcher gazing into the
darkness of his own country, a blind man dressing the heroine” (SL 157). Hence,
while his father once commented that the Finnish loggers of Patrick’s childhood
“don’t know where they are” (SL 133; emphasis in original), Patrick realizes only
through prolonged contact with the immigrant community in Toronto that they
know more about his native country than he does (SL 157). Knowledge of their
rich heritage additionally leads to his awareness that it is him who does not know
where he is (Heble, “Putting Together” 241; Schumacher 13). He is further associated
with blindness when he attempts to impress Clara by “blindfold[ed]” movement
(SL 79), is “guided” by Hana through the immigrant quarter (139) like a
blind man who needs to be lead and by his possession of a blind pet iguana (SL
83). All this clearly shows that Temelcoff is much better equipped to adjust to
their new situation whereas Patrick is overwhelmed when faced with similar situations.
Therefore, if Patrick’s and Temelcoff’s migrations are compared, Temelcoff’s
transnational connectedness allows him greater agency, whereas Patrick is
unable to act because he has no network to help him. In a subversive move, the
immigrant who is usually less advantaged is here portrayed as much better suited
to life in a country that is continually changing through technological advances
and immigration.
5.2.2. Transformative Spaces
In addition to their struggles with language and sight, Temelcoff and Patrick’s
movement towards transnational identities is also symbolized in the places and
spaces they occupy in the narrative. Many critics have noticed that there are highly
symbolic spaces in In the Skin of a Lion, which impact those who inhabit them
immensely (e.g. Criglington 137-38; Lowry 63-64; Mason 78; Siemerling 97;
Spearey 56; Stolar 132; Vauthier 76). The focus is often on the liminal character of
such spaces, and an example very often used to demonstrate such a space in the
novel is Union Station (Criglington 137-38; Lowry 63-64; Stolar 132).
Batia Stolar analyzes this in detail. When Patrick first comes to Toronto he
watches an immigrant who seems caught in the space of the station. The man
seems lost and unable to leave and when Patrick returns two days later, the immigrant
is still there, “still unable to move from his safe zone, in a different suit, as if
one step away was the quicksand of the new world” (SL 54). For this immigrant,
“’home’ [is] not in the immigrant communities but at – and in – the border” (Stolar
132) which “offers what no other place in the city can: a meeting point between
these two extremes”, that is between inside and outside (Stolar 132). This
makes Union Station a literal description of Bhabha’s third space. It is a space that
is neither here nor there but in-between, a boundary from which something new
can be created. And as correspondingly, “[s]omewhat paradoxically, the immi-