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Regions in time : Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The cure for death by lightning and Ann-Marie Macdonald’s Fall on your knees

University of British Columbia

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.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-07-08

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/10445

English

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace