The Northern Novel in Canadian Fiction

Abstract

<p>Leslie Fiedler formulates the genre of the northern novel for the fiction of the United states, and his ideas of north are basically satisfactory for a consideration of the northern novel in Canadian fiction. Canada is, geographically, a more northern country than the United States, however, and the physical and psychological influences of the north upon man are more intense in Canada. The northern experience in Canada requires special consideration from a Canadian point of view.</p> <p>In Chapter One, I bring together the ideas of north proposed by Fiedler, W. L. Morton, Frederick Philip Grove, and certain members of the Group of Seven in an attempt to define "north" in Canada as a "way of thought" as well as a place. Out of the discussions of these selected critics emerge both a composite "idea of north", and a broad definition of the northern novel in Canada. The northern novel seems to possess, fairly consistently, the following qualities of the northern experience: a hostile natural environment, threatening man physically with death or psychologically with fear and repression, or both, a sense of the cyclical rhythm of existence--through both the seasons and the relationship between the city and the wilderness--and a response to the wildernesses through either stoic endurance or warm affirmation of the human community. Only those who strive, through love and selfless action, towards this latter, unitive sense of community achieve justification for their pain and their struggles.</p> <p>Chapter Two involves the application of this theory of the northern novel to fiction set in a domestic scene. Central characters may be apparent, but the community and the family are the human forces engaged in the struggles with the hostile environment and, sometimes, within the social group itself. Since the novels are domestic, they understandably conclude with some affirmation of the community.</p> <p>In Chapter Three, I apply the theory of the northern novel to fiction concerned with the individual's struggle) with the north. This chapter, more particularly than Chapter Two, reveals the pain of living alone in the north, and emphasizes the necessity of outgoing love and selflessness for survival.</p>