The Scots-Presbyterian Myth in the Novels of Ralph Connor and Sara Jeannette Duncan

Abstract

<p>Ralph Connor's The Man from Glengarry and Glengarry School Days and Sara Jeannette Duncan's The Imperialist provide two different interpretations of Canada's national destiny and the role of the.Scots-Presbyterians in determining that destiny. The concurrent study of these three novels, whose authors were contemporaries, provides insight into one of Canadian literature's most potent and popular myths. Few critics of these novels recognize the importance of the myth of the Scots as nation-builders and heroes. Consequently, the study of this myth is amply rewarding and deserves serious consideration.</p> <p>The Introduction provides a brief Canadian literary and historical context out of which the Scottish myth has grown. Chapter One traces the development of the Scots' myth in Ralph Connor's two novels of Glengarry and attaches specific importance to the role of the protagonist in The Man from Glengarry, Ranald Macdonald, in the manifestation of that myth. Chapter Two underlines in Sara Jeannette Duncan's The Imperialist a different estimation of the Scots' place in building the Dominion also with specific reference to the novel's protagonist, Lorne Murchison.</p>