Challenging Canada: Dialogism and Narrative Techniques in Canadian NovelsIn Challenging Canada Gabriele Helms examines novels by Jeannette Armstrong, Joy Kogawa, Daphne Marlatt, Sky Lee, Aritha van Herk, Thomas King, and Margaret Sweatman. As resistance literature, these novels question the idea of a homogeneous Canadian culture based on the idea of "a peaceable kingdom." Helms shows how narrative techniques can contribute to or impede a text's challenges to hegemonic discourses and social injustices; novels become valuable sources for cultural studies because cultural experiences are translated into and meanings are produced by their narrative forms.Challenging Canada is the first book-length study to bring a Bakhtinian approach to bear on Canadian literature. Gabriele Helms develops a cultural narratology to argue that the contemporary Canadian novels in English considered in this book challenge dominant constructions of Canada from positions of difference and resistance, inscribing previously oppressed and silenced voices through dialogic relations. She makes Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of dialogism amenable to textual analysis and problematizes its ideological forces by emphasizing elements of struggle and conflict. Challenging Canada rejects dialogism as a normative liberal pluralism and understands the inequality between voices as historically and socially constructed. |
Contents
Dialogism Cultural Narratology and Contemporary Canadian Novels Whats the Point? | 3 |
Dialogism Yesterdays Fave Rave or Opportunity for Critical Intervention? | 19 |
Storying Family History Joy Kogawas Obasan and Sky Lees Disappearing Moon Cafe | 32 |
Processes of Unreading in Daphne Marlatts Ana Historic and Aritha van Herks Places Far from Ellesmere | 66 |
Critiquing the Choice That Is Not One Jeannette Armstrongs Slash and Thomas Kings Green Grass Running Water | 99 |
Is Difficulty Impolite? The Performative in Margaret Sweatmans Fox | 125 |
Writing into the Page Ahead | 145 |
Notes | 155 |
179 | |
207 | |
Other editions - View all
Challenging Canada: Dialogism and Narrative Techniques in Canadian Novels Gabriele Helms Limited preview - 2003 |
Challenging Canada: Dialogism and Narrative Techniques in Canadian Novels Gabriele Helms No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Ana Historic Anna Anna Karenin Annie Aritha van Herk Bakhtin becomes Bloody Saturday Canada Canadian literature challenge characters Chinese Canadian chronotope constructions context Coyote critics cultural narratology describes dialogic relations Disappearing Moon Cafe discourse discussion documents dominant double-voiced Edberg Eleanor Ellesmere Island Emily's essays example explore expose family history feminist fiction focus Fong Mei gender genres geografictione Green Grass Herk Herk's heteroglossia historiographic metafiction ideological immigration Indians interaction Japanese Canadians Kae's Kogawa language literary MacDougal Marlatt Mikhail Bakhtin monologic Mui Lan multiple Naomi narratology narrator narrator's notion Obasan oral parody perspective political polyphonic question quotation reader reading resistance role Running Water sections silence Sky Lee Slash social speech story storytelling strategies strike struggle suggests Suzie Suzie's Sweatman theory tion tive Toronto un/read University Press Vancouver voices Winnipeg Winnipeg General Strike woman women Wong family words writing