Reading Canada biblically: A study of biblical allusion and the construction of nation in contemporary Canadian writing

This is a study of the use of biblical allusion by Canadian thematic critics of the 1960s and '70s and by Canadian novelists writing in the 1990s and following. It examines the manner in which Canada has been constructed through such allusions over the last four decades. In doing this it addresses, from a new perspective, several issues that have long been relevant to the study of literature in Canada, including the definition of "Canadian" and the related importance of nationalism.; The argument is ordered around four central biblical events (Creation, the Deluge, the Incarnation, and the Crucifixion) and the related concerns of the creation of Canada, cultural survival against the deluge from elsewhere, the Messiah of Canadian culture, and the writer's relation to the social body. The texts considered include writings of critics D. G. Jones, Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, and Dennis Lee, and these more recent novels: Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey, and Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost.; The juxtaposition of these writers and their allusions reveals a trend, wherein the nationalist vision of the thematic critics is reflected in an affinity for the biblical paradigm---construed as a narrative of paradise lost and regained---while the ambivalent allusions of contemporary novelists complicate this vision. Chapter Two explores the manner in which Thomas King's novel undermines the creation (and ongoing existence) of Canada by drawing attention to the First Nations who predate the arrival of colonizers and critics with their national dreams (such as D. G. Jones's Edenic vision). Chapter Three contrasts Yann Martel's hyperbolic praise of Canadian multiculturalism with the depiction, in Life of Pi, of the ongoing struggle for cultural survival within the nation, in comparison to Margaret Atwood's identification of the threat from without. Chapter Four explores the extent to which immigrants participate in the incarnation of what Northrop Frye called the Messiah of Canadian culture through an analysis of Rohinton Mistry's writing. Chapter Five considers the continuing influence of models of artistic truth akin to Dennis Lee's civil authenticity by exploring the ethical dimension of Anil's Ghost and its reception.