The Island Motif in the Fiction of L. M. Montgomery, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, and Other C

Islands, both literal and figurative, recur in fiction authored by many prominent Canadian women writers. Using a critical lens based on Northrop Frye and Julia Kristeva, this book closely examines fourteen novels by eight twentieth-century authors, emphasizing works by L. M. Montgomery, Margaret Laurence, and Margaret Atwood. Several of the novels, such as Montgomery’s <I>Anne of Green Gables</I>, Laurence’s <I>A Jest of God</I> and <I>The Diviners</I>, Atwood’s <I>Surfacing</I> and <I>Bodily Harm</I>, Alice Munro’s <I>The Lives of Girls and Women</I>, and Gabrielle Roy’s <I>The Tin Flute</I>, are among Canada’s most well-known. Some of the works discussed present the island as a redemptive retreat, but in most cases the island’s role is ambiguous, ranging from a temporary respite from life’s pressures to a nightmarish trap.