Images of identity in feminist and immigrant Canadian literature – Interior landscapes of the self in Munro and Ricci

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

7 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

04/27/2009

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction
Emigration from Southern Italy
The first person perspective of Vittorio
Cristina's inability to deny or hide an affair
Vittorio's relationship with his mother
The contrast between Cristina's rebellion in Ricci's book and the complicated examination of gender position in Munro's fiction
Conclusion
Bibliography

Abstract

This paper will compare and contrast the authorial approach to coming-of-age narratives, and the formation of identities in two works of canadian fiction, Alice munro's Lives of Girls and Women and Nino ricci's Lives of the Saints. munro employs a first-person narrative that interweaves the voice of the child Del with the adult Del, as Del investigates the meaning of her own life in the context of experiences which are formative to her personal journey to become an artist. The style is one of an intermingling narrative of surface reality contrasted with private, creative and interior visions of imagined selves, as they intersect with landscape, literature and community. In contrast, ricci's book is written from the first person point of view of Vittorio, a boy growing up in rural Italy in the late 50s and early 60s. Also told in the first person, the novel is largely concerned with Vittorio's mother's relationship to her village, and the growing sense of alienation she feels as her values digress from those of the closed community she has grown up in. Both books contrast gender stereotypes to actual lived experiences, such as Vitorrio's sensitivity and interiority and Del's ferocious independence. This paper will look at the rise of feminist and immigrant literatures as new forms of writing in canadian literature.