Surfacing: A Modern Canadian Novel

Name of Author : R Deepa, Dr. P Ravi Kumar

Abstract: The Canadian novel in sixties chose its own catchment area of experience as did the earlier novel. This period may be identified with the flowering of experimental fiction, regional fiction, feminist fiction, satiric fiction, childhood fiction and popular fiction. Atwood’s popular text Surfacing is a guide to modern Canadian literature, is also an indicator of her own stance as an artist. Her basic theme of alienation and exploitation in terms of women and nature is reflected through her female characters in almost all her fiction. Surfacing present the women in a predicament where escape, not reconciliation or subjugation, is the answer. In Surfacing the commitment of the women to reclaim themselves, verges on the hysteric, sometimes even neurotic. Atwood underlines man vs woman, isolation, psychological pressures, escape, return to her/ his world in philosophical frame work. This paper is an attempt to explore typical nature of Modern Canadian novel.

Keywords : Regional Fiction, Feminist Fiction, Experimental Fiction, Escape, Philosophical

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