The novel is a prolongation to the renewal of life in the self of the nameless narrator. She is separated into two parts owing to the raging conflict within. One part exists on the visible world. Another part is buried under the surface. One part she says about her relationships with her ex husband, her lover Joe, David and Anna her friends who are known to her recently consist of one separate self. On the other part, the direct encounter of her father’s corpse leads onto the surfacing from death into renewal of life. The shock of seeing the apparition in the lake marks the end of one phase of the narrator’s initiation. The second gift from her mother completes a second stage. After the narrator sees what she thinks is her father’s body, she
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During this time alone, she experiences the rituals and powers of the wilderness surrounding her home. Her whole world becomes alive with forces that are powerful. She finally sees a vision of her father who has been transformed into one of the creatures of the cave drawings. If the first phase of her initiation is recognition and remembering, the second phase is reconciliation in which she comes to accept her parents, their lives, their humanness and their deaths. The result of her days of solitude is her acceptance of her own power. This is the bonus with which she returns from her …show more content…
She sheds all she has acquired from society and lives alone. She lives like a wild beast on roots. She returns to a conscious beyond her rational ‘self’. She hopes that her unborn child will be the first true human. She has a vision of her father in which he realizes that he is an intruder upon Nature. The father makes a determined effort to destroy his cabin. The rational mind gives way to a heightened state. It is possible for a secret communion with the dark powers of Nature. Her return to ‘my own time’ will be based on new energies which are released from a life enhancing ‘power.’
The mythical journey then begins in Surfacing as the literal quest for a missing father and becomes a figurative quest for selfhood. This journey is one of descent and return. This descent is radically transforming. She must accept past and more importantly accept her responsibility for it. Whatever it is she has to overcome her nightmare of the lost child. Until then she sees herself as powerless and has accepted a world in which she is the
During this time alone, she experiences the rituals and powers of the wilderness surrounding her home. Her whole world becomes alive with forces that are powerful. She finally sees a vision of her father who has been transformed into one of the creatures of the cave drawings. If the first phase of her initiation is recognition and remembering, the second phase is reconciliation in which she comes to accept her parents, their lives, their humanness and their deaths. The result of her days of solitude is her acceptance of her own power. This is the bonus with which she returns from her …show more content…
She sheds all she has acquired from society and lives alone. She lives like a wild beast on roots. She returns to a conscious beyond her rational ‘self’. She hopes that her unborn child will be the first true human. She has a vision of her father in which he realizes that he is an intruder upon Nature. The father makes a determined effort to destroy his cabin. The rational mind gives way to a heightened state. It is possible for a secret communion with the dark powers of Nature. Her return to ‘my own time’ will be based on new energies which are released from a life enhancing ‘power.’
The mythical journey then begins in Surfacing as the literal quest for a missing father and becomes a figurative quest for selfhood. This journey is one of descent and return. This descent is radically transforming. She must accept past and more importantly accept her responsibility for it. Whatever it is she has to overcome her nightmare of the lost child. Until then she sees herself as powerless and has accepted a world in which she is the