Canadian literature uses nature as an entity to convey its impact on characters which encapsulates the Canadian experience and identity. Novels such as The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy and Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson present nature as a macrocosm to represent the microcosm of the characters. Short stories such as “Moral Disorder” by Margaret Atwood and “The Lamp at Noon” by Sinclair Ross also use nature to highlight the character’s inner conflicts, and the poems: “This Is a Photograph of Me”, “Morning in the Burned House” and “The Moment” by Margaret Atwood, “In Retrospect” by Laura Vivian Belvadere Arnett and “Not the Sweet Cicely of Gerardes Herball” by Margaret Avison, each present the underlying notion of place through their distinct style.
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High above, beyond the church steeples which escaped from the layers of drifted soot, rose the mountain with its green slopes woven like a living network of pale, floating leaves…Florentine was now obliged to recognize the flight of time. (Roy, 246-247)
Roy characterizes the natural environment around Florentine to demonstrate her place in relation to it. She uses specific diction, such as “high above” and “rose”, to illustrates nature in a superior manner and demonstrate how it acts as an independent individual who emphasizes Florentine’s anxiety and fear at being the only one to know about her current pregnant state. Swamp Angel also incorporates nature to detail certain aspects of the characters. The novel takes place at Three Loon Lake, a fishing lodge in Vancouver, where recently-divorced Maggie Lloyd works alongside the lodge-keeper’s resentful wife, Vera. After a dispute with Vera, Maggie goes out to the lake and watches the following scene
High above, beyond the church steeples which escaped from the layers of drifted soot, rose the mountain with its green slopes woven like a living network of pale, floating leaves…Florentine was now obliged to recognize the flight of time. (Roy, 246-247)
Roy characterizes the natural environment around Florentine to demonstrate her place in relation to it. She uses specific diction, such as “high above” and “rose”, to illustrates nature in a superior manner and demonstrate how it acts as an independent individual who emphasizes Florentine’s anxiety and fear at being the only one to know about her current pregnant state. Swamp Angel also incorporates nature to detail certain aspects of the characters. The novel takes place at Three Loon Lake, a fishing lodge in Vancouver, where recently-divorced Maggie Lloyd works alongside the lodge-keeper’s resentful wife, Vera. After a dispute with Vera, Maggie goes out to the lake and watches the following scene