As For Me And Marian Engel's Bear Comparison Essay

Introduction: The Canadian landscape is a significant part of the Canadian imagination with many different novels being written through differing authorial interpretations over Canada’s written history. Despite these constant changing interpretations there retains some commonality between these descriptions of nature which are referred to as literary myths. The most prevalent of these myths is that of the Canadian landscape as the wild north. This myth of the north began its representation through 17th century explorer narratives which portrayed the land as a harsh and mythical landscape in which a man through his survival and endurance could prove their merit. Therefore though nature is no longer a direct threat to survival, nature and wilderness still retains the myth of Canadian landscape as a place of escape and

The modern period retained these myths, but used and broke them down in order to explore the peculiarities of the Canadian experience of nature and its relation to civilization. Two such novels that capture this changing literary technique is Sinclair’s As For me and my House and Marian Engel’s Bear. On the surface, both novels are two very different sides of Canadian literature. Marian Engel’s 1974 controversial novel Bear is a forbidden, erotic story between a mousy, introverted librarian and an actual bear harkening back to gimmicky romance novels. While Sinclair’s 1941’s As for Me and My House is very traditionalist, conservative Canadian novel involving a paster’s wife struggles within a depression era prairie town. But both are deeper then their appearances with each attempting to breakdown the myths of mans role within nature and Canadian perceptions in order to understand change of self. My essay will comparing the each novel’s use of Nature, house imagery and differing Setting within Bear and As For Me and My House to understand the deeper historical tensions within