The highland heart still beats : Cape Breton cultural identity in the fiction of Alistair MacLeod, Sheldon Currie, and Lynn Coady

This thesis examines the construction of a "Scottish Folk" identity in Cape Breton, first developed by the Nova Scotia government in the 1930s to strengthen the tourism industry. I read fiction by Alistair MacLeod, Sheldon Currie, and Lynn Coady, as well as the film Margaret's Museum, for their reaction to this simplified representation of Cape Breton culture, and explore how they articulate an alternative vision of Cape Breton identity. Alistair MacLeod and Sheldon Currie employ postcolonial strategies of resistance common to "settler" writing; they detail the unique history and community of Cape Breton's Highland Scottish immigrants in an attempt to preserve their culture from global, commercial influences. Lynn Coady pushes the boundaries of postcolonialism as she depicts a Cape Breton community that accepts other cultural influences as inevitable; she uses humour to undermine stereotypes, and she insists on celebrating the absurdities of contemporary life.

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Antonia

Statement dc:rights

• Available to the World Wide Web

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1828/19776

OAI record oai:identifier

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Adspace.library.uvic.ca%3A1828%2F19776