A post-colonial assessment of rural teacher characters in Australian, Canadian, and American novels

The purpose of this dissertation was to show that as Australian, Canadian, and American schoolteachers in novels of the last one hundred and ten years have perpetuated traditions and instigated changes in and beyond their classrooms, they have contributed to post-colonial processes such as globalization and cultural hybridization, which I contend are essentially positive. In many ways the teachers are similar to one another: to some extent they are all seen as outsiders who mirror urban modernism and they all want to help their students develop their intellects and become responsible adults. Then again, the teachers differ from one another with regard to their individual personalities and the environments in which they teach.;In Australia teachers realize various Others are integral to the formation of national identity and a sense of mateship, while in Canada teachers are more concerned with the existence of a cultural mosaic. In the United States, American nationalism, imperialism, and regionalism undergird teacher initiated globalization and hybridization. In the texts which feature teachers of minority students, in addition to these national concerns, teachers struggle to help their students establish sameness out of their difference from whites.;My focal novels are The Pioneers (1915) by Katharine Susannah Pritchard, The Hero of Too (1965) by David Martin, Fortress (1980) by Gabrielle Lord, Remembering Babylon (1993) by David Malouf, Wild Geese (1925) by Martha Ostenso, Who Has Seen the Wind (1947) by W. O. Mitchell, Where Nests the Water Hen (1951) by Gabrielle Roy, The Diviners (1974) by Margaret Laurence, Mary Peters (1934) by Mary Ellen Chase, Losing Battles (1970) by Eudora Welty, Black Mountain Breakdown (1982) and Oral History (1983) by Lee Smith, The House Behind the Cedars (1900) by Charles Chesnutt, A Lesson Before Dying (1993) by Ernest Gaines, Wynema (1891) by S. Alice Callahan, The Vanishing Point (1973) by W. O. Mitchell, and True Country (1993) by Kim Scott.