'Practised place': Gender and spatial tactics in contemporary Canadian literature

This thesis examines the practice of space in contemporary Canadian literature, particularly in terms of the significance of the boundary (which may be physical or metaphorical) and the boundary crossing, which is of great importance in the texts under consideration here. I present, in the introduction, the theoretical context of spatial analysis in terms of the image of the map and of established strategy: specifically, how hierarchical structures of power and established strategies of spatial, literal and gender-based practice may be deemed "maps", because they play a specific role in determining the social "position" and roles of those traditionally outside of conventional structures of power. I argue that, consequently, crossing the boundaries set out by such maps is an essentially radical act, to the extent that the act of crossing the established strategic boundary has the power to thoroughly destabilize the text itself.; The works I have examined here frequently challenge established strategy through subverting (often through parody) established literary conventions and the gender-roles within them. The principal texts I have focused on here are Aritha van Herk's No Fixed Address; Jeffrey Moore's Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain; Jane Urquhart's The Whirlpool ; Then Again, by Elyse Friedman; Alice Munro's short story "The Love of a Good Woman"; Paul Quarrington's Whale Music; and Yann Martel's Self. The genres challenged or subverted here include the picaresque narrative; the courtly love tradition; the gothic romance; the Hollywood screenplay; and the autobiographical narrative. Traditional gender-roles are also investigated in these texts through spatiality and the idea of "proper place" (usually of women), and so the image of the house---the traditionally female domestic space---is one that is central to this thesis. What is done with (or to) the house varies with the text, but all of the writers considered here are concerned with renegotiating the relationship between the domestic space and strategically established gender-roles. This renegotiation leaves in its wake a degree of uncertainty as it necessarily involves the deconstruction of what has previously been established, but the challenge mounted to the limiting qualities of such strategy makes the uncertainty ultimately liberating.