Identity In Alistair Macleod’s Novels

Alistair Macleod,a Canadian writer,always sticks to Cape Bretton and uses his own direct life experience to tell the story of the loss and travails experienced by Cape Breton and his Scottish descendants in the transitional period of time.All art forms are derived from real emotions.Macleod writes about the shaking and abandonment of modernity to modern people in a sincere style.This thesis mainly focuses on macleod throughout the novel creation is the core of the problem,namely the continuous exploration of identity,find writers desire for personal reshaping the world is not strong,but how to pay more attention to the modern world threat to personal identity,and constantly repeat the trouble of self-exploration and the relationship between the larger world.This paper focuses on the identity crisis faced by Scottish descendants in the crevices of dual historical narratives.The loss of historical memory and the loss of their homes make them embark on a journey of exile.“Where do I come from” and “Where am I” are two major dilemmas for the identity of the protagonists.To help Scots rediscover their sense of belonging,Macleod sees traditional labor and Gaelic culture as effective ways to break through the angst of the “Modern Siege”,as well as a spiritual need to trace and establish identity as individuals.Firstly,Macleod chose traditional labor as the starting point to re-establish his self-identity,refused one-way individual identity,questioned the absence of the true self under mechanical labor,and used traditional labor to resist mechanized subjectivity,rebuild the connection between man and nature,and re-establish his self-identity in traditional labor.Macleod further realized that in the face of capital,the powerful other,it is far from enough to merely trace the individual identity of Scottish descendants related to their own,so he placed the individual in the national cultural tradition,so as to confirm the national identity as a whole and resist homogenization and homogenization.Macleod,always pursue the purity of culture,and to shape the cultural image of the characters,and through the national identity to cape Breton for immigrants descendants of Scotland to provide cultural cohesion.From searching for the “I” of the individual to identifying the “We” of the group,Macleod tries to anchor himself in his own culture to secure his own identity.Only in this way can it be possible to transcend the unreliable and unstable factors,to enhance the sense of identity,to realize the national cultural identity,and to build a spiritual home to resist the attack from the other,even if such resistance is utterly hopeless.