Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook & William Faulkner’s  As I Lay Dying – Canadian literature and the Western Canon-

Proceedings of ‏The 5th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences

Year: 2021

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/5th.iachss.2021.06.371

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Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook & William Faulkner’s  As I Lay Dying – Canadian literature and the Western Canon-

Daniela Cârstea

ABSTRACT: 

The paper undertakes a parallel between Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook, considered by most critics ‘marginal’ – according to topographic criteria – and one of the major novels pertaining to the Western canon, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. The points to tackle with in this comparison would, hopefully, allow for a favourable assessment as far as the “canonicity” of The Double Hook is concerned. The central focus of the analysis will be on the modernist scaffolding of both novels, especially targeting the insistent employment of the stream of consciousness technique, the interior monologue – which I premise to be the major criterion enabling a bridging of the gap between what I termed the ‘marginal’ and the ‘canonical’ texts. Likewise, a further investigation, into the deep structure of the texts, will reveal the existence of quasi-similar themes approached and treated extensively in both novels.

Keywords: parochialism; canonicity; magical realism; topography; decomposition.