Liminal Spaces and the Ecomorphic Self in Alistair MacLeod’s Nova Scotian Narratives

Abstract

"Liminal Spaces and the Ecomorphic Self in Alistair MacLeod’s Short Stories. Starting from the observation that Cape Breton Island, the distinctive setting of Alistair MacLeod’s fiction, is a “borderland” lying at the intersection of complementary elements (past – present, tradition – individuality, humans – environment), this paper proposes a general discussion of liminality in the author’s work as well as a close reading of two of his short stories, “The Road to Rankin’s Point” and “Island”, with the aim of highlighting how a relational, ecomorphic self-arises in the wake of symbolic encounters that lead to a reassessment of the subject’s position within their biological and cultural milieu. Keywords: Alistair MacLeod, Cape Breton, liminality, borderlands, ecomorphism. "