Public space as inspiration for the writer: writing the diverse nation and the threat of privatisation in Carol Shields’sUnless

Abstract

In Carol Shields’s Künstlerroman Unless, protagonist Reta Winters revisits, in her narrative, her private home in suburbia and the public spaces of Toronto. These sites help her ponder the role of space and ultimately her own role as a writer in redefining the nation. Reta’s home emblematises an incompletely revised Canada. Privatisation of space, suburbanisation, and consumerism, as well as her self-absorption in her relatively privileged position as a woman writer, perpetuate selfishness and fear of (other forms of) alterity. Reta must widen her scope of interest as a writer of difference and reconsider public space, a site of different ethnic and class identities, as a model for the diverse nation.