The fantastic black panther in the writing of Charles G. D. Roberts : Forging Canadian national identity from primeval nature

Abstract

Charles G.D. Roberts’ 1892/1896 short story ‘Lou’s Clarionet’ focuses on the potential attack by a black panther, a shadowy creature that is at once dangerous and comforting, real and fantastic, disturbing and uncertain. As the rector of the parish guides his sleigh along the road on a snowy Christmas eve, he is shadowed by a panther, which attempts to leap onto the sleigh, bringing the dark forces of the primeval (and prime evil) forest against the good Christian priest. Similar episodes are present in many of Roberts’ animal stories, including those focusing specifically on the black panther such as ‘Watchers of the Campfire’ (1905). By analysing Roberts’ use of the menacing, somewhat fantastical presence of the panther in the woods, this paper argues that the fantastic (and dark supernatural) was given a place in the construction of Canadian wilderness and identity alongside the more familiar romantic images of benign nature. Is the panther real or imagined ? The anthropomorphizing of wild animals through Roberts’ writing, part of a genre of Canadian writing that included the work of Edward Thompson Seton and others, ensured the mystique of the Canadian wilderness, making it at once familiar and fantastic and creating an important and destabilising dichotomy in the construction of a sense of Canadian identity. Roberts’ writing, with menacing panther and other animals carrying out Roberts’ interpretation of their instinctive actions, foreshadows similar characterizations found in the later work of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien but sets these animal characterizations (both fantastic and realist) within a discourse of national identity construction and the tension between colonial and metropolitan world views.