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“I Suppose An Island Dweller Should Expect It To Be So”: The Contradiction And Drama Of Maternity And Islands In Caleb’S Crossing, Shayla Frandsen

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Islands have a long tradition of capturing human imagination and functioning as a space that nurtures both magic and mystery. As geographic locations, they seem to avoid easy taxonomy even while behaving easily categorizable: they exist as tourist fantasies separate from everyday landscape even while many operate as an othered land that is still “safe” enough to visit. They are isolated yet capable of nurturing strong cultural identity. They also act as autonomous entities while still being interconnected within larger natural structures, coastlines, and waterways. In these ways and more islands navigate as border spaces of inherent contradiction—contradictions which are …