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The Myths That Make Us: An Examination Of Canadian National Identity, Shannon Lodoen Jul 2019

The Myths That Make Us: An Examination Of Canadian National Identity, Shannon Lodoen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis uses Barthes’ Mythologies as a framework to examine the ways in which the Canadian nation has been mythologized, exploring how this mythologization affects our sense of national identity. Because, as Barthes says, the ultimate goal of myth is to transform history into nature, it is necessary to delve into Canada’s past in order to understand when, why, and how it has become the nation it is today. This will involve tracing some key aspects of Canadian history, society, and pop culture from Canada’s earliest days to current times to uncover the “true origins” of the naturalized, taken-for-granted elements …


Unmasking The Protester: The Meanings And Myths Of Collective Civil Resistance Movements In African American And Polish Postresistance Prose Fiction, Agnieszka Herra Jan 2014

Unmasking The Protester: The Meanings And Myths Of Collective Civil Resistance Movements In African American And Polish Postresistance Prose Fiction, Agnieszka Herra

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My contention is that the narrative framework of social movements, especially the ones deemed “successful” such as the American Civil Rights Movement and the Polish Solidarity Movement, reflects unity and collectivity within collective memory. During the period of the movements’ duration, this provides a clear rhetorical purpose: to give the appearance of unity in order to give effective voice to the demands. I argue that the voices that did not fit into the collective movements emerge subsequently to question this monologic language in literary form. This dissertation uses Bakhtin’s notion of dialogic language to argue that novels in the postresistance …