Isolation in the Painted Door by Ross Sinclair Essay

The feelings of isolation and alienation basin be frustrating, perilous and tied(p)tually they can charge drive a person mad. the great unwashed boast always come up tot with such issues several(predicate)ly. Some managed to abandon those feelings and continued with their becomes mend others succumbed to them as they were un resolutionive to overcome and/or control them. Those souls who surr fireered a great deal faced last or even death as they were unable to cope with interpolates and the hugs of subsisting a life below their expectations with no cardinal to trust and confide, non even their beloved ones. When people be altogether and isolated for a certain amount of time there is a circumstances that they forget ab come to the fore authentic life and even become bushed. This is one of the many problems of vast countries such as Canada oddly its dry prairies and northern arctic regions can change people.In this essay, I will try to analyze and investigate i ncompatible circumstances that can lead to emotional states, near of which be prominent themes in Canadian fiction isolation, alienation, aloneness, loss of identity and madness. Isolation and alienation can occur out of many reasons. It is not only an isolated landscape that whitethorn trigger feelings of loneliness, fear or sustainlessness, unless alike isolation and alienation from society or even people closest to you. Other definitions may besides include spiritual and emotional isolation. In Sinclair Ross The miscellaneous Door the protagonist Ann fells alone and isolated for many reasons.Ann is not pleased with her life. She and her husband John imbibe intercourse in the middle of nowhere, far away from company and populated settlements. The remote surrounding in which they live creates a feeling of extreme isolation, especially by and by previously living in a city. After being exposed to this geographical isolation for whatever time, Anns feelings of lonelines s lastly intensify to the orient where she even feels alienated from her decl atomic number 18 husband. But at that point she does not realize that her yearning for a better and different life will hence change her life for worse and will make her feel guilty and miserable for the rest of her life.After having an affair with Steven she realizes that this is not what she really wanted and she also realizes that she has made a big mistake sleeping with him, while her husband was away. Therefore, we cannot interpret Steven as the fulfillment of her desires for a better life, but rather as a temporary means to cure her from her isolation and loneliness. As John unexpectedly returns home during a storm, he witnesses the betrayal and leaves Ann neer to return again. the translucent theme is centered on adultery. However, there are other, more subtle, motifs in the bill that play a very significant role in its success. The themes inherent in making the protagonists adultery unders tandable are the landscape, her isolation, and the feelings of betrayal and guilt that she experiences following the central act of the taradiddle. (The Painted Door)Ultimately, Anns necessarily to feel loved and acknowledged, as well as her actions out of desperation and loneliness, lead her to the destruction of her life and, consequently, the life or her husband. The blizzard, which can be seen as a metaphor for passion, as well as the physical and emotional separation from her husband engage her to do things she probably, under normal circumstances, would not consider doing. Therefore, it is in those extreme conditions where we have to search for the driving forces behind Anns adultery. The answers that would equitableify her actions and would, as well, give us an insight into her inner loneliness and isolation are all hidden in this seemingly unreal wasteland. In this trading floor we can findthematic elements considered the bedrock of Canadian create verbally a landscape so bleak in winter that it seemed a region alien to life, but a house stand up nonetheless standing against that wilderness, a refugee of feeble walls wherein persisted the elements of gay meaning and survival. A woman who wants fine things and a brotherly life, but a slow, taciturn, country-bound husband who only aspires to paying of the mortgage. (Stouck 2005, 93)The Painted Door is not Ross only pathetic story dealing with issues such as isolation, alienation and madness. The other prominent example of him using such themes and motifs is The Lamp at Noon where Ross, by establishing a gloomy and intense atmosphere, creates a feeling of uneasiness and fear of the isolated and even manic environment which inevitably affects the storys protagonists. It illustrates how close to madness a persons dreams of a better life may be juxtaposing the delusions harboured by a husband and a married woman about their failing homestead. (Estehammer 1992) The bleaklyweds Ellen and capital o f Minnesota moved from the city to a desert landscape during the time of the Great Depression to live as farmers in the Canadian prairie. unluckily, dust storms, as well as the soils dryness and neediness of rain made their existence as happy and productive farmers almost impossible.Nevertheless, Ellen, who came from a rich family, tried to be a model wife by fetching fretfulness of the household and their baby, but the fact that they were living on an infertile and isolated farm made things worse day by day and contributed to the couples constant quarreling. The lack of joy, food and tolerance caused both emotional and physical suffering for Ellen and capital of Minnesota. It seems as if the shift from city- to rural life hit Ellen particularly hard as she seems to be very frustrated about her present situation and even afraid of what the future might hold for them. She feels as if she was living in a cage or a prison, and deep inside she knew that there is no way out of it. It is obvious that the setting is essential in causing havoc in Ellens and Pauls lives.Therefore, to answer the question of where these feelings of isolation, loneliness and, in the end, even madness originate, we must consider the extreme unfriendly and even claustrophobic environment as a major factor. Other likely reasons would have to be Pauls stubbornness and his foolish manly pride that made him ignore his wifes request to change matters by setting up new priorities. For many eld she has tried to persuade him to leave the farm but she has failed every time due to his reassuring comments about a better life.Because Paul is unable, or maybe even unwilling, to change, he eventually destroys his marriage and family by provided contributing to his wifes state of depression and, ultimately, monomania. It is only after Ellens desperate run into the sandstorm, in which she sees freedom, and their babys death when Paul realizes his mistakes but it is already too late. Their child is dead and his wife has lost her mind. Consequently it can be seen that both of Ross analyzed stories are, in fact, examples of how not to deal with isolation.By creating and describing both stories setting so vividly, Ross succeeds in reinforcing our own understanding of isolation, by taking us in the midst of this unfriendly and devastating environment. He makes us almost feel Ellens geographical and emotional isolation which eventually drive her into a state of madness. The Lamp at Noon is especially all-powerful because it resonates with the unique historical conditions of the 1930s, when dust storms scourged the West, hard working farm families lost their land, and some people went mad (Stouck 2005, 91). The lamp in The Lamp at Noon itself is a symbolism of hope but when it dies out in the end all hope seems lost. It can be argued that Ross does not simply present the landscape and weather as a cause for psychological disintegration but also deploys it as a metaphor to develop the inner landscape of his characters, the landscape thus part as the objective correlative of the feelings and the states of mind of his protagonists (Pauly 1999, 70).The Old Woman by Joyce Marshall is some other prominent example of how isolation can lead into madness. mollie and Todd got married in Mollys homeland England. Soon afterwards Todd traveled to Canada leaving his Molly behind. She joins him after 3 years because she had to take care of her ill mother. When she arrives in Northern Quebec she realized that Todd has changed since their last meeting. Molly starts her life in the new environment like many women before her, by taking care of the household. Her husband was preoccupied with his job to notice that Molly felt unpleasant in the new environment. Instead of helping her to adapt to the new life, he becomes more and more distant, less talkative and absorbed by the machines in his powerhouse.After a while, Molly finds her calling as a local comport helper but, to her disappointment, her husband is disapproving towards her newly set in motion occupation. He wants her to stay at home all day and to be like the other gentle wives without ever second questioning him in spite of his negligence towards her. In order to cope with her isolation she nevertheless decides that she must occupy herself in some way. She finally feels needed, something Todd does not understand nor desire. In the end it does not matter how Molly feels anyway because her husband has lost his mind after 3 years of living and breathing with the machines at the power house he has fallen in love with them. In this story the gender roles and immigrant stereotypes have been turned upside-down. non in the sense of male or female roles and duties but the fact that a local man, instead of a female immigrant, goes mad in the end distinguishes this story from others. There is a sharp delineation between the two possible approaches to the foreign territory. Since the machines have al ways been between Todd and the land, he has been unable to worry adequately to others. In his limited and confined existence he has, in the end, even gone in compos mentis(predicate). At the same time his wife discovers a in person satisfying role as a midwife in a French-Canadian community. Her productive approach thus carries her crosswise apparent linguistic and cultural boundaries and across her isolation. (Pauly 1999, 64)In contrast to The Painted Door and The Lamp at Noon, where the female protagonists were the ones whose lives were destroyed by their actions out of isolation, loneliness and their dependency on their husbands, Molly, despite her inconvenient situation, lack of attention from her husband and her fear of loneliness, seemingly succeeds in overcoming the obstacles that were put in her way. By not taking the thin outions of her husband any longer and deciding to accompany her own interests, Molly stands as a substitute of a new feminist ideology which, however, cant be compared with todays flavour of feminism as it had to undergo decades of changes and development to improve the roles and lives of women to the stage as we know them today. Unfortunately, womens roles still differ very much. They strongly depend on the location, culture and religion the women live in.Classic gender roles were also turned upside-down in Isabella Valancy Crawfords story Extradited. In it we find a prominent portrait of a petulant and narcissistic woman and her devastating examination of jealousy (Stephenson and Byron 1993, 12). The protagonists of the story are Samuel Sam ODwyer, his wife Bessie, their baby and a man named Joe who was helping them on their farm. Sam and Joe quickly became very good and close friends. While reading the story one could even think that Sam, although doubly of Joes age, might even hold deeper feelings for him (homoeroticism?). After a while, Bessie is annoyed by Sams admiration for Joe and as soon as she finds out that Joe is wanted by the police for a legal offence against his former employer and that there is a 1000$ proceeds for the one who catches him or turns him in, she immediately grabs the chance she considers to be the one that will ensure them a better life.However, after Joes heroically rescue of Sams and Bessies baby, and him drowning after salvage it, Bessie, although informing the police of Joes whereabouts, stays without the reward but has inevitably to deal and live with her husbands scorn as she has to bear the clean for a good mans death. Bessie probably thought that she was doing the right thing. We would normally expect a man to act rational and women emotional at that time and shopping mall. However, in Sams and Bessies case it is the other way around. It is Sam who acts emotional, by wanting to protect Joe, and Bessie who acts rational, by wanting the reward in order to buy a new farm and within to pave the way for a better life for herself and her family. Therefore, it is the w oman, not the man, who is a representative of realism, whereas the man can be seen as a romanticist. This example makes it clear that women were also aspiring beyond the domestic sphere and not only victims of their husbands arbitrariness.This stands in opposition to the naturalistic ideas of earlier eras where women had to stoically accept their traditional roles, i.e. teacher, maid, housewife, devoted mother, and had to sacrifice their own happiness for their childrens and/or husbands sake. Women should repress their previous experiences and knowledge after getting married and were mostly appreciated as long as they kept their physical charms. In Canadian short fiction immigration is the process which, in many cases, causes isolation and alienation. It is a long and complex process as starting a life in a new country can be very difficult. The issues of immigration seem to have affected women particularly hard. In order to keep themselves sane and deal with the harsh realities tha t the early pioneers had to face, women, who mostly spent their time at home, wrote diaries.Susanna Moodie, who was one the most famous chroniclers of the early Canadian immigrant experience, was describing the negative aspects of environmental and social isolation among early immigrants in Roughing it in the Bush. Moodies sister Catharine Parr Traill even advised men to consult with their wives before emigrating to Canada as most immigrants were completely ad-lib to live in such an unfriendly and unfamiliar environment. Brian, the protagonist of Moodies short story Brian the Still Hunter, is also, like Ellen from The Lamp at Noon and Ann from The Painted Door, a victim of isolation. However, the first and foremost reason for Brians isolation is alcoholism. As a result his extensive drinking has isolated him from society and even his own family. Alcohol has transformed him into an unpredictable character.This is why society treated him as an outsider. When Brian was drunk, he was n ot able to speak normally to anyone, not even his wife. Their blood was put to the test due to ever-changing time periods of guilt, shame and anger. He felt emotionally isolated, worthless, and he even attempted to commit suicide. He fails in this aspiration and matters get even worse for him. Afterwards he quits drinking and chooses physical isolation for himself instead. He is slowly falling into a state of insanity as he loiters about the land with only his dog by his side to keep him company.Many immigrants could not deal with the formidable reality which the Canadian landscape prepared for them and fell into a state of madness. Madness most commonly might have appeared due to some of the following reasons. It either demonstrable as a consequence out of the confrontation between the ideas and lifestyles of the Old and the New World, or out of geographical and environmental differences (dangerous wilderness, plain and/or artic landscape). This new environment was not only dan gerous to ones physical but also psychical health. It was hard not to lose your identity while facing the limits of your capabilities and still keeping your sense of inner ( indwelling) and outer (objective) reality balanced.while the plains sometimes provoked the outbreaks of insanities, the primitive cause is frequently to be found elsewhere. These causes range from economic frustration, isolation from the people, frustration growing out of an in index to adapt, personal displacement and loss of identity, to guilt and isolation. whole these are parts not only of a physical environment but of a mental landscape. Womens nerves overstretched and they usually became depressed and silent whereas men more often turned to violence in order to act out their rage and frustration. In some cases these states were permanent, in others they were temporary and subsided after a finite period of time. (Pauly 1999, 53)Stories like The Lamp at Noon and The Old Woman can be best described as exam ples of Pioneer Realism and/or Prairie Realism. alike SinclairRoss, other prominent Canadian authors who dealt with the prairie experiences were Martha Ostenso, Laura Salverson and Frederic Philip Grove. In their kit and caboodle, these authors start their stories with a nave or, we might even say, romanticized, view of the immigrants arrival to Canada. Later on, all become disillusioned by the setting and gradually alienated from their new home. These stories generally include a prairie patriarch. he is usually presented as a land-hungry, work-intoxicated tyrant. The farm women are subjugated, culturally and emotionally starved, and filled with a smouldering rebellion. All in all a fertile ground for conflict and all kinds of mental instabilities. (Pauly 1999, 54)As an immigrant, your well-being will largely depend on your ability to adapt and deal with the given circumstances. Though those two stories are set in different locations, the first in a prairie and the latter in the Canadian North, both still are fictional stories dealing with the issues pioneers experienced when they first arrived and became aware of how dangerous it really was to be out of tune with the land. While some succumbed to the unknown and fled, lost their minds or even died, others luckily found other forms of distraction from the isolation which surrounded them, making their existence bearable.In continuation, other forms of dealing with the harsh realities of everyday life will be analyzed. These are the stories of escapement from the sane into a subjective insane world in order to survive. The protagonists of these stories are all isolated and alienated from other people, not necessarily because of an isolated landscape, but rather because of their dissimilarities. Alineation is separation from something becoming strange and foreign to it, being put out or taking Ones self out and thereby becoming a stranger separated. Since humans feel vulnerable when they are strangers, th e emotional essence of alienation is fear and hostility (Henry 1971, 105).The sane world can therefore be even seen as life-threatening to the stranger because all it wants to achieve is to isolate him even further and to destroy his reality. Ultimately, there are three choices a stranger can make. He can either let the sane world take over and destroy his very essence, he can protect himself by playing along, pretending to be someone else by acting out roles, or he can escape into his own reality where he alone decides what is right and pervert, what the truth is and what only illusion.Louise and Morrison, the protagonists of Margaret Atwoods short story Polarities, are working colleagues in an unnamed dull city in the northwest. They came to this city because they could not find any other job elsewhere. Morrison finds this dullness rather irritating and the northern city a hard place to live in. Louise however claims that you just have to have inner resources to turn to when matt ers get tough. After some time, Louise started acting and talking strange. She would find meaning in things other people would not, as Morrison states shes taken as real what the rest of us pretend is only metaphorical (Atwood 1993, 69). Morrison more and more started to believe that there is something seriously wrong with Louise, as her strange behavior is not to be ascribed to fatigue or the abuse of substances, a fact another colleague also acknowledges.Morrison and Paul, the other co-worked, eventually agree that it would be best for Louise to be institutionalized. Nevertheless, Louise almost convinces the doctors that she is perfectly fine but she eventually makes a mistake and they decide to keep her hospitalized. After disbursal some time in the hospital, Louises intelligence begins to deteriorate due to the extensive amount of drugs she was forced to take. She almost stopped talking to anyone and it was obvious that she suffered tremendously, especially on the inside. It se ems that before she had been taken to the mental hospital she was a little strange but nevertheless managed to get along in everyday life. All that remained now of Louise was an empty shell as she became only a shadow of her former self.Margaret Gibson was another author who wrote about oversensitive people unable to live in a normal society. Due to her mental state, she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, she could relate to and identify with her writing as few authors before her. Nevertheless, she claimed that her works are not autobiographical. In her collection of short stories enform of addressd The grind Ward, she tried to explore the boundaries of sanity and insanity. Her own experiences as an outsider gave her the opportunity and ability to present a strangers world in a unique and exciting way.It is important to recognize at the outset that Gibsons primary concern in relation to the theme of madness is with the responses to mental illness, rather than with its cause s or manifestations. While she clearly does not neglect the latter issues, her writing often focuses upon the ways in which those categorized as mentally ill and those assigning the label respond to the condition. (Pauly 1999, 106)Her short stories The Butterfly Ward, Making it, Ada and Considering Her Condition are great examples of her writing creativity. In the beginning of The Butterfly Ward we are introduced to Kira, the storys heroine, who is staying at a hospital and is undergoing various extremely flagitious and brutal tests and examinations in order to determine what is causing her mental condition. As the story progresses, we get a glimpse of her earlier life. Before being admitted to the hospital, she worked in a home for mentally challenged children.Unfortunately, she had a very ambitious mother who dreamt of a better life for her and her daughter in Russia. Her mother is win over that Kiras occupation does not suit her and that she would be better of studying at a uni versity. Kira becomes a victim of her mothers ambition and pressure under which she, eventually, collapses. She is still aware of her surroundings but nevertheless decides to live her life in her own fantasy world which she considers a better place than the real world where she is being locked up and heavily medicated.The protagonist of Gibsons story Ada is a girl of the same name as the title and who is, like Kira, residing in a mental hospital. As the story unfolds, it becomes obvious that the patients of this institution are being heavily mistreated and denied any basic human rights. The only visitor Ada has is her mother. Although we might think that her mother would like to help her to get out of the hospital as soon as possible, she does not show any genuine intentions of helping or understanding her daughter in her need. After some time, Ada realized that she cannot expect any help from anyone, and denies her mother, and other family members, visits because they do not unders tand her.More and more she drives herself into isolation from others and even from her own feelings. Ultimately, her isolation causes her to lose touch with reality entirely so we might think. When another inmate joins the group at the asylum, the patients are presented as seemingly smarter than their doctors, as they are easily able to manipulate with them as in the case of Alice.However, Ada and her best friend Jenny manage to escape their isolation but must pay a very high toll for it. Jenny, who wanted to protect Ada from Alices abuses, stands up against Alice and within she awakens Ada from her inner retreat. By later killing Alice, Ada awakens from her mental slumber and ends her child-like existence. Nevertheless, it can be argued that Adas retreat in her own world was, in fact, her strategy to survive in a depressive and live-threatening environment such as the mental asylum where normality of patients (their thoughts, emotions, actions) is considered as something abnormal. For Gibson, therefore, abnormality can be seen as the only way to survive in an inhuman and egoistic world.A similar story to Ada is Making It where the protagonists liza, a schizophrenic, and Robin, a male homosexual transvestite, try to make something of their lives. Both of them try to hide their true character because if they would not they would be considered as outcasts in a society intolerant of crazy people. Although they desperately want to fight societys categorizations and prove them wrong, they are, nevertheless, unable to do so. Liza, who becomes pregnant, sees her baby as her own way of making it out of her troubles. Robin, on the other hand, sees his salvation in becoming a famous women impersonator in Californias entertainment industry.They are convinced that motherhood for her and fame for him will make them normal in the eyes of society. In the end of the story the two once again decide to live together like a regular, but in their case platonic, couple. Robin eve n rejects the men of his dreams in order to be able to help Liza to live a normal life. Unfortunately, happiness stays out of reach for them as they, after Lizas baby was born dead, once again fall into isolation and feel alienated from society. Although considered abnormal, Robin and Lizas feelings of belonging, friendship, helpfulness and love for one another are something we would have trouble finding in the normal world. For Gibson, we, the sane readers, are the ones who make existence for people like her protagonists unbearable and force them into isolation and self-destruction.In Considering her Condition, it is a man named Steven who drives his wife Clare into suicide after she gave birth to their baby son. Steven is a very suppressive, bossy and egoistic character. Clare never even wanted children but after Steven persuaded her it becomes clear that he never thought about what is best for her but rather what is best for him. Later in the story we get to know that Steven alre ady has a child but has no contact with her anymore. When Clare was pregnant, Steven became obsessed with the baby and did not care much about his wife anymore. He even denied Clare her right to chose abortion despite the doctors advice to terminate the pregnancy.Claire must suffer enormously just to fulfill his desires and wishes. Gibson gives us a picture of how married couples lives can be destroyed by polarities and traditional gender-roles. Steven will not let Clare have her own life and she does not have the strength to fight his demands. Her suicide is the only action she can realize out of her own will. Not even her death affects Steven as he never though of her being more than a subordinate wife and the mother of his children. Considering her Condition can be seen as Gibsons strong critique against a society that denies women their right to choose their own way of living and thinking and breaks their spirits by taking away their desires, pride and self-esteem. The analyzed stories in The Butterfly Wardfocus upon individuals who have become objects of scrutiny to others. These others, , exercise a great deal of power over those who have failed to adapt to the expectations and demands of normal society. low gear and foremost among those strategies is simple observation. Whether an individual is labeled paranoid or simply maladjusted, the effect is similar. The individual ends up excluded from normal existence and confined within another territory. The responses of those thus observed, excluded, isolated and confined are various, but all, in some way, reveal attempts to escape this condition. (Pauly 1999, 116)Not only individuals can suffer tremendously under the influence of isolation but also whole communities. In W.D. Valgardsons story Bloodflowers the setting seems to imply that even today, people will tend to indemnify to primitive rituals when isolated and severely tried by living conditions (Neijmann 1996, 311). It is the story of a young teach er named Danny who moves to an isolated island, called Black Island, where superstition is still astray spread among the islands local community. Danny at first just wants to witness an ancient local fertility ritual taking place annually on the island. The ritual consists of sacrificing a man in order to conclude any misfortunes that have happened in the past year and might continue into the next one.Unfortunately for Danny, as misfortunes continue to happen, the locals consider him to be the cause of disturbance and they decide to sacrifice him in order to save themselves from further harm. It seems as if the local people are not having any trouble justifying the murders they have committed with superstition. In this story, where Valgardson makes extensive use of irony, we get to see the serious consequences (misunderstandings) that may occur when different or conflicting cultures cross paths. In Rudy Wiebes Where is the Voice Coming From?, the notions of isolation and alienation can be ascribed to the native Canadian inhabitants. The isolation of the original (ethnic) voice and the question of a Canadian identity, by this I mean telling the other side of Canadian history (of the aboriginal inhabitants) too, are issues Wiebe tries to address.Its most prominent themes would have to be the social and cultural injustices and consequently isolation and alienation suffered by the indigenous people after the European settlers have taken over their lands. In conclusion it can be said that people were often driven mad by loneliness and isolation and some even saw death as their only means of escaping it. Others, who also lived in isolation, developed psychotic behaviors which not only made them self-destructive but also a threat to others. Taking into consideration all of the authors and their stories that deal with the themes and motifs of isolation, alienation, loneliness and madness, one cannot fail to observe that isolation has an extremely negative effect upo n the development of the individuals character in Canadian short fiction and probably also Canadian literature in general.Works CitedAtwood, Margaret. terpsichore Girls and Other Stories. New York Bantam Books, 1993.Esterhammer, Angela. Cant See Life for Illusions The Problematic Realism of Sinclair Ross. In From the Heart of the Heartland, edited by John Moss, 15-24. capital of Canada University of Ottawa Press, 1992.Gibson, Margaret. The Butterfly Ward. Ottawa Oberon Press, 1976.Henry, Jules. Pathways to Madness. New York Random House, 1971.Marshall, Joyce. The Old Woman. In The Oxford Book of Canadian lilliputian Stories in English. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver, eds., 92-103. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1986.Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush, Or, Life in Canada. Montreal McGill-Queens University Press, 1998.Neijmann, Daisy L. The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters The Contribution of Icelandic Canadian Writers to Canadian Literature. Montreal McGill Queens Pr ess, 1996.Pauly, Susanne. Madness in English-Canadian Fiction. Ph.D. dissertation. Trier University of Trier, 1999.Ross, Sinclair. The Lamp at Noon. In The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver, eds. 72-81. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1986.Ross, Sinclar. The Painted Door. In The Faber Book of Contemporary Canadian Short Stories, edited by Michael Ondaatje. London Faber and Faber, 1990.Stephanson, Glennis and Glennis Byron, eds. Introduction. Nineteenth-Century Stories by Women An Anthology, 9-22. Peterborough Broadview Press, 1993.Stouck, David. As for Sinclair Ross. Toronto University of Toronto Press, 2005.Valancy Crawford, Isabella. Extradited. In The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver, eds. 1-11. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1986.Valgardson, W.D. Bloodflowers. The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver, eds., 316-332. Oxford Oxford Un iversity Press, 1986.Wiebe, Rudy. Where is the Voice Coming From? The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver, eds., 270-279. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1986.The Painter Door A Canadian Short Story. Term papers for students. http//www.essaysample.com/essay/002994.html (accessed August 8, 2008).