Acquiescence and Salvation: Colin McDougall's Execution and Existential Postwar Canadian Literature

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Acquiescence and Salvation: Colin McDougall's Execution and Existential Postwar Canadian Literature
Abstract
The author remarks that since winning the 1958 Governor General's award for his only novel, Execution, Montrealer Colin McDougall (1917-1984) has been critically neglected despite the richness of a text that provides ample critical avenues into postwar Canadian literature. The author sets out to revitalize critical interest in McDougall and place his work into the larger context of postwar Canadian literature. In addition, the author examines the complicated relationship the novel has to existentialism, especially as it relates to trauma and how one makes meaning out of experience. The author argues that McDougall's characterization and explicit allusions to existential writers like Franz Kafka indicate that Execution is an existential meditation as well as a war novel. However, he points out, this interpretation of Execution is complicated by the Christian allegory at its end, which seems out of place in an existential text.
Type
Master's thesis
University
Concordia University
Place
Montreal
Date
2009
# of Pages
v-86p.
Language
en
URL
Citation
Abram, Zachary. “Acquiescence and Salvation: Colin McDougall’s Execution and Existential Postwar Canadian Literature.” Master’s thesis, Concordia University, 2009. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/QMG/TC-QMG-976493.pdf.
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