The Construction of Alienation in Richard Ford’s Canada

Abstract: Richard Ford’s Canada, published in 2012, seems to have evaded literary studies. This essay—which is an early contribution to the undoubtedly growing range of studies on Canada that will be published in the future—is concerned with how alienation is constructed in the novel. I refer to alienation as a sense of being out of place and becoming estranged, both to others as well as to one's self. The essay focuses mainly but not exclusively on the point of view of the fifteen-year-old protagonist Dell, who is thrown out into a world that has ceased to be adapted to his needs and which seems to threaten his very existence. To speak with Lukács, the protagonist steps out from an unproblematic world into a problematic one and is divided in the process as his ideas are no longer attainable. But this very process of division or alienation also creates room for agency, in the sense of independent action or the will to act independently. In Canada—particularly in the second part of the novel—alienation is constructed in the meetings between Dell and fragmented and morose characters. Dell is required to adapt to these people and the circumstances in which they meet, but in those same processes of adaptation he manages to find small ways out. This makes it possible for Dell to keep himself whole despite his deteriorating circumstances. Equally important for how alienation is constructed in the novel is the meeting between Dell and the landscape of the prairie. While the landscape at first seems to be a source of further alienation, it ultimately proves to be the only place where Dell experience communion.