The meaning and experience of the Southwestern British Columbian coastline in Canadian imaginative literature
Date
1991
Authors
Redding, Jeannine Elise
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Abstract
THE MEANING AND EXPERIENCE OF THE SOUTHWESTERN BRITISH
COLUMBIAN COASTLINE IN CANADIAN IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
Suggestions have been made that geographers should place more emphasis on the study of the human meanings and experiences of landscape images such as mountains, valleys, ice-caps, and seashore regions via the interpretation of imaginative literature. Often the literary devices of symbol, metaphor, and simile are used to convey the experience and symbolic meaning of a landscape image. Few of these landscape images, however, have been explored as yet by humanistic Ii terary geographers. An examination of the southwestern British Columbian coastline through the medium of novels and short stories attempts to elucidate the symbolic meaning and experience of the coastal landscape. The analysis, by means of phenomenology and hermeneutics, suggests that the British Columbian coastline elicits six major symbolic experiences of; (i) a metaphorical edge of the world, and (ii) feelings of power and danger, and is represented by the antinomic pairs of (iii) death, and (iv) life, (v) magic, and (vi) nightmare. A comparison of the meaning and experience of the British Columbian coastline with Blomberg's (1982) study of American coastal perceptions reveals similarities between her "energy" and (ii) power and danger, her "mystery and spirituality" and (v) magic, and between her "life" and (iv) life.