Un/Covered Origins

Mythology gives shape to experience and provides a framework in which to locate oneself. However women in classical mythology were either denied a representation and thus a history and genealogy or they were portrayed ambiguously making it difficult for women to find their own identity. Katrin M. Fennesz focuses on the representation of women in novels by the Canadian author Aritha van Herk and analyzes how she transports women's fictional lives into our postmodern world by using and abusing classical biblical and indigenous mythology. Ultimately she demonstrates that van Herk succeeds in creating a new mythology by digging deep to discover women's original strengths and powers. In the end mythological characters are given new life women a voice the landscape is granted its own identity and the city of Calgary its own face. This study is aimed at students and scholars in the field of Canadian Literary Studies.