The Presentation and Criticism of Ethnic Conflict in Hugh MacLennan's 'Return of the Sphinx'

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Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2 (B), University of Kassel (Anglistics), course: Social Criticism in American and Candian Literature, language: English, abstract: The novel Return of the Sphinx, written by Hugh MacLennan in 1967, is not a sociopoliticalstudy of English-French Canadian relations in Quebec, as many critics concluded. Itrather deals with a series of interrelated conflicts, predominantly father against son, generationagainst generation and Quebec against Canada. However, the novel offers an extensive insightinto the political and ethnic situation in Canada during the radical sixties, which remains aproblematic one until today.This paper will examine the historical development of Canadas political instability,the origins of the ethnic conflict within the nation and, in addition, the continuing problemsbetween the Québecois and the anglophone majority of the nation. In this context I willbriefly talk about French-Canadian nationalism, the so-called Quiet Revolution, and theradicalism of the 1960s. In the second part the paper will work on the presentation andcriticism of the ethnic conflict in Return of the Sphinx. The focal point here will be on theprotagonist and his battle for a unified Canada, as well as on the antagonist and Quebecseparatism. Furthermore, this composition will concentrate on the Greek tragedy of OedipusRex along with the symbolic use of the mythological figure of the sphinx1 and its associationwith the state of affairs in contemporary Canada. To conclude, I will summarize the resultsthat follow from this work.1 Sphinx in Greek mythology: daughter of Tyohon and the snake Echidna, a monster with the head and the breastof a woman and the winged body of a lion.

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