Defining the Definers - DE Book Club

What is an artist? What is his or her role in society? According to the 1994 edition of The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, an artist is "one who practices an art." And what is art? Art is "the use of skill and imagination in the production of things of beauty [or the] works so produced."

Unfortunately, this definition is less than useful. First, as pointed out by Greek philosopher Socrates thousand of years ago, beauty cannot be accurately defined. Second, most contemporary artists would disagree with the definition. In the last century, numerous movements such as pop art, body art, and cubism have been rejecting the notion of art as beauty. Does this mean I should start using another dictionary? I probably should, but it may not prove useful in defining the role of the artist. The definition of art and the role of the artist are notions that have been discussed and debated for centuries.

Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, and Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes each portray the life of a writer trying to find his or her place in the world: in Lady Oracle, Joan, a newly discovered poet and secret author of gothic romances, is struggling between reality and fantasy; in The Diviners, Morag, an introverted writer, longs for love and acceptance; and in Two Solitudes, Paul, a young Canadian artist, carries both his country's French and English heritage. By analyzing and comparing the goals and fates of these characters as well as the obstacles they encounter, this essay demonstrates how the three novels all define the artist as a person devoted to the expression and depiction of his or her culture.

Lady Oracle features characters who are constantly seeking refuge from their true selves: Arthur, a lazy, spineless man, has megalomaniacal delusions of revolution; and Chuck takes on the exuberant persona of the Royal Porcupine. For them, role-playing is a matter of survival. Joan is no exception to this. Throughout the novel, she oscillates between reality and fantasy, often confusing her own biography with her gothic fiction. She is in constant inner conflict, struggling to feel like she is part of a greater whole while trying to retain a sense of control over her life: "Being left out altogether was too much for me. I capitulated, but I paid for it."

Though she fantasizes about ideal love, what Joan truly craves is to feel needed and for her own needs to be recognized. However, the countless rejections she's suffered during her childhood have caused her to use her "outsider" status as a means to protect herself against the world: "By this time I was eating steadily, doggedly, stubbornly, anything I could get. The war between myself and my mother was on in earnest; the disputed territory was my body." In order to maintain her autonomy, she sacrifices her chances to fit in: "I wasn't going to let myself be diminished, neutralized. I wouldn't ever let her make me over in her image, thin and beautiful."

Joan's cruel exile to the margins of society allows her to develop a keen eye for suffering and a strong sense of empathy. It is then that she becomes a writer of gothic romances, that she takes her first steps as an artist: "when they were too tired to invent escapes of their own, mine were available at the corner drugstore, neatly packaged like the other pain killers"; "The truth was that I dealt in hope, I offered a vision of a better world."

Seeking and creating gateways to various worlds of fantasy, Joan becomes intrigued with the possibilities language offers. Consoling others is no longer enough. She engages in automatic writing, surrendering completely to the repressed, irrational side of her dual personality, and writes her first critically acclaimed book: "these words would sort of be given to me. I mean I'd find them written down, without having done it myself, if you know what I mean." Only then does Joan become an official writer, an official artist, exposing the voice of our hidden sensual nature without censorship from our rational side.

In her novel The Diviners, Laurence offers a different view of the artist, but the main character's artistic evolution begins with a similar need to escape. As the adopted daughter of a garbage man and an obese woman, Morag is introduced at an early age to the cruel criticisms of the Manawaka townsfolk. Much like Joan in Lady oracle, she ends up isolating herself from the rest of the world, wearing rejection like a badge: "The teachers hate her. Ha ha. She isn't a little flower, is why. That will be the day, when she tries to please a living soul." Morag eventually leaves her hometown in the hopes of escaping the past, again mirroring Joan's actions.

However, unlike Joan, Morag does not let pain be the driving force behind her artistic development: "I am deficient in faith, although let's face it, Catharine, if I didn't have some I would not write at all." Her quest for meaning is what motivates her to write. She discovers that people enjoy her novels and stories. This gives her a sense of purpose: "She perceives that not even for Dr. Skelton can she write a story which wasn't there to be written. A humbling thought, but not daunting. Nothing will ever daunt her again."

Throughout her artistic evolution, Morag learns more and more about her place in the world. She also begins to understand the relativity and subjectivity of truth. Because the past affects the way we react to the present and our reaction to the present affects how we perceive the past, there are endless ways of telling and remembering a same event: "Am I only interpreting her through my own experience?"

As she begins to grasp the powerful impact the past has over our lives, Morag begins to learn from her experiences. For example, after her failed marriage with Brooke, she learns to accept her nomadic nature and chooses a companion more suited to her needs: Jules Tonnerre. Because of her growing understanding of the relationship between time, truth, and life, Morag evolves as a person at the same time she develops as a writer, gaining wisdom and perspective, until she can "look ahead into the past, and back into the future, until the silence."

Paul's purpose in Two Solitudes is more specific. MacLennan concentrates on the artist's contribution to his country. The Canada he depicts suffers from a severe identity crisis: it has no identity, or, rather, it struggles between two that are not its own. Canadians have yet to let go of their European roots. This is reflected in their art: "Does our western prairie look like anything in England, for God's sake? Then why try to cover it with English architecture?" At the same time, the country feels cultural pressure from the U.S.A.: "they'll start to imitate ideas from down there. But is there anything in the States like the Saint Lawrence valley?"

Also, the French Canadians and the English Canadians are in constant conflict. The French view the English as oppressors: "This attitude you have, blaming everything you don't like on the English, is senseless." The English view the French as petulant agitators: "It makes me furious, all this pampering of them [French Canadians]. It's time they were brought to heel."

Paul is an artist sprung from both people. His father Athanase made him so: "Next year you will go to a fine English school. You'll still be a [French] Canadian, mind you. Don't forget that." Paul is perfectly bilingual and feels pressure from both sides: "‘But you're not French!' she said. ‘You haven't the slightest trace of a French accent.' ‘I haven't the slightest trace of an English accent when I speak French either,' he said with irony."

Despite this, Paul only becomes a successful artist near the end of the novel, when he realizes his true purpose: "Must he write out of his own background even if that background were Canada? Canada was imitative in everything. Yes, but perhaps only on the surface. What about underneath? No one had dug underneath so far, that was the trouble." It cannot be expressed more clearly: Paul, the Canadian artist, must strive to depict and define his own environment, his own culture, his own identity.

What common grounds do these three views of the artist share? First, they all demand total devotion from the artists to their work: Joan is so lost in her irrational self that she can no longer tell reality from fantasy; Morag grows and matures with her work; and Paul is a living embodiment of his objectives, the unique product of a Canadian culture. Second, the artists must all depict the world that surrounds them: Joan's book "Lady Oracle" is as chaotic and conflicted as its author's universe; Morag's works feature a unique understanding of the subjective truth; and Paul's novel must clearly define the Canadian identity. Each has a particular view of the world to share and define. That is what an artist is and does. We have defined the definers.

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