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Notes and Commentaries

Volume 08, Number 2 (1983)

MacLennan's Athanase Tallard: Robert Owen in Saint Marc

  • James D. Mulvihill
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1983-06-06

Abstract

It has been suggested that Athanase Tallard, a character in Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes, is based specifically on Robert Owen, a well-known entrepreneur and industrialist of nineteenth-century England. Whether this is factual or not, the historical analogue sheds valuable light on Athanase Tallard's character and on his role in MacLennan's novel, for Owen was a man who neither achieved great practical success not created an original system of thought. His contribution lay in his humanity and in his belief that every person had a right to full humanity. Certainly, there could be no more apt description of what Athanase Tallard represents in Two Solitudes.