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Articles

Volume 16, Number 2 (1991)

What the Crow Said: A Topos of Excess

  • Christine Jackman
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1991-06-06

Abstract

In What the Crow Said, Robert Kroetsch undermines binaries, collapsing them into parodic extremes, and offers text in their place, a place where the dynamics of binary relations are enacted. The master narrative of what Hélène Cixous calls dual, hierarchized oppositions drives patriarchal society, especially through sexual and social relationships. What the Crow Said derives much of its energy from the opposition between masculine and feminine; the fiction of this pair demonstrates its unreality as an absolute, essential structure. Kroetsch foregoes a final implosion of this binary by allowing traces of ambiguity to undermine the absolute position of his characters. Binaries are parodied until they collapse; however, the pairs are not denied. Binaries in the novel function as dynamic relationships.