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Notes and Commentaries

Volume 05, Number 2 (1980)

Mazo de la Roche's Delight: An Unexpected Source

  • Joan Doig
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1980-06-06

Abstract

Mazo de la Roche's Delight is an ironic treatment of those romantic themes that its author treats with deadly seriousness in her other stories. Delight has two probable sources, both of which underline de la Roche's ironic stance in this novel -- a stance which some critics have missed. One source is that of one of her own earlier stories, "Canadian Ida and English Nell," and the other source is Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson. Delight is a good, light comedy, but at times de la Roche seems to have difficulty in sustaining the irony.