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Articles

Volume 09, Number 2 (1984)

Sunshine Sketches: Mariposa Versus Mr. Smith

  • Gerald Lynch
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1984-06-06

Abstract

Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, while not a novel "proper," contains a unifying element in the character of Josh Smith. Smith, a self-serving individualist, is portrayed to be in opposition to the town of Mariposa (which is the book's other central unifying factor). Although Leacock's ironic stance precludes any simplistic observations about the ostensibly simplistic little town--so that any "truth" is automatically an equivocation -- there is nevertheless evidence that self-serving business and political attributes are destructive, and that the resilience of community is finally victorious.