In Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley, there is always a contrast between the community and the isolated individual; as well, there is evident a contrast between what is said and what is meant, between the unspoken and the spoken. There are in effect two languages, that of the rural community and that of the city, and only the character David Canaan has access to both. Yet the overwhelming sense of isolation which pervades the novel has its effect on David; although he is the burgeoning artist, he becomes isolated from art.
