Essay about the short story “As Birds Bring Forth the Sun” | By Alistair Macleod | Mihaela Bianca Circeanu / grupo 4 | 18/05/2012 |

Myths and memory in the story As Birds Bring forth the Sun by Alistair Macleod

As all we know, Canadian literature has been recognized as independent later than other countries, but in spite of this, they have many good writers who are internationally known, as Alistair Macleod for example. He has written many books, mainly short stories and we will try to analyze one of his works, “As Birds Bring Forth the Sun” in which he explores issues as myths and the importance of the past in present, and human emotions as fear.

On the one hand Macleod's works explore the effects on …ver más…

In other words, while they can make light of the story, they cannot pretend not to understand its significance; they cannot deny that they are all waiting for that “grey dog of death.” In this sense, the narrator finds solace in the fact that at least they are all thinking it together. We can see here how the life and believes of the characters are being affected by the past in spite of the pass of time and this idea is supported too by a commentator who said that “MacLeod’s readers are repeatedly invited to scrutinize the reasons why his heroes are held in captivity by narratives of the past” (Hiscock 55). It seems like the characters have assumed that they have a past heritage and they do not do anything to stop it, they keep going with it “a present awareness of a past heritage of loss, a continuity, so to speak, of dispossession” ( Davidson 41).

On the other hand, he explores people emotions like fear above all. The “big grey dog” symbolizes this important emotion, which is portrayed throughout this short story. Fear is evident in many instances throughout the story. One such instance is when the sons watched their father die by the “cu mor glas” .The author uses the quote “they were afraid to try to carry the body to the rocking boat because he was so heavy and they were afraid that they might lose even