SOURCE: “A Map of Misreading: Gender, Identity, and Freedom in Robert Kroetsch’s Gone Indian,” in Studies in Canadian Literature, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1993, pp. 1-17.

In the following essay, Snyder examines the ways in which Gone Indian has been misunderstood and suggests ways to correct the misreadings.

M. E. Turner, among several others, has contended that the discussion of Robert Kroetsch’s work is too often based upon the critical positions set out in Kroetsch’s own theoretical work; Kroetsch’s literary output has enjoyed a high level of acceptance because Kroetsch’s criticism implicitly posits his own works as models for postmodern fiction and poetry. Although Turner’s argument is overstated, it is often difficult to separate Kroetsch’s novels from his critical pronouncements. In at least one instructive case, though, this tendency results in fallacious conclusions, not because of the naive linking of an author’s artistic...