SOURCE: Nothof, Anne F. “Gendered Landscapes: Synergism of Place and Person in Canadian Prairie Drama.” Great Plains Quarterly 18, no. 2 (spring 1998): 127-38.

In the following excerpt, Nothof studies the differences between man's and womans relationship with the land. By evaluating Canadian plays including Pollock's Generations, Nothof suggests that man views the land as something to conquer and control, and land, as an entity, can destroy him; women, however, tends to notice the beauty and the bounty of the land, and try to conform and become one with it.

In an attempt to realize the relationship of character and landscape, recent Canadian Prairie drama has moved beyond the confines of theatrical space through a metaphysical evocation of place and time. The prairies are configured as an imaginative projection of the human psyche, expressed through images that are themselves a reflection of an interaction of human and elemental forces. In the...