SOURCE: "Alternate Stories: The Short Fiction of Audrey Thomas and Margaret Atwood," in Canadian Literature, No. 109, Summer, 1986, pp. 5-14.

A Canadian poet, educator, and critic, Davey has exerted significant influence on contemporary Canadian literature as the editor of the journal Tish. Davey has stated: "The writing I value unmasks conventions, traditions, mythologies, all things that are a static or valorized shape in experience, even the conventions one inevitably establishes in one's own texts. " In the following excerpt, Davey contends that Thomas's short stories call attention to archetypes, traditional roles, and social expectations that rob women of the opportunity to define themselves.

She knew now that almost certainly, whenever she saw a street musician, either he was blind or lame or leprous or there was a terribly deformed creature, just out of sight, on behalf of whom he was playing his music. ["The More Little Mummy in the World...