Cultural (Trans)formation and the Sense of Loss in Ann Michaels’s The Winter Vault

Anne Michaels’ novel The Winter Vault (2009) deals with loss and displacement on several levels. From a narrative perspective, the dismantling and re-edification of the Temple of Abu Simbel highlights the depletion of the Nubian people, just like the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway implies the destruction of several towns and the painful relocation of its inhabitants. At the same time, the graft of foreign botanical species in Toronto articulates the feeling of loss on a personal level. Such examples are representative of the way in which national cultures and identities are redefined in the multicultural scenario of modern Canada. Similarly, the characters of Lucjan and the other Polish refugees present the problematic case of an ethnic community inscribed in the cultural mosaic: its members share strong bonds of solidarity with each another and with their motherland, but they remain alien to society. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate such relationships and relocations, as well as the ways in which discourses of transformation and replicas are inscribed in the context of Canadian multiculturalism. Indeed, each metamorphosis necessarily involves sacrifice, thus showing a different aspect of multiculturalism in which each transformation is necessarily accompanied by loss.