Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

STUDIES - Anna Jakabfi: Regionalism and the Surgeon Figure in Hugh MacLennan's Fiction

For him life is a gift, all his morale is different, originating in the fact that he has too much energy. He feels he belongs to a world larger than his immediate environment, he wants to grasp and save the whole world, and challenges authority of any kind. He loves LIFE and not just one woman of a friend. His feelings belong to the world he claims his own and sets up his own moral code in everything he does. He, himself is a life-force, a healing force if in the right track. He is deeply convinced that he is always in the right track, because he sets up the rules for himself. The doctors of Hugh MacLennan appreciate beauty when they meet with it. It satisfies their aesthetic need, it a strength they can draw inspiration from to continue their hard work on the one hand, and on the other, it makes them contemplate, to philosophize which in the end comes to the same thing, it helps them to face the sick, the operations, and death if necessary. The process is the following: they take delight in sheer beauty of the scene they are watching, the sight makes them contemplate on mankind, the very existence of man, their country Canada, which thoughts lead them back to reality, the immediate problem they have to solve.

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0 Angus Murray watches Halifax: "Spread below him, the town lay with the mist concealing every ugly thing, and the splendour of its outline seemed the most perfect, natural composition he had ever seen. He thought that a man could only know the meaning of peace when he longer reached after the torment of hope. He had lost Penny, with to argue or justify himself any more; unhappiness could no longer have meaning, for there was no longer anything positive for him to be unhappy about. There was nothing to worry him. Last night he had relinquished the last thread of ambition which had held worries tight in his mind. But the beauty of the world remained and he found himself able to enjoy it; it stayed constant in spite of all mankind's hideous attempts to master it. With eyes blinking in the light he surveyed Halifax fanning away under its bare trees from the rounded base of the Citadel. Almost every street and building held for him a fragment of personal history dating back to the time, twenty-seven years ago, when he had first come as a boy raw 1

5 Cf. op. cit pp. 2, 193—4 56