In the dark corner of a bright room, sitting alone away from gazing eyes, disconnecting from the outside world in solitude. There comes a time in every life where one separates from reality. Similarly in Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays detachment in various styles through the actions of Kate, a distraught character. Kate emotionally isolates herself after she leaves a remote town, in hope of overlooking her past.
Although she is surrounded by people she can rely on, Kate keeps to herself in a social environment. Every time someone tries to get closer to her, she pushes them away. The greatest emotional isolation occurs with her ‘boyfriend’ Daniel, who seems to know nothing about Katie’s past. For Kate, “that little request from Daniel was the beginning of what was going to be a problem between [them]… Daniel [was] asking more of [her] than [she] could give, and which Daniel described to [her] as [her] shutting him out of [her] life” (36). Kate does not feel she is ready to come out of her bubble, the bubble that was created as a child. The eleventh commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Emote” (9), was pounded into her fragile mind at a young age. Even after everything that happened, she was the only one that remained bond with these principals. It was one of those things that linked her to her home town.
Kate was brought up in a sparse town called, “Crow Lake, the small farming community in northern Ontario… [which] at that time … was linked to the outside world by one dusty road and the railroad tracks” (8-9). Where Kate was born has an impact on how she reacts in different situations. To some, like Daniel, Northern Ontario is the same Barrie. She has never seen the hustle and bustle of city life, and when she is put in a place such as Toronto, she is overwhelmed with the amount of openness. According to Kate, “Daniel was very used to strangers” (155). Where as in her case, she gets overwhelmed when even a person comes to talk to her about themselves. She is not...