Surfacing Themes

Surfacing does not represent logic and insanity as opposites—instead, Surfacing suggests that logical systems are human constructs that have internal consistency but no objective truth. For example, the narrator describes how in childhood, her brother decided that leeches with dots were good while mottled leeches were evil; he would leave “good” leeches alone but burn “bad” leeches to death—actions consistent with his internal logic but not corresponding to any objective truth. Surfacing then proposes that…

Surfacing suggests that civilization rests on a series of unequal social binaries—male and female, mind and body, human and animal, and ally and enemy, for example—that encourage violence and that do not necessarily exist in nature. The narrator mentions that she learned in her Canadian childhood during World War II (1939–1945) that it was all right to kill “food or enemies,” but these categories are socially constructed, not real independent of human prejudices and judgments…

Surfacing represents religion as a psychological phenomenon derived from family dynamics: essentially, it shows how children derive their ideas about God or gods from their parents, who appear all-powerful and undying to their children. If the children are brought up in a religious tradition like Christianity, the novel suggests that they can transfer their natural, childish beliefs about their parents’ power and immortality from their human parents to a divine figure like God. This transfer…

In Surfacing, art is a powerful tool that can either reinforce or challenge existing social realities. The novel takes place during a trip that the narrator, her boyfriend Joe, and their married friends Anna and David make to northern Quebec after the narrator’s father disappears there. During the trip, David and Joe work on a film project called Random Samples, which reinforces existing social realities like the subjugation of animals and…