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McConville, Peter J.

English

2006

MA

Navigating the Text: A Formal Analysis of Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams investigates the structure of Barry Lopez's book, originally published in 1986. This thesis contends that the most appropriate way to read Lopez's book, four hundred and twenty pages whose common point of reference is a nebulous mass of land and ocean, is as a map. Using compositional theory, human geography, and Lopez's own writings, I demonstrate how Lopez's book is structured as a geographical, as opposed to linear, narrative. The book consists of a series of interrelated "text images," strewn together throughout according to a geographic sensibility, resulting in a complex "word map" of the Arctic.