The 'Sacrifice' and 'Crackpot': What a woman can learn by rewriting a fairy tale and clarifying its meaning

Adele Wiseman's novels The Sacrifice (1956) and Crackpot (1974) are set in the Jewish quarter of Winnipeg, discuss the experiences of the immigrant and the first-generation Canadian, and focus on women of questionable sexual mores. However, while The Sacrifice supported the authority of the patriarchal perspective and legitimized the "sacrifice" of a prostitute as necessary to fortify Jewish identity, Crackpot shifted moral authority to the perspective of a prostitute. Canadian critics widely embraced The Sacrifice and borrowed its mythmaking techniques to rationalize Canadian identity, yet Crackpot subverted this traditional project of Canadian interpretation. This essay examines the critical reactions to these works and discusses how Canadian criticism adapts to changes in literary production.