The Foreign Hallway

Winspear, Julie

Publication

The Foreign Hallway

Winspear, Julie

Date

2019

Additional date(s)

2019-05-19

Abstract

The novella's central concept is the relationship between a tight-knit circle of students attending a Canadian liberal arts college, set in the fictional town of Trinity, British Columbia. Hector Ford, the protagonist, transfers from the university located just outside of his Texas hometown to the small South Island College in Canada and finds himself in what the local students call "the foreign hallway." Also inhabiting this particular dormitory are a variety of other students from different parts of the world. Of these foreigners, a select few take classes with an enigmatic and charismatic philosophy professor by the name of Moriel Whittaker. As the story unfolds, the manipulative nature of the relationship between the close-knit students and their professor reveals itself. The narrative culminates in the death of the professor, leaving the students both shattered and stuck in a hellish Sartre-inspired situation: their inescapable connection to one another. The work deals with themes of philosophy, social manipulation, and a young adult's desperate need for self-identification and belonging. This novella, while simultaneously balancing the expectations of the genre (i.e. the ability to be read in a single sitting, an ending with circular ties to the beginning, etc.), attempts to display a state of vulnerability even among the most ostensibly intellectual individuals at the collegiate level, and what price such a status may exact.