SOURCE: "George Moore's The Lake: Repetition, Narcissism, and Exile," in English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1989, pp. 158-69.

In the following essay on The Lake, Malkan finds that the protagonist's search for personal fulfillment in the face of existential monotony is tied to his self-absorption and renunciation of social obligations.

The Lake is a novel about exile which not only celebrates the decision of its protagonist to leave the country of his birth, but one which supports his decision to leave the priesthood as well. The loss of nationality and vocation, paradoxically, is affirmed by Moore to be a rediscovery of commitment and faith. This mirror-like reversal, in which things are found to be the opposite of what they appear to be on the surface, is signified in the text by the novel's central image of the lake. The metaphor of the lake as a repeating and...