Going by the dictionary meaning of the word `mold', as a `particular style showing the characteristics ', breaking the mold denotes an `original way' that promises to change people's expectations from a situation. Accommodating newer perspectives, attitudes, approaches and techniques of representation, along with a calculated negation of the accepted ones, is the focus of this paper. Through four specific short stories that have been carefully selected from the Canadian mosaic, and critically analyzed, the aim is to show how conscious attempts have been made by the authors to accomplish the above. While Susan Swan topples the societal power structure by giving women ultimate prerogatives over the other gender, Jane Rule begins with the assumption that lesbianism is the better alternative to `compulsory heterosexuality', demanding equality in any relationship.

Creating a `mold' assumes an element of control, where the subject's passivity is cast into an imagean image that is strengthened and cemented through conformity. This act of `imaging' implies external agents like society, men, writers, priests, institutions and so on, where the whole process is based upon projection, reflection, imitation and an act of symbolizing. In other words, it is an imposition and is never devoid of a power structure.

Myth and history are two major hegemonic structures having gender dimensions. As Jasbir Jain (2002a) puts it, "myth marginalizes women, history excludes them". To begin with Aristotle's Politics,¹ for example, women have been compared to slaves. Women belonged to the world of nature and chaos while men represented order and civilization. The earlier myths have inevitably portrayed the woman as either the source of temptation or the agent of procreation. Both history and myth have allowed women restricted role models, reinforcing inequalities and discriminations. To put it in Virginia Woolf's words, "for most of history, Anonymous was a woman".

The `desire to break, transgress, rupture or transform' the notion of the `pre-set forms, conventions, practices, discourses and stereotypes', thereby creating a more open or `evolving' identity, suggests a constructive processan approach that aims at shattering the rigid and opaque boundaries of the `container' called `mold'. Since the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines `mold' as a "particular style showing the characteristics, attitudes or behavior that are typical of somebody or something", the idiomatic expression `breaking the mold' would denote an `original way' that would change people's expectations from a situation.

English Studies Journal, external agents, society, men, writers, priests, institutions, projection, reflection, imitation, symbolizing, power structure, marginalizes women, Politics, the world of nature, women restricted role models, reinforcing inequalities, Virginia Woolf's words