Reproductive Trauma and Archival Reconstruction in Postwar Canada: Heather Marshall’s Looking for Jane

This article examines Heather Marshall’s Looking for Jane as a literary engagement with the history of reproductive control in postwar Canada. It contends that the novel redefines trauma as a structurally generated condition, influenced by institutional and social constraints. Through its fragmented, multi-generational narrative, comprising letters, testimonies, and disjointed timelines, the text reconstructs a history that survives only in partial, mediated, and often unstable traces, foregrounding the difficulties of rendering reproductive trauma historically visible. By contextualising individual experiences within a broader framework of institutional oversight and referencing documented practices such as forced adoption and restricted access to abortion, the novel links literary form to historical realities. Its concluding paratext extends this dialogue into the present, engaging the reader directly and emphasising the ongoing significance of reproductive trauma in contemporary discourses on responsibility and recognition.