The Author, following the story of Felicia’s journey, emphasizes how A. Egoyan and W. Trevor, while introducing the main characters, pay the same attention, both in the novel and in the movie, to the existing links between milieu and formative processes. While examining the leading characters the Author also highlights how writer and director bestow different kinds of evolution to such links because of the different psychological trait they each confer to hope and illusion. Starting from this point of view the Author traces the two different methods of evaluating "hope" and "illusions" in contemporary psychological reflection, one of which is ascribable to the defensive value and to a misinterpretation of reality, while the other is ascribable to the developmental and motivational function.
Keywords: Journey, identification, fable, evolution, hope, illusions