FEMTNIST CANADIAN MODERNISM iN MARGARET LAURENCE'S MANAWAKA NOVELS A

219 Pages·2002·12.39 MB·English

CREATIVE DISPLACEMENT AND CORPOREAL DEFIANCE:
FEMTNIST CANADIAN MODERNISM
iN MARGARET LAURENCE'S MANAWAKA NOVELS
A Thesis Submitted to the College of
Graduate Studies and Research
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirernents
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of English
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon
BY
Debra Lym Dudek
September 2000
O Copyright Debra Lynn Dudek, 200 1. Al1 rights reserved.
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PERMISSION TO USE
In presenting this thesis in partial fùlfillment of the requirements for a
Postgraduate degree 6om the University of Saskatchewan, 1 agree that the Libraries of
this University may rnake it fieely available for inspection. 1 fùrther agree that
permission for copying of this thesis in any rnanner, in whole or in part, for scholarly
purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work
or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which
my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this
thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be albwed without my written
permission It is also understcmd that due recognition shall be given to me and to the
University of Saskatchewan in any schotarly use which may be niade of any material in
my thesis.
Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in
whole or part should be addresseci to:
Head of the Dcpartrnent of English
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5AS
ABSTRACT
This projet describes a ferninist Canadian literary modernism in order to draw
attention to revisions that need to take place in the conception of a misleadingly
unqualified modemism. 1 begin, theref ore, with an Introduction that characterizes
aspects of mainstream male literary modernism and then argue for a revisionary
modernism that inc ludes feminist Canadian modemism. This fèminist Canadian
modernism ernbodies both a historically specific modemism and a modernist impulse,
which is defined by its use of modernist techniques and by its concern with rnodernist
politics of social change. 1 use Margaret Laurence's Manawaka novels to situate
feminist Canadian rnodemist narratives in the context of a modem Canada defined by its
past as a British colony and its present as a cultural and economic colony of the United
States. 1 argue that a feminist Canadian mdemism emerges with the second wave
feminist movement.
The chapters that analyze the novels are ananged in the chronological order of
the novels' publications so that it is apparent how an ernerging feminism develops more
fully in each novel and how that feminism helps defme a feminist Canadian literary
modernism. The first chapter, "Reconciling Pain and Pleasure in The Stone Angel,"
anal yzes how Hagar Shipley displaces patriarchal rnodels by reconciling her complicity
in these rnodels with her resistance to their power. The second chapter, "Bearing
Voices. Broken Bones, & the Discourse of Hysteria," considers A Jesf of God as a novel
that is concerned with modernism's divided subject and the discourses that define this
subject. The third chapter, "Poetic Redress: Her Body, Her House in The Fire-
DweUers, examines The F h -D weZiers as a modernist novel t hat analyzes ho w the
"
sentimental and the private sphere are marginalized in mainstream male modernist
narratives. The final chapter. "Floating Pique: 'Harbinger of My Death, Continuer of
Life."' considers the cornplex relationship between Pique and Morag in The Diviners as
a relationship that reorders time and space and enables the present to be strategically
recreated without destroying the past. Jointly and separately. these novels creatively
displace male rnodetnist narratives through corporeal def iance.
III
ACKNOWEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowiedge the Department of English a& the University of
Saskatchewan for its financial and professional support while 1 was a doctoral candidate.
1 would like to make special mention of the fo llowing people who went beyond the cal1
of duty to make me feel welcome and supported: Julie Beddoes, Hilary Clark, Ron
Cooley, Len Findlay. Kathleen James-Cavan, David ParKin, and Doug Thorpe. 1
would especially like to thank my supervisor, Susan Gingell, for beiieving in me
unwave~glyan d for giving me permission to vent my fears and btrations.
1 would also like to acknowledge my Exarnining Cornmittee and to thank each of
them for their tirne and energy: Paul Denham. Shemll Grace, Peter Hynes, and Diana
Relke.
In addition 1 would like to acknowledge the Department of English at the
University of Winnipeg for providing me with a space to work and an incorne to live
during this last year. 1 would especially like to thank Neil Besner, Rob Budde, Keith
Fulton, and Deborah Schnitzer for their fkiendship and enthusiasm.
My family and ûiends have made tremendous sacrifices and have provided
boundless encouragement. which have enabled me to have the psychological. emotional,
and physical space necessary to coqlete this dissertation 1 would especially like to
thank Marilyn, John, Dawn, and Ross Dudek, Wendy Price, Olga Kormilo, Nicole
Markotic. Méira Cook Suan Holloway. Laura Moss, Joanne Boucher, Robert Kroetsch,
Fred Wah, Ian Balfour, Lynda Tjaden, Tricia Best, Michèle Manaigre, Michael and
Rene Wilson. and Karee Davidson.
This dissertation is dedicated to Oz Filippin.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PERMISSION TO USE I
ABSTRACT 11
ACKNO WLEDGEMENTS IV
PREFACE VI 1
1. INTRODUCTION
1 -1 Modemism
1 -2 Canadian Modemism
1 -3 Nationalism
1.4 Feminism
1.5 Feminism and Nationalism in Canada
1 -6 Models of Gendered Moàemisms
1.7 The Manawaka Novels
2. RECONCILING PAIN AND PLEASURE IN THE STONE ANGEL 46
3. BEARiNG VOICES. BROKEN BONES. & THE DISCOURSE OF HYSTERlA 74
4. POETIC REDRESS: HER BODY. HER HOUSE IN THE FIRE-DWELLERS 1 08
5. FLOATING PIQUE: "HARBMGER OF MY DEATH, CONTllWER OF LIFE" 123
5. 1 "going wcsty 128
5.2 "on to the coast" 147
5.3 "This city the end" 162
5.4 "going out" 1 69
5.5 "back and forth" 1 74
5.6 "west again" 177
5 -7 "to ride yourself" 1 79
5.8 "the river . . . Iike voices" 1 80
6. CONCLUSION: FIER BODY, A RiVER
6.1 Transgressions and transformations
6.2 Beginning another cycle out fiom Manawaka
WORKS CITED 200
"For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcorne of many years
of thinking in cornmon, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of
the mass is behind the single voice."
-V irg inia Woolf
"Evolution when blocked and suppressed becomes revo lut ion."
-Nellie McClung
"Lost histories . . . perhaps we must invent thern in order to rediscover them"
-Margaret Laurence
"In a sense. we haven't got an identity until somebody tells our story. The fiction rnakes
us real."
Robert Kroetsch
PREFACE
9:00 P.M. May 1 1. 1992. Blue Note Café. Main Street across ftom the forks of
the Red and Assiniboine rivers, a site that is just behind the train station in Winnipeg,
Manit O ba, Canada
1 sit in the Blue Note, an afier-hours coffee house that is famous in Winnipeg as
the centre of the city's music scene. The Crash Test Dummies played here at least once
a rnonth before they were The Crash Test Dummies. Neil Young has corne here to sing
afier more than one of his concerts. If the owner knows that you are a regular, then you
can get wine afier 200 AM., even though iiquor cannot legally be sold afier this tirne.
Ask for red or white tea, and your wine cornes in a teacup. It is closed down by the
liquor inspectors on a regular basis. Before the Blue Note lefi Main Street for good, 1
went there for a poetry reading one night during my first year as a graduate student
studying Canadian literature. 1 sat with my teacher Robert Kroetsch and classmate and
p e t Nicole Markotic. Patrick Friesen read fiom the smll stage on the other side of the
red vinyl booths. 1 could barely see Friesen through a smoky haze, but his voice was
c lear-an int imate whisper and a raspy touch: "1s the dream loud enough? Can you feel
it on your skin?" My skin still tingles at the touch of his voice, as imagination and
reality meet in my body.
1 sit across firom Kroetsch and Markotic, alone on my side of the booth. My back
is to the window. 1 watch Kroetsch gaze out the window, eyes lost, fingers clenched.
He leans over to Nicole, unfùrls his fmgers, and points out the window behinû me:
"Look. A train-the vision of an urban landscape." A symbo 1 of t he prairies. Like
Friesen's whisper, Kroetsch's observation was simple and profound. It still lives in my
skin.
Kroetsch will likely tell you a different story.
Markotic will tell it in another way.
Friesen may not have even known we were there.
An event in the past is neither a single story nor a single history.
1 cannot look at a train without thinking of Kroetsch, Markotic, Friesen, and the
prairie. When 1 read about a train, I understand the hotd it has on prairie people. The
train in Margaret Laurence's Manawaka novels haunts the people of Manawaka, at tirnes
a spectre of hope, at other thes a shadow of destruction. Always a sound leading away
fiom and towards home. Always a contradiction.
Ekfore the invent ion of the train, rivers and their -and other bodies of
water-were ut ilized as transportation routes, trade posts, and d we lling areas, and later,
were used to order and settle the land. Gerald Friesen in his history text The Canadian
Prairies discusses how Cree peoples traveled interior river systems; Anishinau be
peoples inhabited land from the Manitoba Interiake to Hudson and James Bays and Lake
Superior; Assiniboines lived in the Rainy River comdor fiom Lake Superior to Lake
Winnipeg; and C hipewyans lived along the Churchill watershed (23-25). In Manitoba
afier European contact, fùr trade posts were established on Hudson Bay, on Lakes
Winnipeg and Manitoba, and on the Churchill, Assiniboine, and Qu'Appelle Rivers.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, activity around the water systerns in
Manitoba served colonialism and capitalism, as the Red River settkment was
established and as the Montreal and London fur companies engaged in ofien violent
cornpetition. In addition, a 'new nation' was king formed as children were bom fkom