Big Little Harbour by Danielle Duchin Thesis Submitted in Partial
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Big Little Harbour by Danielle Duchin Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English Acadia University December 2016 © Copyright by Danielle Duchin, 2016 This thesis by Danielle Duchin is accepted in its present form by the Department of English as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours Approved by the Thesis Supervisor ______________________________ _____________________ Dr. Wanda Campbell Date Approved by the Head of the Department ______________________________ _____________________ Dr. Jessica Slights Date Approved by the Honours Committee _____________________________ _____________________ Dr. Anna Redden Date ii I, Danielle Duchin, grant permission to the University Librarian of Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microfilm, paper or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis. ___________________________________________________ Signature of the Author ___________________________________________________ Date iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Jessica Slights for her persistence in charting a course schedule that has allowed me to pursue Honours. I would also like to thank Dr. Wanda Campbell, thesis supervisor, for keeping me on track throughout the process despite my determination to explore too much. I also credit Dr. Lance La Rocque, second reader, for his detailed review that reminded me the long journey was worth it. Finally, I would like to thank all members of my family, both English and French, for teaching me how to tie a kerchief like a pirate. iv Table of Contents I. House ....................................................................................... 1 II. Town ..................................................................................... 11 III. Bridge .................................................................................. 23 IV. Island ................................................................................... 31 V. River ..................................................................................... 40 VI. Dunes .................................................................................. 52 VII. Home ................................................................................. 58 Afterword ................................................................................. 73 Works Cited and Consulted ...................................................... 80 v Abstract Big Little Harbour is an English translation of Bouctouche, the real New Brunswick town, which is the novella's main setting. The central plot event is a fictional division between the French and English communities in Bouctouche, referred to unofficially in the novella as the "Separation." As the bilingual child of a French- speaking Papa and an English-speaking Mama, the ten-year old protagonist, Carole, acts as the intersection between these two divided linguistic communities. Mama and Papa demonstrate the current lack of communication between the two communities, and Carole's interaction with her English Grandma Gallant and her matantes Alphonsine and Albertine explores the historical rivalry between the French and the English. Humour in the vein of Antonine Maillet's La Sagouine and Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town is used throughout the novella to forge connections between characters as Carole explores the flexible nature of Acadian identity. vi I House Ten year old Carole Leblanc liked to pick blueberries from her backyard and sort them by hue. She wore a purple kerchief like a pirate and didn't like when loose strands of her dark hair escaped and fell across her eyes; the Separation was a strand of hair in her eye. The Separation was going to divide her home. It was supposed to be called "the Culture and Language Enrichment Act," or "l'acte d'enrichissement de la langue et culture" because "Separation" sounded too negative, but whatever it was called, it would split Bouctouche down the middle, and Carole was not happy. The coastal town of Bouctouche was not on the sea. The Bouctouche Dunes, a long line of sand anchored by green beach grass and the wooden skeleton of a boardwalk, enclosed the Baie de Bouctouche and the land on its shores and kept them from the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Within the protection of the Dunes, the warm bay trickled into the Eastern New Brunswick mainland and down a wide salt-water river, the Bouctouche River, which cut twenty kilometres inland. All along the river there were farms and cottages, and on each side there was a church, a reservation, a Co-op, and an ice cream stand. The north side of the Bouctouche River boasted the larger church, reservation, Co-op, and ice cream stand and also housed the farmer's market and the marina. The south side, however, owned the bingo hall, which kept traffic constant 1 between the two sides of the river. Crossing occurred at the two lane bridge directly in front of Main Street on the north side, and the continuous click clack of cars over the bridge's joints was like the metallic beating of Bouctouche's heart. Bouctouche was an Acadian town. After la Déportation in 1755, when the English had removed Acadians from the Maritimes, some Acadians fled further into New Brunswick while others returned years later after they had wandered hopelessly searching for a new home. The province became a refuge, and modern day New Brunswick claimed to be proudly bilingual because of it. But Acadians did not flourish in the province as they once did; they gradually settled down out of sight, and many joined the English majority, which was why "the Culture and Language Enrichment Act," or "l'acte d'enrichissement de la langue et culture" wanted Acadian communities like Bouctouche to be divided by language. Carole was told the change would help Bouctouche, but she did not think it suited the town. The change was like a colourful parrot landing within the grey seagull squabble. To Carole the very idea of the Separation felt like the pull of a low trough before a tall wave struck; it unsettled her. Her parents had sat her down to talk to her about the change and to calm her, but this only made Carole worry more, since her Mama and Papa did not talk, at least not together. It was not to say they were in conflict; on the contrary, Mama and Papa simply did not need to speak. Mama was from the city of Saint John at the bottom of New Brunswick, and Papa was from Tracadie at the top of the province. New Brunswick was typically seen as having an English south and a French north, which left many confused when the Separation decided to divide Bouctouche as the French south and the English north. 2 Some wondered if it was done by accident, and some wondered if the English had made some kind of deal to keep the farmer's market and the marina. Carole and her parents lived with Papa's matantes in Bouctouche. The two old sister's relation to Carole had been unsuccessfully explained at one time, so she had resolved from the start to simply call them Matante Alphonsine and Matante Albertine like everyone else. The matantes, Papa, and Carole spoke French, but Mama could not, so they all spoke English at home. There were many families like Carole's in Bouctouche. No matter how many French-speakers in a household, a single English-speaker dispelled French speech the way a pebble scattered minnows in the shallows. Carole always wondered whether the little fish were afraid of the passing pebble, or whether they simply did not want to be bothered by it. Though Papa knew English and knew to speak it at home, Mama and Papa had such difficulty speaking with each other that they had decided to live together wordlessly. For the most part it worked. They did not bicker, but they seemed to exist beside each other instead of with each other. Mama and Papa woke at separate times of the day, prepared and ate breakfast separately, left for work in separate cars—Papa had to drive all the way to Dieppe every morning where he worked at a call centre, and Mama sorted the bins at Frenchy's used clothes; sometimes the old ladies who owned the building let Mama bring items home that were not good enough for the bins—and they then came home at separate times and ate supper separately, and then they spent the evening doing separate chores in separate rooms before going to separate beds to read separate books before they turned off their light at separate times. They reminded Carole of one of Bouctouche's many lighthouses; one was the silent pause of dark and the other was the 3 silent pause of light, and they chased each other around and around the top of the lighthouse yet never met. But Carole knew, though the pauses seemed disconnected, that together they created something important because most lighthouses had a unique sequence of flashes that identified the point of land they marked. Carole had learned about them from Mama and Papa. Her parents converged and spoke when they answered her continuous questions. Carole, however, had not asked a question the day her parents sat her down to speak about the Separation, which is what unnerved her. Their usual quiet sequence of life disturbed by the need to speak, Mama and Papa awkwardly explained the situation to her. "The Separation is nothing serious," Mama told her. "But it's not funny either," Papa said, "mais you can think of it like a game." "But it's not really like a game because no one's going to lose," Mama said. "It's just something new Bouctouche is going to try." Papa noticed Carole's worried frown, and he hastened to add, "But if it doesn't work, the game will stop." "I thought we weren't going to describe it like a game anymore," Mama said. "You have a better exemple?" Papa asked. The two of them then stared at each other a moment, and, perhaps because they did not speak during the pause, they found their rhythm again. "There's some concern that the French language is disappearing in New Brunswick," Mama restarted.