FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS VIS-À-VIS PLACE AND TIME: A STUDY OF THE SALEM QUARTET NOVELS OF MATT COHEN Thesis submitted to Bharathidasan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH By UMA GOVINDARAJAN Ref. No.018666/Ph.D2/English/Part-Time/October 2007 Under the Supervision of Dr.V. AYOTHI Currently Principal, Prof. & Head PG & Research Department of English Thanthai Hans Roever College, Perambalur. Former Prof. & Head Director, Centre for Canadian Studies Department of English Bharathidasan University, Trichy. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY TRICHY, INDIA SEPTEMBER 2013 Dr.V. AYOTHI Currently Principal, Prof. & Head PG & Research Department of English Thanthai Hans Roever College,Perambalur. Former Prof. & Head Director,Centre for Canadian Studies Department of English Bharathidasan University, Trichy. CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the thesis entitled FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS VIS-À-VIS PLACE AND TIME: A STUDY OF THE SALEM QUARTET NOVELS OF MATT COHEN submitted by UMA GOVINDARAJAN is a research work done under my guidance and supervision and I certify that the thesis is fit for submission to Bharathidasan University for a Ph.D. Degree. I certify that this thesis represents independent work on the part of the candidate. Station: Trichy Date : September 2013 (V. AYOTHI) UMA GOVINDARAJAN Ref. No.018666/Ph.D2/English/Part-Time/October 2007 DECLARATION This is to state that the thesis entitled FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS VIS-A- VIS PLACE AND TIME: A STUDY OF THE SALEM QUARTET NOVELS OF MATT COHEN submitted by me, is a research work done under the guidance and supervision of Dr.V.AYOTHI, Currently Principal, Prof. & Head, PG & Research Department of English, Thanthai Hans Roever College, Perambalur and Former Prof. & Head, Department of English, Bharathidasan University, Trichy, and that the thesis has not previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, associate ship, fellowship or any other similar title. I also state that the thesis represents independent work on my part. Station: Trichy Date : September 2013 (UMA GOVINDARAJAN) CONTENTS Chapter Title Page No. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I INTRODUCTION 1 II ISSUES BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF PLACE 33 III CONFLICTING CONCEPTS OF TIME 84 IV MAN-WOMAN RELATIONSHIP 125 V THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY 154 VI CONCLUSION 195 WORKS CITED 204 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT At the outset, I submit all my efforts to God, the almighty in earnest reverence and heartfelt gratitude for His boundless blessings which, besides making me physically strong, mentally agile, intellectually sharp and spiritually fortified to complete this Herculean task on time, illumined what in me was dark. Next I owe my debt of gratitude in abundant measure to Dr.V.AYOTHI, Currently Principal, Prof. & Head, PG & Research Department of English, Thanthai Hans Roever College, Perambalur, and former Prof. & Head, Department of English, Bharathidasan University, Trichy, my research guide and supervisor for having allowed me to do research in the subject of my choice and interest. It is no exaggeration to put on record that his timely and scholarly guidance with critical insights, necessary and relevant comments and above all, friendly concern that eased off my tension and stress. His attention to every detail of the thesis was meticulous. The enriching experience I had as his research-scholar makes me at once, proud and happy. I deem it a great blessing that timely help came from Dr. S. GANESAN, Associate Professor of English, H.H. The Rajah’s College, Pudukkottai – 622 001, Dr.ANTONYSAMY, Reader in English (Retd.), Government Arts College, Melur- 625106 and Prof. HUDHA KHAN, Head of the PG Department of English (Retd.), Wakf Board College, Madurai-625020, in the form of reading my initial drafts of the thesis, writing an abstract in Tamil and proposing many useful and valuable suggestions. I am grateful to Mr. R. Kamarraj, Muscat and Mr. Roger Jaggie, U.K. for procuring the necessary primary sources from the United Kingdom. I remain grateful to Bharathidasan University for its varied services, particularly the services rendered by the librarians-both general and departmental-who extended all support in the selection of secondary sources for my study. Yet another member who richly deserves my heartfelt thanks is Thiru.R.RAVIKUMAR of SUBATHRA COMPUTER, Madurai, for the neat execution of the initial-draft of this thesis. I would fail in my duty if I forget to make a mention of the unstinted support and selfless help extended by my husband and my daughter without which the dream of attainment of the highest degree in the academic career would not have been translated into reality. Finally I do thank one and all who, directly or indirectly had helped me in this hard task and whom I have not mentioned by individual names, not because of forgetfulness but because of timelessness and spacelessness. UMA GOVINDARAJAN TEXTUAL NOTE The following abbreviations are used for indicating the name of the novels of Matt Cohen immediately after some quotations. DI - The Disinherited CW - The Colours of War SSSKM - The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone FD - Flowers of Darkness CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Canadian literature, perhaps, the latest to join and adding a glowing feather to the New English Literature is but an amalgamation of two distinct sentiments and cultures—the British and the French. The recent emergence of Canadian writing that appears on the firmament of literary horizon glows like a shining star of a noticeable magnitude which cannot escape even a naked eye. The writers of Canada and their counterparts in America have begun to attract the attention throughout the world. Canada’s ethnic and cultural diversity is the focal point in its literature with many of its prominent writers focusing on ethnic life. The pointed observation of Parameswari in this regard is worth recording here: Canadian literature is a literary output arising out of a confluence of the two main streams in the English language-British and American. It is the ‘fruit of the British seed planted in American soil’; a New literature growing in the North American continent. Any new literature very soon asserts its nationalism and develops an independent tradition. Canadian literature is no exception to this phenomenon. It gained, down the years, unique identity of its own, transcending cultural and racial barriers. Even as the country emerged as a single nation its literature achieved a new identity. (9) 2 As K.Balachandran rightly points out in his editor’s note that “though original writings in Canadian Literature have come out, critical materials have yet to come sufficiently” (i), it is felt that a brief analysis of the history of Canadian Literature will not be out of place in this study. The subalternized voices of the First Nations people are beginning to be proliferated around the world as an iconoclastic clarion call against the reinforcement of the hegemonic cultural imprints. These submerged, subjugated, and subordinated voices merge to question the established canons of the authority and to assert their presence, identity, and quest for recognition. The important First Nations people are Indians, Metis, Inuits, and Beothuks in Canada, Aborigines in Australia, Maoris in New Zealand, Blacks in South Africa, the Welsh in Commonwealth of Independent States and New Guinea, the Ainu in Japan, Basques in Spain, Lapps or the Saami in Scandinavia and Norway and Torres Strait Islanders in Queensland. Though the First Nations people are geographically separated, they are politically, socially, culturally and psychologically united. Their identities are localized, but their suffering and the sinning discrimination against them are globalized. They are, by and large, politically weak, territorially subalternized. Mythopoeic energy, native orature, primitive beliefs, the idea of community, folk elements, cultural roots and an affinity with nature provide a rich resonance to the literary production of the Natives. 3 Classification of the native writings of all postcolonial countries in the world is a serious problem worth pondering. The term “post colonialism” has been used in many ways by critics and theorists of literature, history, political science, economics, feminism, women studies. It has also been used to describe the process of decolonization of the erstwhile colonies under European domination and control. So people have used the term to describe the internal colonization of the all Can-Americans and aboriginals of USA, Canada, and Australia. The term post colonialism has also been used metaphorically to describe the conditions of women and other marginalized groups like the dalits, lesbians, homosexuals. The Native writers in Canada who have been submerged in the course of history and hitherto remained voiceless now begin to voice their not unsung but hitherto, unheard melodies. They have been neglected for various reasons and primarily five reasons are noted for this neglect: first European cultural arrogance and attitudes of cultural imperialism and paternalism that initiated and fostered patronizing stereotypes of the Indian; European antipathy and prejudice towards the oral literatures of so-called primitive peoples; the European belief that the Indian was a vanishing race; the purist attitude of western literary critics towards literature that does not conform totally to their aesthetic criteria; and finally, the difficult problems of translating native literature. The works of the Natives have an aesthetic dimension and sensibility. Their sufferings, protests, aspirations and 4 visions become universalities that have been particularized within a native consciousness. The recent emergence of Canadian Native writing poses a zoom point in the global literary arena. It has vitalized the creative literary urge of the Native writers in Canada with its amazing orality of whether the ‘Indian’ was truly a member of the human species has been rethought after the literary output of the Canadian Native Indians. The Native writers of Canada and the United States receive serious attention throughout the world.