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Creative Displacement and Corporeal Defiance

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Creative Displacement and Corporeal Defiance 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. National Library Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue WeUingtm Onawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1AW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thése sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/fïlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in tbïs thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fknit Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. 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, therefore, 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 Fh-DweZiers 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 defiance. 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~glyand 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 pet 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.
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