Surplus at the Border: Mennonite Minor Literature in English in Canada
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Surplus at the Border: Mennonite Minor Literature in English in Canada by Douglas Reimer A thesis presented to the University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of.Philosophy 1n English Literature Winnipeg, Manitoba, L996 @ Douglas Reimer, 1996 NationalLibrarY Bibliothèque nationale l*I du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et B¡bliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Well¡ngton Otlawa ON KIA 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Yout lile Volrc élérence Our frle Notrc élércncê The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fonne de microfiche/fiIm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électonique. 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Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou aufrement reproduits sans son penrrission. autorisation. a-ü2-23655-2 Canadä THE UNTYERSITY OF ÑÍÀ\ITOBA FACULTY OF GR{,DUATE STIIDIES COPYRIGHT PERIVtrSSION SIIRPLUS AT l.HE BORDER: UENNONIIE }'IINOR LITERAITIRE IN ENGLISE IN CAI{ADA BY DOIIGI.AS REIHER A ThesisÆracticum submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the Universilv of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requiremeuts for the degree of DOCTOR OF PEILOSOPEY Douglas Reimer @ 1996 Permission has been granted to the LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ùftu\'ITOBA to lend or sell copies of this thesis/practicum, to the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA to microfilm this thesis/practicum and to lend or sell copies of the film, and to UNMRSITY ùÍICROFILùÍS Ii\C. to publish an abstract of this thesis/practicum.. This reproduction or cop], of this thesis has been made available by authority of the cop.'-right orvner solel¡ for the purpose of private study and research, and may only be reproduced and copied as permitted bv cop¡-right laws or with express written authorization from the cop¡-right owner. Surplus at the Border: Mennonite Minor V/riting in English in Canada Abstract Major literature commonly considers certain writing inf.erior or unsophisticated and so less valuable than certain other works of literature which it calls literature of quality. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari imagine and theorize an alternative model for evaluating literature which established literature names "minor" literature. Their theory claims that minor literature actually plays a significant role in the continued vitality of major literature. Minor literature, they say, has a strength and quality which major literature denies. Without minor literature, they contend, major literature would weaken and become ineffective. Such a reliance on the power of minor literature, however, major literature would never wish to acknowledge. This thesis defines minor literature as other than "minority" literature. Minor literature consists of those literatures which stem from groups which consider themselves marginalized by the large group which feels at home with all the conventions of English and English literature. All minor literature, I argue in this paper, automatically exemplifies three defining features: minor literature is necessarily political; it speaks for community values (in that the major English group is not a community, though the smaller ones are); and it affects a high degree of "deterritorialization" of the foreign tongue, English, in which it writes. I study the works of Mennonite writers Rudy Wiebe, Armin Wiebe, Patrick Friesen, Di Brandt, Sandra Birdsell and others to demonstrate these three defining features. Mennonite writing belongs to both the major and the minor. It cannot escape its intellectual, cultural heritage which is a major one grounded in western thought. Yet, it also writes English strangely and finds itself resisting the anti-community forces vehicular English imposes on it. There is, however, no successful, deliberate minor Mennonite writing in English in Canada. All the writers considered here attempt in one form or another to subvert English dominion and each succeeds and fails in distinctive ways. Acknowledgments David Arnason, especially, deserves my thanks and appreciation. His wise advise all along the way was invaluable to the project. Thanks also go to Dawne McCance for her generous time and instruction. Thanks are due to the Research Council of Canada for its financial assistance and to St. John's College for its research fellowship. Chapter One Introduction Mennonite Minor Literature in the New Land Minor literature, as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari define it in Kafka: Toward a Minor Literatur¿, is not literature written in a minor language, but literature constructed by a minority in a major language. They identify minor literature by three main characteristics: minor literatures are entirely political; everything in them takes on a community value; and language in them embodies an intense deterritorialization.l Because politics is not immediately necessary for the well-being of the group members who write major literature, its concerns focus more on the individuals' concerns themselves. In minor literature, however, each individual concern expresses itself within small spaces and so automatically becomes political. The absence of talent in minor literature communities, as well as the fact that minor literature communities are always in danger of disintegration, means that all minor literature automatically speaks for collective values. Finally, because the minority using the language of the major literature feels that its territory and its values are not properly represented by this language and that they speak in and write a foreign language when they use it, the major language is deterritorialized by minor literature's use of it. lDeleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (16-I7).DeterritorializaÍion, as Deleuze and Guattari use it, may be defined as the taking away of a group's territory. That is, in linguistic terms, when a language like English loses the qualities of English that are familiar to all trained speakers of English, so that the language seems unfamiliar, much like Freud's notion of the uncanny, then that language has been deterritorialized. In another way of speaking, a language may be considered "deterritorialized" when the constructed nahrre of a territory's language (English, for example) becomes very apparent to its users, and no longer seems as natural or eternal as it once did. Surplus at the Border Deleuze and Guattari's definition of minor literature is valuable for studying Mennonite literature in English in Canada. Because the Mennonite Canadian group exists under the constant threat of disintegration living as it does within the territory of major English-speaking Canada, writing by any one of its members always has a political and religious value. Politics and collective values of Mennonite Canadians are interwoven. The Mennonite Canadian community is constantly concerned both with how to keep its religious beliefs intact and how to keep its children from forgetting the faith of its forefathers. Mennonite Canadians must regularly ask, how do we keep our children from leaving our towns and communities? Each poem, story, novel, or play a member of that community writes addresses the problems of territory (culture), whether it does so purposely or not. Despite the political nature of its use of English, the English language of major literature does not speak for Mennonite Canadian territorial experience in either the Old V/orld or in Canada. For this reason, English as it is used by Mennonite Canadians is a deterritorialized language, never quite saying what it means to say, always self-aware and self-conscious. It participates in the plethora of minor languages milling about at the major, English border, hoping for membership. It contributes to what may be thought of as a surplus at the border. My analysis of minor literature employs ideas from philosophy. Philosophical language helps to give a theoretical language to minor literature. Philosophy, the science of ideas, which makes its life out of thought against conventions and easy, common assumptions about the material and the spiritual, provides a way of writing about minor literature which, in effect, makes its life also out of subverting or changing major literature. To be plain, major literature does not like to change its Surplus at the Border 9 assumptions about anything, especially about its superiority to minor literature. Major literature wishes, in other words, for a hierarchical relationship between itself and other literatures in order to maintain the unthinking presumption that it rules over and determines processes of evaluation of literary quality because it deserves to do so. Minor literature, with its greater courage and daring because of its minor status, by its Very presence, undermines major literature's assumptions about quality and desert. The assumption of this thesis is that without minor literature, major literature stagnates. Minor literature, then, enlivens and oxygenates major literature, providing whatever newness enters major literature's language. Major literature has minor literature to thank, in other words, for its energy and life. While it regulates its minor literature neighbors, and makes solemn decisions about who and what is almost ready to be considered qualified to belong to the canon, major literature does not realize at all how it, itself, is a dead thing without minor literature. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari clearly explain this idea from a philosophical position. They say that minor literature is revolutionary and that among its defining characteristics is its hatred for major literature: "There is nothing that is major or revolutionary except the minor.