Proquest Dissertations
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Belinda's Rings by Corinna Chong (B.A. English, B.F.A. Visual Art, University of Calgary, 2007) A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate Academic Unit of English, Faculty of Arts Supervisor: John Ball, PhD (English) Examining Board: Edith Snook, PhD (English), Chair Jennifer Andrews, PhD (English) Heather Sears, PhD (Psychology) This thesis is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK April, 2010 ©Corinna Chong, 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-82669-0 Our file Notre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-82669-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduce, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par rinternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Dedication For my brother, Justin, and my sister, Vanessa, in whom I see what I hope to be. GCD n Abstract Belinda's Rings explores complex family relationships, meanings of motherhood, and notions of hybrid identities among the members of a diverse Canadian family. The novel follows two alternating parallel narratives: one from the point of view of a sixteen-year- old girl named Grace, and the other from the perspective of her mother, Belinda. Set in the mid-1990s,. Belinda s Rings reflects primarily on a one-week period in which Belinda embarks on a solo trip to visit the crop circles of Wiltshire, England. Meanwhile, Grace and her sister must assume motherly roles for Squid, their much younger brother, while their stepfather, who suffers from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, neglects his responsibilities. Grace and her sister, who are half-Chinese, grapple throughout the narrative to come to terms with their 'hybrid' ethnic identities while faced simultaneously with the struggles of adolescence. Concurrently, Belinda struggles to reconcile her role as a responsible mother with her growing need to discover her individuality. m Acknowledgments I am indebted to John Ball for his sincere dedication, scrupulous suggestions, and unfailing encouragement. John, I cannot thank you enough for your efforts to coax ideas out of me and keep me motivated to push forward. I am grateful to Mark Anthony Jarman for his keen editor's eye, and for providing invaluable comments for future drafts of this novel. Thanks to Fred Stenson for his suggestions on early chapters, and Eden Robinson for marathon-reading my first draft. Thanks also to Ross Leckie, Jennifer Andrews, Randall Martin, Edie Snook, Diana Austin, Wendy Robbins, Theresa Keenan, and Janet Noiles of the English department as well as my fellow graduate students for their warmth and support during my time at UNB. Thank-you to my examiners, Jennifer Andrews and Heather Sears, for investing so much time and attention in evaluating my work. I greatly appreciate the support provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. To my partner, Andrew: I could not have done this without you. And finally, to my family, in all your various incarnations: thank you for being the place where I belong. iv Table of Contents Dedication ii Abstract iii Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents v Epigraph vii 1. Fudge and Mirrors 1 I.B 14 2. The Rings 23 II. K 33 3. Piano Lessons 40 III. • 49 4. Old vs. New 54 IV. BB 66 5. The Other Grace 71 V.B9 81 6. Double-Take 87 VI. * 98 7. Perfect Circles 102 8. Amphibians 121 v VIII. • 131 9. Hide and Seek 139 IX. Hi 155 10. Mothers and Fathers 159 X 167 11. Foreigners 176 XI. H 185 12. Mean Streak 190 XII. • 197 13. The Abyss 209 XIII. • 222 14. Niches 230 XIV. • 239 15. Camouflage 245 Afterword 252 Bibliography 279 Appendix: Images 283 Curriculum Vitae vi Epigraph Hybridize or disappear; family in place. —Fred Wah, Diamond Grill Vll 1 1. Fudge and Mirrors Squid's got three mothers who can't spank him. That's what my step-dad Wiley used to say when Squid got into the goo. It sounds like an expression, but it wasn't at first — he literally did, when he was a baby. You had anything gooey and Squid'd find it. Peanut butter, craft glue, ketchup, little bits of melted tar on the street - smeared all over his cheeks faster than you could say 'fudge.' That was code in our family for 'Squid is covered in something gooey,' except you had to yell it out, FUUUUUDGE, like a swear word. Mum doesn't know that people say 'fudge' to mean another f-word, so sometimes I'd yell it right in her face to make Jess laugh. Jess never did it herself, squeezed her eyes shut like she was jumping off a building whenever she yelled fudge. She didn't yell nearly half as loud as me, either. The problem with spanking was that it didn't work. Mum only tried it once, in the supermarket. I was there and remember it perfectly. She'd let him out of the shopping cart to toddle around. He was just little. Only a couple months before he'd still had that mini-drunk-person sort of walk that made me want to follow right behind him, holding out my arms, thinking he could topple over any second. By this time he'd gotten to the stage where we had to actually run after him 'cause he'd take off when you weren't looking. But we were in the cereal aisle and we didn't think he could do any damage, so we let him scamper around. He liked to punch the cereal boxes, the ones on the bottom shelves that no one wanted anyway. So he was punching, punching away, and every box he could reach was getting a punch, Squid made sure of that. Mum was 2 looking at the generic brand of Frosted Flakes, the one that came in a big milky-coloured bag with no box, so most of the flakes were crumbled into powder. That's sick, I told her. Can we please just get the Kellogg's? It's all the same, Mum said. You're just paying for the name. It looks disgusting, I said, holding the bag up to the fluorescent lights. I will not eat that. It's like sawdust. That was back when I was in grade six, and my friend Marnie would come over after school to watch TV. She was obsessed with Frosted Flakes, the Kellogg's kind. We always had a bowl each. I couldn't give her the generic brand. She'd notice. But while I was arguing with Mum, neither of us noticed that Squid had stopped punching. He was standing in front of us with a giant grin across his face. You could see all his pointy little baby teeth. He'd stuck a fist into his diaper and got it all covered in - goo. Shit. This mustardy-brown, pasty kind of shit. The Squid special. And now he was waving the gooey hand above his head, his feet hammering the linoleum. Mum and I stood there for a second, staring at him, and then we both lunged at the diaper bag sitting in the shopping cart. Fudgefudgefudge, I said, Mum and me both pulling at the Velcro flaps and our hands just getting in each other's way. That gave Squid enough time to walk up to a lady who was bending down for a box of Grape Nuts. He swung his mucky hand like a club — SPLAT — right on her back. Squid's four fingers on her black suede coat, slashed in yellow. 3 The lady dropped the Grape Nuts, cranked her head around to look. She couldn't see the damage, but her eye caught Squid's pasty hand waving as he ran down the aisle squealing. Mum chased after him with tissues, her handbag slapping her ribs. The lady stood up slowly. I thought she might puke, but she just stood there, her tongue jutting between her teeth. She was watching Mum chase Squid.