Dialogism, Cultural Narratology, and Contemporary Canadian Novels in English
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Dialogism, Cultural Narratology, and Contemporary Canadian Novels in English by GABRIELE HELMS Staatsexamen, Universitat zu Koln, 1991 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department of English We accept this thSsis as conforming f\tip the required^tandard TI^JJi^RSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA May 1996 © Copyright Gabriele Helms, 1996 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of iB.'f^aLuS^ The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Abstract In "Dialogism, Cultural Narratology, and Contemporary Canadian Novels in English," I develop a methodological framework that combines Mikhail M. Bakhtin's concept of dialogism with the idea of a cultural narratology to read for ideological signification in narrative structures. Narrative forms, I argue, are not ideal and timeless but socially and historically determined. In this dissertation, I explore how they can contribute.to or impede a text's challenge to hegemonic discourses and social injustices. In particular, I focus on Bakhtin's concept of dialogism to examine the multiplicity and interrelation of voices in narrative texts. Because voices and discourses always operate within relations of power, I understand struggle and conflict not as obstacles to but as conditions of dialogic relations. In my readings of selected contemporary Canadian novels in English, I argue that these texts challenge dominant discourses from positions of difference and resistance and inscribe previously oppressed and silenced voices through dialogic relations. As a result, the novels question the idea of an homogeneous Canadian culture. After establishing the theoretical context for this study, which includes the notion of resistance literature and the principles of cultural narratology, I introduce Bakhtin's main ideas on dialogism and situate my own approach to dialogism in a selective overview of recent Bakhtin criticism. The remaining chapters are devoted to Joy Kogawa's Obasan, Sky Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe, Aritha van Herk's Places Far From Ellesmere, Daphne Marlatt's Ana Historic, Jeannette Armstrong's Slash, Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water, and Margaret Sweatman's Fox. I conclude by indicating further directions for research that could employ the methodological framework of dialogism and cultural narratology. IV Table of Contents Abstract Table of Contents IV Acknowledgements v Chapter One Dialogism, Cultural Narratology, and Contemporary Canadian Novels: What's the Point? Chapter Two Dialogism: Mere "Fave Rave" or Opportunity for Critical Intervention? 30 Chapter Three Storying Family History: Joy,Kogawa's Obasan and Sky Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe 57 Chapter Four Processes of Un/reading in Daphne Marlatt's Ana Historic and Aritha van Herk's Places Far From Ellesmere 115 Chapter Five Critiquing the Choice That Is Not One: Jeannette Armstrong's Slash and Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water 172 Chapter Six Is Difficulty^ Impolite?: The Performative in Margaret Sweatman's Fox 199 Chapter Seven Writing into the Page ahead 224 Works Cited 240 V Acknowledgements It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the many people who have contributed to my thinking about and writing of this dissertation and who have supported me over the past years. For me, writing this dissertation has meant to participate in dialogue in a very Bakhtinian way. To Sherrill Grace I owe my greatest thanks for introducing me to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin in the fall of 1988, for encouraging this project, and for letting me start at the beginning. Her intellectual support, her energy, and her friendship have been invaluable. I would also like to thank Ansgar Nunning who introduced me to constructivism and the intricacies of narrative theory in my early days at the University of Cologne. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Department of External Affairs and International Trade Canada, which enabled me to pursue a doctoral programme in Canada. Margery Fee and Richard Cavell have been patient thesis-committee members who never reminded me of the drafts I had promised them; I owe them many thanks for being supportive when I needed their help and co-operation. During the last three years, the interdisciplinary SSHRCC research team on "Race, Gender, and the Construction of Canada" provided the larger context for the project I undertake in this dissertation. For their direction, critical conversations, and support, I want to thank Joan Anderson, Avigail Eisenberg, Sherrill Grace, Matt James, Sheryl Reimer, Paddy Rodney, and Veronica Strong-Boag. I am especially grateful to Matt and Paddy for reminding me that the study of English literature is only one way of approaching the issues addressed here and for challenging many of the terms and concepts I have come to take for granted. For their encouragement and generous contributions, I thank my fellow writers, critics, and friends, Susanna Egan, Janice Fiamengo, and Jenny Lawn, whose comments on early drafts got this dissertation off to a good start. I would also like to thank those colleagues and friends (including the ones already mentioned) who shared their resources, unpublished papers, bibliographies, and critical insights: Lisa Chalykoff, Jane Flick, Philip Holden, Karen.Macfarlane, Jeff Miller, Catherine Swatek, and Julie Walchli. Joel Martineau provided helpful and inspiring comments on a number of chapters-thank you for reminding me to read some paragraphs aloud. I also thank Margaret Sweatman for a truly delightful and inspiring e-mail exchange at a crucial time in the Writing process. My special thanks go to Janice Fiamengo for her many kind words and her critical reading of the complete draft. Thanks also to Kevin Stewart for always listening and for patiently doing the final proof• reading. Other dear friends have offered support and inspiration over the years: Rob Galasso, Beth Janzen, and Nancy Pagh, and in Germany Chantal Scharrenbroich- Middeldorf, Sanne Kohlgruber, and Susanne Spekat. Without Gitta Oldendorff's patient ear and good sense of humour the process of writing this dissertation would have been much harder to bear. For a long time, I have been looking forward to thanking my parents, Marlies and Karl-Heinz Helms, and my brother Michael for their never-faltering support and the many late-night and early-morning long-distance phone calls. And finally, I owe special thanks to Bob Shore who always cared and who still had confidence in me when I was struggling the most. 1 Chapter One Dialogism, Cultural Narratology, and Contemporary Canadian Novels: What's the Point? The study of verbal art can and must overcome the divorce between an abstract "formal" approach and an equally abstract "ideological" approach. Form and content in discourse are one, once we understand that verbal discourse is a social phenomenon-social throughout its entire range and in each and every of its factors, from the sound image to the furthest reaches of abstract meaning. Mikhail Bakhtin (1981, 259) The seemingly offhand but very serious question "what's the point?" which according to Mieke Bal should continually be asked of all academic work (1990, 729), is the kind of ongoing self-criticism that has guided this project since its early stages; sometimes the question slowed me down and other times it was revitalizing. My desire to bring together dialogism, narratology, and Canadian novels comes from my belief that complex relationships exist between Canadian culture and literature which deserve exploration. Culture does not merely function as background to a novel, and by the same token, as Edward Said has pointed out, "novels are not reducible to a sociological current and cannot be done justice to aesthetically, culturally, and politically as subsidiary forms of 2 class, ideology, or interest" (1993, 73).1 Rather, novels themselves contribute significantly to cultural attitudes and references and thus help to consolidate social visions or encourage resistance. Literary texts are cultural practices that defy the separation of an isolated cultural sphere "believed to be freely and unconditionally available to weightless theoretical speculation and investigation" from a political sphere "where the real struggle between interests is supposed to occur" (57). Among the most common characteristics that many Canadians like to ascribe to themselves and their culture are a belief in equality, support for diversity, compassion, tolerance, inclusiveness, non-violence, common sense, and moderation.2 And yet, articles in daily newspapers, victims' testimonies, personal experiences, government task forces and commissions, and academic studies show that discrimination is alive and well in Canadian society. Sexism, racism, and homophobia are only three of the ideologies that result in discriminatory practices in social arenas such as education, employment, health 1 In Culture and Imperialism Said, in an exemplary manner, sets out to examine "how the processes of imperialism occurred beyond the level of economic laws and political decisions, and- by predisposition, by the authority of recognizable cultural formations, by continuing consolidation within education, literature, and the visual and musical arts-were manifested at another very significant level, that of the national culture, which we have tended to sanitize as a realm of unchanging intellectual monuments, free from worldly affiliations" (1993, 12-13). 2 Cecil Foster refers to the report of the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future, also known as the Spicer Commission, as a source of these Canadian self-characterizations (1991,17). See also 'The Spirit of Canada" (1995), Neil Bissoondath (1995), and Anthony Wilson-Smith (1995, 10, 15).