Proquest Dissertations

The Double Hook By Sheila Watson Edited with Introduction and Notes By Alicia Fahey A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario © Copyright (Introduction and Notes) by Alicia Fahey, 2011 English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program September 2011 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: 978-0-494-81127-6 Our file Notre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-81127-6 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 reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, 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 extra its 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 Abstract The Double Hook By Sheila Watson Edited with Introduction and Notes By Alicia Fahey Sheila Watson's The Double Hook was first published in 1959. The novel grew out of her first novel, Deep Hollow Creek, which was not published until 1992. Deep Hollow Creek is based on Watson's autobiographical experience of living and teaching in the Cariboo region of British Columbia during the 1930s. The Double Hook adopts many characteristics similar to Deep Hollow Creek, such as setting, characters and themes; however, while Deep Hollow Creek is a more literal and mimetic depiction of Watson's experiences, The Double Hook is characterized by Watson's use of symbolism and abstraction. Despite the acclaim that The Double Hook has generated, it has never been published as a critical edition. This thesis is the first critical edition of The Double Hook. It provides a fully annotated text of the play, alongside a selection of appended material that establishes a socio-historical and cultural context for the novel. The appended material includes a timeline of Watson and her time, a critical introduction that identifies the collaborative and evolutionary nature of the text, and four appendices that provide textual notes, reviews of The Double Hook, an interview with Watson and excerpts from unpublished letters that elaborate on the publishing history of the novel. Keywords: Sheila Watson, double hook, social text, regionalism, First Nations, New Canadian Library, Canadian literature, modernism, postmodernism i Preface In recent years, Sheila Watson's The Double Hook has been slowly disappearing from university course syllabuses and reading lists. Despite this decline, the novel has never been out of print since its first appearance in 1959. It is my hope that a critical edition will generate a resurgence of interest in the novel in university classrooms and for a general readership. The Double Hook is significant for historical reasons and it is an established part of the canon of Canadian literature. The Double Hook has assumed a pivotal role in Canadian literary history because it occupies both modern and postmodern literary spaces. Not only have the themes of the story remained relevant in a Twenty-first Century context, but through The Double Hook, Sheila Watson has influenced an array of contemporary Canadian writers who explicitly profess their indebtedness to this novel.1 The Double Hook is an important novel of its time, but it has also remained important through the years. In 1985, George Bowering declared: "The most important book to be published [in Canada] since World War II is The Double Hook, an anti-realist recit published in 1959, and kept in print since that time. The innovative fiction writers and poets across the country constantly refer to that text in their writing and conversation" {Craft Slices 54). One of the reasons that The Double Hook is considered innovative and important is because it challenges the traditions of Canadian writing. Unlike much Canadian writing before 1950, in which authors struggled to establish Canada's independence from Britain and the United states, it is not a self-consciously "regional text." Writing about the Canadian landscape allowed Canadian authors to assert 1 Canadian authors who have acknowledged that their work was influenced by The Double Hook and Sheila Watson include: Robert Rroestch, Michael Ondaatje, and b.p. nichol (see p. 13), Jane Urquhart in her afterword to Deep Hollow Creek, and George Bowering (see p. v). ii their nation's geographical and cultural otherness and to establish Canada as a sovereign nation. Regionalism in Canadian fiction has a long history, starting with early narratives such as Susanna Moodie's autobiographical Roughing it in the Bush (1852) and Sara Jeannette Duncan's The Imperialist (1904), both of which are set in Ontario. Even though Duncan's novel is set in the fictional town of Elgin, Ontario, the description of landscape is clearly a mimetic representation of small town Ontario during the early 1900s. Similarly, the early twentieth-century bestsellers of Ralph Connor (Charles Gordon) are situated in the Canadian west, and Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912) uses local colour to describe the small communities north of the urban centres in southern Ontario. Later works include Emily Carr's Klee Wyck (1941), located in British Columbia, W.O. Mitchell's Who has seen the Wind (1947) and Sinclair Ross's As for Me and My House (1957), both set on the prairies, and Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley (1952), set in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. In many ways, The Double Hook challenged traditional expectations by refusing to subscribe to the prescribed formulas of the regional narrative. This is not to say that other mid-twentieth century Canadian authors were not also resisting this practice. Elizabeth Smart in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945) and A.M. Klein in The Second Scroll (1951) both resist the regional narrative in favour of the poetic style and experimental structures of modernism. Although The Double Hookhas a regional setting,2 like these novels, it rejects the realism associated with the regional narrative. 2 Watson denies that The Double Hook is a regional novel. See Appendix C, p. 186 for details. iii As a result of Watson's modernist style, The Double Hook has an exceptionally complicated production and reception history. In the appendices, I have provided a variety of paratextual information that illuminates these historical complications. Because of length limitations, I have had to be selective in which material to include in the appendices and which material to omit. Despite the necessity of the selection process, the appendices provide insight to important aspects of The Double Hook that might otherwise be overlooked or difficult to obtain. The appendices provide readers an opportunity to examine excerpts from the manuscript versions of the novel, to read a selection of critical reviews on both The Double Hook and Deep Hollow Creek, to gain insight to Watson's authorial intention via an interview conducted with Bruce Meyer and John O'Riordan, and to read about the production history of the novel through several unpublished letters. There is also an extensive bibliography that directs readers to sources for further reading. The variety of the material included in this edition reminds me of John Moss's comment that "The Double Hook invites interpretation but resists definition"("The Double Hook and The Channel Shore" 126). A definitive edition cannot exist. Readers will find merits in different elements of each edition, depending on their reading practices and preferences. In this edition, I offer an interpretation of The Double Hook that focuses on the novel as a process, as a fluid text, and as a collaborative work - a social text. From the social text perspective, The Double Hook will never exist in a finite state. It will continue to grow with new readership and new interpretations of the text. This edition lays the groundwork for present day readers to participate in the evolution of The Double Hook. iv Contents Preface ii Acknowledgements vi List of Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 Sheila Watson and her Time: a Brief Chronology 29 A Note on the Text 34 The Double Hook 37 Appendix A: Textual Notes 168 Appendix B: Reviews of The Double Hook 173 Appendix C: An Interview with Sheila Watson 177 Appendix D: Correspondence regarding The Double Hook 184 Select Bibliography 192 v Acknowledgements There are many people that I would like to thank for their assistance in the preparation of this edition.

Load more