University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 12-1-2017 Alternative Biographies: (Re)telling Feminine (Hi)stories in Selected 20th-Century Texts by Québécois Women Writers Jessica McBride University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation McBride, Jessica, "Alternative Biographies: (Re)telling Feminine (Hi)stories in Selected 20th-Century Texts by Québécois Women Writers" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 1655. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/1655 Alternative Biographies: (Re)telling Feminine (Hi)stories in Selected 20th-Century Texts by Québécois Women Writers Jessica A. McBride, PhD University of Connecticut, 2017 The objective of this dissertation is to examine the tendency on the part of several québécois women authors from the 20th century to create alternative feminine biographies for forgotten, undervalued, or misrepresented women from the past. Given the complex relationship the Québécois have with their provincial history, and the central role chauvinistic representations of women and the “Québec national text” play in safeguarding the québécois cultural identity, contemporary women writers from Québec are singularly poised to resurrect, recreate, revive, and rewrite the feminine historical experience into the traditional discourse of History. From Québec’s most famous woman writer, Anne Hébert, to a lesser known militant lesbian playwright, Jovette Marchessault, and other québécois women writers along the spectrum, there exists a common trope: plays and novels in which homo- or heterodiegetic women narrators feel compelled to (re)tell another woman’s feminine (hi)story. Some examples of this practice appear initially to be somewhat traditional works of historical fiction, others ignore almost entirely the referential world beyond the confines of their pages. Québec and its history dominate some works examined here, while in other the province that promises “Je me souviens” plays virtually no important role. Despite these variations, this dissertation will demonstrate that alternative biographies, whether based in referential foundations or on purely fictional inventions, allow for a combination of history and fiction necessary to (re)tell feminine (hi)stories in a more complete, truthful way than has been possible with traditional historical discourse or fiction. For these authors, alternative biographies allow women past, present, and future to assume a more active role in the construction of their own (hi)story. In creating a literary present that honors the fictional and historical past, they have created a past for the present. Alternative Biographies: (Re)telling Feminine (Hi)stories in Selected 20th-Century Texts by Québécois Women Writers Jessica A. McBride B.A., Skidmore College, 2005 M.A., University of Connecticut, 2007 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2017 APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Alternative Biographies: (Re)telling Feminine (Hi)stories in Selected 20th-Century Texts by Québécois Women Writers Presented by Jessica A. McBride, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Anne Berthelot Associate Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Eliane Dalmolin Associate Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Roger Célestin University of Connecticut 2017 ii To all those who have helped me along the way, I thank you. Whether through invaluable advice and support from someone who had recently seen the light at the end of the tunnel (Matt Mroz, Ph.D.), the regular reminder that it was just a “test of endurance” (Donna Cyr, Ph.D.), a fervent respect and appreciation for education and personal development (Michelle Williams, Ph.D. and Jeff Seemann, Ph.D.), or simply always being there to listen to incremental achievements and setbacks (too many family and friends to list)—this work would not have been possible with your support and kindness. I would also like to thank my advisor, Anne Berthelot, Ph.D., who welcomed me back into the fold after several years’ hiatus. You were always available, always constructive, and I thank you for helping me to tie up this last loose end in my studies of French and Francophone Literature. To my husband Patrick, words really cannot do justice to the support you have provided me both before and during this project. Thank you. For “my boys,” Graham and Colin. iii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Reexamining the Historical “Fait divers” in Two Novels by 20 Anne Hébert Introduction 20 Historical “fait divers” 24 Surviving the “fait divers” 28 Social importance of “fait divers” 31 Bearing witness to the “fait divers” 35 Regaining control over “fait divers,” over the feminine (hi)story 43 Conclusion: Rebuilding forgotten (hi)stories 50 Chapter 2 Alternative Biographies to Rewrite the Legendary Feminine 52 (Hi)story Introduction 52 Becoming legendary 57 Subverting established legends with new legends 64 Challenging representations of power 76 Returning control to women, not their legends 90 Conclusion: la vérité est la seule religion 99 iv Chapter 3 Staging Alternative Biographies of Women Writers in Works 101 by Jovette Marchessault Introduction 101 Writing/righting the public space 105 Reclaiming the literary public space 110 Critics: the literary “syndicat du crime” 113 Reinventing time 119 Reclaiming the feminine body/body of work 125 Movement 131 Conclusion 136 Chapter 4 New Historical Space in Anne Hébert’s Le Premier Jardin 139 Introduction 139 Insufficiency of normal histories 140 Female archetypes in Québec’s past: a marginalized collective 146 Lack versus plenitude of the past 150 Historical subject versus historical object 153 Polyphony 161 Speaking their names 165 Rewriting québécois motherhood 171 Conclusion 175 Chapter 5 Writing Alternative Biographies with Fictional (Hi)stories 178 Introduction 178 Literary artifacts 182 Autorepresentation through mirrors and angles 188 (Re)telling the (hi)stories of men and women 197 Role of the writer/writing 207 Conclusion 214 v Conclusion 217 References 226 vi Introduction Until relatively recently, historians and readers accepted a simple definition of history and historiography and held a basic understanding about how the two interact (or don’t). This mutual understanding assumed that “[all] histories were narrative histories [and that a] history was a true story about the past” (Berkhofer 26), while it was also consequently understood that all fiction was based on invention. However, the mid-1900s brought new waves of thinking about history, literature, and discourse—such as those espoused by poststructuralism and postmodernism— which ushered in questions about historical discourse, the role of the historian in producing histories, as well as about how to determine if a (hi)story was “true” or not. In other words, the legitimation of History as a “récit véridique, totalisant et scientifique” became the subject of serious interrogation, especially in France (Paterson Moments postmodernes 54). Challenging the absoluteness of History in this manner led several scholars such as Roland Barthes, Paul Veyne, Michel de Certeau, and others to question if, given their apparent similarities, it is even legitimate to set fiction and History in opposition.1 While the Hexagon questioned the legitimacy of grand narratives of History and Literature, regional literatures, especially those with a colonial past, confronted the legitimacy of the ways in which traditional historical discourse represented their history. As other regional literatures have experienced, literary works from the Québécois context bore witness to a shift from a “classical” use of historical fact to a modern, and eventually a postmodern approach. Attempts to understand the dynamic and often problematic reciprocity and opposition between the writing of fiction versus history in literary works is of particular importance to the contemporary Québécois context given 1 Paul Veyne Comment on écrit l’histoire; Roland Barthes “Le Discours de l’histoire” Le Bruissement de la langue; Michel de Certeau L’Écriture de l’histoire. 1 the province’s particularly adamant belief that cultural survival is supported through literary creation. Although this passage from controlled, traditional historical “realemes”2—or elements that meet the standards of official historical discourse—to unstable and unreliable representations of histories not yet examined by the official historical record may often appear incomplete or unfinished, it nonetheless exposes both a questioning and response to the ontological doubts begot by the unstable bond between history and fiction. Since the Quiet Revolution3 that began in the early 1960s, Québécois authors have explored the role that the “national text” has played in the formation of the province’s political, cultural, and narrative identity. Québec’s minority position and marginalization in the face of the Anglophone majority has historically compelled authors and readers to consider […] toute production, si banale soit-elle, [comme] une “pierre” dans la construction de l’édifice patriotique: tout écrivain devient un “ouvrier” dans l’édification d’une littérature nationale. Écrire est un devoir, critiquer est un sacerdoce.