University of Alberta Polish-Canadian Voices: The Use of Narrative and Language in Cultural Identity Construction by Anita Krystyna Buick A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Comparative Literature ©Anita Krystyna Buick Fall 2011 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only Where the thesis is conveited to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the Umversity of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms The author resei ves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written pel mission 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 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Vote reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81279-2 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81279-2 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. 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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 This project looks at the process that takes place within Polish emigre and emigrant writing to reconcile a Polish cultural identity with the Canadian context. While social identity theorists assert a reciprocal relationship between identity and language, Joanna Lustanski's study reveals that Polish-Canadians have moved away from using language as the key determiner of cultural identity; language, therefore, is an externalization of the process of the reconciliation of multiple selves. Combining Stuart Hall's claim that "ethnicity" speaks from "place" while identity is grounded in the re-telling of the past with the assertion by psychologists that storytelling and narratives are a means of developing and maintaining identity, one is led to realize the importance narratives and storytelling have on cultural identity construction. The prose fiction examined, using Polish diaspora as the backdrop, was written by Danuta Gleed, Barbara Romanik, Anne Michaels, Stanley Teclaw, Anna Pieszczkewicz, Ann Charney, and Sherie Pososorski. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been completed without the support of many wonderful people. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Irene Sywenky, whose insights and advice were invaluable. Dr. Sywenky's enthusiasm and understanding helped make this endeavour an enjoyable one. I would also like to sincerely thank my committee members, Dr. Patricia Demers and Dr. Waclaw Osadnik, for their invaluable comments and for making the experience a pleasure. Their support and encouragement for the future are heart warming and greatly valued. I am grateful to all of my friends and program-mates for their infectious interest and for all of the engaging and lively exchanges of ideas. They added a vibrancy to the program that was a pleasure to be a part of. In particular, my thanks go out to Alison Cheesbrough, Tegan Zimmerman, and Alison Turner, whose support and feedback were greatly appreciated. Finally, my most heartfelt gratitude goes to my husband, Pawel, and my parents, Glen and Joanna, for their patience, understanding, support and limitless love. Their unwavering belief in my abilities and my strength was a ballast in times of doubt. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Historical Context: Polish Immigration to Canada and Polish-Canadian Writing 12 First Wave: The Influence of Polish Politics and Images of Canada in Poland on the "Type" of Polish Immigrant 13 Second Wave: The Start of a Polish-Canadian Literary Tradition 26 Third Wave: Poles as Engaged Members of Canadian Society 29 Probable Causes for the Dearth of Polish-Canadian Prose Fiction 31 2. The Use of Language in the Construction of Polish-Canadian Cultural Identity 38 Language as Vital to Identity Construction 40 The Polish Emigre Writer and "Linguistic Rupture" 45 Language as a Bridge Between Cultures and Identities 56 Negotiation of Cultural Identity as Reflected Through Language 64 3. Narrative and Storytelling as a Means of Constructing Cultural Identity 69 Reconceptualization of the Polish Homeland and Identity in Narrative 71 The Polish Literary Map and Women as Gatekeepers to the Personal Homeland 81 The Reciprocal Relationship Between Narrative and the Construction of Self 88 Post-Script 97 Works Cited 100 Appendix: Selected Bibliography of Polish-Canadian Prose Fiction From 1990 112 1 INTRODUCTION Canada, as a "place where people are always in the process of remaking themselves, redefining who they are" (Weber 57), affords its inhabitants the freedom to choose how they want to self-identify. For Canadians, as members of a nation of immigrants, "ethnicity" or cultural identity is one of the key components of the Canadian identity and is "constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth" (Hall, "Cultural Identity" 226). It is a process in that it "has to be recovered" and a person must "learn to tell himself the story of his past" ("Ethnicity" 19) in order for her/his "ethnicity" to be discovered. Cultural identity "is a socially constructed act and describes one's social relationships to the world" (Lustanski 41), stemming from a desire to bond with others sharing the same heritage. However, individuals "'from' a particular community are not necessarily 'of that community" (Simon 9) in the same way discussions of fiction written by Polish-Canadian writers may acknowledge immigrant or emigre issues but should not restrict themselves to those subjects alone. Statement and Justification of Problem A search performed for "Polish-Canadian fiction" yields surprisingly limited results: once all the general fiction titles that have simply been translated into Polish and those novels that are a part of "Canadian fiction" and been translated into Polish are eliminated as possible works produced from within the Polish- Canadian cultural community, the number of texts remaining is negligible. Such results give the impression there is not a significantly developed tradition of 2 Polish prose fiction writing in Canada, a notion that is supported by one of the leading scholars of Polish-Canadian literature. Bogdan Czaykowski, in his preliminary survey of Polish writing in Canada, states that "poetry is the only genre in which Polish writers have produced interesting work" (33) and most of the novels and short stories written in Polish, with some exceptions, are not of the calibre that "could or should command critical attention" (34). This is especially unfortunate when Miska's bibliography of Polish writers in Ethnic and Native Canadian Literature is taken into consideration—twenty-seven of those included have written fiction in the form of novels, stories, short stories or autobiographical novel. On the other hand, Kryszak's account of Polish writers in Canada, while slightly more up to date, speaks of fiction in a limited fashion, focusing primarily on only a couple of prose fiction writers1. As Mozejko states, "the interest in Polish-Canadian writing is of very recent date" (811), and the apparent lack of scholarly attention for the genre leads one to believe that there is little to be found in those works that have been written that recommends a closer examination. This project has a two-fold objective, the first of which is to re-examine the Polish-Canadian prose fiction corpus, closing the temporal gap between Miska's compilation and those uncovered works written since 1990. The corpus brings to life the underexposed tradition of Polish literature in Canada. The appendix, a current corpus that brings to the fore authors that