THE INDIVIDUAL IS EVERYTHING OR THE WORLD IS NOTHING: MORALITY AND REGIONALISM IN THE NOVELS OF DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS MICHEL DAVID ALLISON B.A., Mount Allison University, 2000 Thesis submitted in partial fdfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (English) Acadia University Fa11 Convocation 200 1 O by MICHAEL DAVID ALLISON, 2001 Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loaq distribute or sen reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/h, de reproduction su.papier ou sur format électronique. 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Table of Contents Page Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Richards and Canadian Literary Regionalism .................................. 7 Cbapter 2: Blood Ties (1976)................................................................................... 27 Chapter 3: For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down (1993)............................ 63 Chapter 4: Mercy Among The Children (2000)...................................................... 91 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 123 Notes ..................................... ... ............................................................................ 128 Bibliography ......................... .... .......................................................................... 129 Abstract In response to those who have been content to apply the terms "regional" and "regionalist" to David Adams Richards's fiction, this study is intended to demonstrate how the misuse of such tems leads to a reductive interpretation of Richards's works. In the course of demonstrating how Richards does and does not fit the description of a regionalist, the study oiitlines how he is primarily interested in the conveyance of a simple, universal sense of rnorality. The thesis brings out this moral standpoint by exa.ghis representation of families, nature, and social institutions. It is argued that Richards's regionalism grows £?om his moral standpoint. This study focuses upon three novels, Blood Ties (1976), For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993)' and Mercy Among the Children (2000). These texts provide a representative sample of Richards's published-works to date. This study uses these texts to outline a progression by which Richards moves from a brand of regiond association built upon a comection to the region's geography and culture to a form of association determined by the political separation of the region fkom that which surrounds and influences it. Directly connected to this movement fiom one brand of regionalism to another are the shifts fkom subjectivity to objectivity in narration, as well as the shift fiom generality to specificity of regional detail. Despite these shifis, a simple form of rnorality remains paramount in Richards's works. Moreover, in an age when such concepts as nationalism and even regionalisrn are king questioned, Richards appears as a new voice, which calls for a movement forward by prescribing a lifestyle guided by a "Golden Rule" approach to existence. Acknowledgments First. and foremost, 1 wish to thank my family. Without their ongoing suppo- 1 shudder to thin. where 1 would be. 1 would dso like to thank Jeremy DeVito, Hamid Yazdi, and Kristina Michaud for being "in the sarne boat?" and for always offerïng an encouraging word. 1 owe a great debt to Dr. Patrïcia Rigg, Dr. Robert Momson, Dr. Lisa Narbeshuber, and Dr. David Baron for making the school year 2000-02 the most challenging and rewarding I have yet experienced. Special thanks to Dr. Richard Davies and Ivy Peckford for creating such a cornfortable environment in which to work and socialize. Finally, 1 wish to thank Dr. Anne Quema. I am grateful for her patience, her criticism. her encouragement, and for the amount of time and energy she devoted to my study. She helped .instill in rne the sort of work ethic needed to cornplete this project. To each of these people, 1extend my sincerest thanks. Introduction The fiction of David Adams Richards shows a strong ccmection to a single region: the Miramichi river valley in northeastem New Brunswick. Based upon this fact, cntics and scholars have habitually used the terms "regional writer'? and '*regionalist" to descnbe Richards and his works. An anonymous reviewer of Richards's Hope in the Despwate Hour (1996) observes that As far as the literary establishment and the mainstream media are concerned, David Adms Richards is the quintessential regionalist: a guff, intense, woodsy guy recording the tragic lives of people so much more real (so much poorer, so much less educated, so much Meraway from Toronto) than the rest of us. (np) Richards reacts against such labels and the sentiment behind hem, arguing that these terms are reductive, and therefore injurious to his work. He feels that the ternls "regional" and "regionalist'? suggest a high degree of specificity' and a confining connection to the geogaphy and society fkom which he writes: "As reçional writers. we are supposedly limited not by the bounds of our hurnan understanding, or human experience, but by the bounds of our garden or gate" ("My Miramichi Trilogy" 74-5). In interviews, conferences, essays, and also in his novels, Richards contends that his "human understanding?' is far greater than his critics have recognized. He goes as far as to champion the universality of his novels: "Al1 my books are based in the human heart?' (qtd. in Procenko np). We see that, in the debate over Richards's regionalism (or lack thereof), the terms "universal" and "regionalist" are placed at odds with each other. Some critics, however, have championed the universal nature of Richards's novels; for exarnple, Fred Cogswell praises Richards for his use of a specific setting to voice universal themes (200). Aligning myself sornewhat with Cogswell, 1 intend to demonstrate that Richards is, in many ways, a regionalist, but that he is primady a moralist (if we must appIy a single term to Richards's works). Although Richards's novels are rooted in a specific region and a specific culture, the morality of Richards's works lends thern a degree of universality that has ofien been overlooked by crities and scholars. My study focuses upon Richards's presentation of nature, family, and social institutions to outline the relationship between regionalism and morality in Richards's fiction. 1 argue that Richards favors family values and that he connects these values with the nature of his region. Throughout his work, family and nature are contrasted with social institutions, which Richards presents in a negative Iight. By discussing Richards's representation of nature, family, and social institutions, I will dernonstrate how, in Richards's eariy work, his regionalism stems fiom the Iandscape and the culture of the region in which he has been raised. This regionalism (or regional association, for these ternis are synonymous) is the foundation for a form of morality that carries few, if any, political implications. In these early novels, Richards's morality upholds family values and the natural surroundings of his region, and he favors these values over the social institutions within his region, which he sees as ineffectual and artificial. The subject matter of these novels is more universal than that of Richards's later works, in that these earlier novels focus upon such topics as family relationships, coming of age, finding love, and growing old. As Richards's career progresses, the same universal morality becomes the basis for a brand of relational regiond association, whereby Richards begins to place the positive moral values that appear to stem fiom the region's natural surroundings in contrast to the urban influences that increasingly enter the region. The novels Richards *tes at this point in his career show that his sense of region grows from the region itself. but also in relation to that which lies outside it. The morality and regionalism of Richards's later works exhibit a much more political flavor. These novels suggest that Richards defines the region not only ffom within, but also in relation to specific cultural and political centers such as HolIywood, Toronto, and Ottawa. In these texts, Richards's morality becomes the foundation for a specific, political flavor of regionalism; however, beneath thts political regionalism, we find the sarne universal morality that has been present in Richards3 eariier works. Throughout his career, Richards maintains a distinction between nature and family on the one hand, and social institutions on the other; however, as his career progresses, social institutions