Time, Space and Place/Le temps, l`espace et le lieu

Transcription

Editorial Board / Comité de rédaction
Editor-in-Chief
Rédacteur en chef
Kenneth McRoberts, York University, Canada
Associate Editors
Rédacteurs adjoints
Isabel Carrera Suarez, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
Carolle Simard, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Robert S. Schwartzwald, University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Managing Editor
Secrétaire de rédaction
Guy Leclair, ICCS/CIEC, Ottawa, Canada
Advisory Board / Comité consultatif
Irene J.J. Burgers, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Patrick Coleman, University of California/Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Enric Fossas, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, España
Lois Foster, La Trobe University, Australia
Fabrizio Ghilardi, Università di Pisa, Italia
Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Eugenia Issraelian, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
James Jackson, Trinity College, Republic of Ireland
Jean-Michel Lacroix, Université de Paris III/Sorbonne Nouvelle, France
Denise Gurgel Lavallée, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Brésil
Eugene Lee, Sookmyung University, Korea
Erling Lindström, Uppsala University, Sweden
Ursula Mathis, Universität Innsbruck, Autriche
Amarjit S. Narang, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India
Heather Norris Nicholson, University College of Ripon and York St. John,
United Kingdom
Satoru Osanai, Chuo University, Japan
Vilma Petrash, Universidad Central de Venezuela-Caracas, Venezuela
Danielle Schaub, University of Haifa, Israel
Sherry Simon, Concordia University, Canada
Wang Tongfu, Shanghai International Studies University, China
International Journal of Canadian Studies
Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring / Printemps 1997
Time, Space and Place
Le temps, l’espace et le lieu
Table of Contents / Table des matières
Isabel Carrera Suarez
Introduction / Présentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Jonathan Bordo
The Terra Nullius of Wilderness—Colonialist Landscape Art (Canada &
Australia) and the So-Called Claim to American Exception . . . . . . . 13
William J. Buxton
Time, Space and the Place of Universities in Western Civilization:
Harold Innis’ Plea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Randy William Widdis
Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity: A Canadian Perspective . . 49
Guildo Rousseau
La descente du continent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Patricia Vervoort
Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Beverley Curran and Mitoko Hirabayashi
Translation: Making Space for a New Narrative in Le désert mauve . . 109
S. Ramaswamy
Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems: An Indian View . . . 121
Valerie Legge
Heralds of Empire: Liminal Heroes and Visionary Fugitives . . . . . . 135
Review Essay / Essai critique
Jocelyn Létourneau
Le temps du lieu raconté. Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes
relatives à l’histoire du Québec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Open Topic Articles / Articles hors-thèmes
Michael A. O’Neill
Stepping Forward, Stepping Back? Health Care, the Federal Government
and the New Canada Health and Social Transfer. . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Mark E. Rush
Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States: Managing the
Tension that Haunts International Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
David G. Delafenêtre and Daisy L. Neijmann
The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada: A Sociological
and Literary Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Introduction
Présentation
The dimensions of time and space
are not only the permanent subject
of cultural and scientific
speculation, but also, in their close
link with the construction of place,
fundamental factors of individual
and collective self-definition. Not
surprisingly, they are often at the
core of discussions of identity, and
since Northrop Frye posed his
much quoted and contested
Canadian existential question
“Where is here?,” aspects of place
have been perceived as
particularly significant in the
national context. Many of the
articles that follow expand the
limits of the questions asked about
spatio-temporal aspects in Canada.
The abundance of references to the
imaginary, to the interaction
between reality and myth, brings
to mind another classic statement
by a Canadian writer and theorist,
Robert Kroetsch’s assertion that
“the fiction makes us real,” which
posed the importance of narrative
in the understanding and creation
of communities. In the papers that
follow, the constant shuttle
between the social and the
cultural, between the concrete and
the abstract, confirms that
intertwining of reality and desire,
of places and maps of the mind
within the Canadian context.
Le temps et l’espace sont non
seulement un sujet constant de
spéculation culturelle et scientifique
mais aussi, étant donné leur rapport
étroit à la construction de la notion de
lieu, des facteurs déterminants dans la
définition que se donnent d’euxmêmes les individus et les
collectivités. Il n’est donc pas
surprenant que ces concepts se
retrouvent au cœur de débats portant
sur l’identité, surtout depuis la grande
question existentielle canadienne
formulée par Northrop Frye, « Où est
ici? », des aspects du lieu ont pris une
signification toute particulière dans le
contexte national. Plusieurs des
articles qui suivent abordent de
nouveaux horizons sur les questions
de l’espace et du temps au Canada.
Les nombreuses références à
l’imaginaire, à l’interdépendance de
la réalité et du mythe, rappellent la
formule classique d’un autre écrivain
et théoricien canadien Robert
Kroetsch. Selon lui, « la fiction nous
rend réel ». Son assertion affirme
l’importance de la narration dans la
compréhension et la création des
communautés. Dans les articles qui
suivent, le passage constant du social
au culturel, du concret à l’abstrait,
confirme ce mélange inextricable de
la réalité et du désir, des lieux et des
topographies de l’esprit dans un
contexte canadien.
The first group of articles deals
with interrelated questions of time
and space as they affect cultural
and social constructions. Through
a comparison of colonialist
landscape art in Australia and
Canada, Jonathan Bordo’s opening
piece links the Canadian symbolic
of the wilderness to the
Le premier groupe d’articles porte sur
les rapports du temps et de l’espace et
leurs effets sur les constructions
culturelles et sociales. Par le biais
d’une comparaison de l’art paysagiste
colonial au Canada et en Australie,
l’article de Jonathan Bordo relie la
symbolique canadienne de la nature
sauvage au mythe fondateur nordaméricain de cette nature comme
International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue internationale d’études canadiennes
15, Spring/Printemps 1997
IJCS / RIÉC
foundational North American myth
of the wilderness as Terra Nullius,
initiated by the Massachusetts Bay
puritans. This space, devoid of the
human figure and opposed to
European historicized landscape
while conveniently erasing the
Aboriginal Other, finds its ultimate
expression in the iconic paintings of
the Group of Seven, and serves as
legitimation of territorial claims. By
contrasting it with the symbolic of
the Australian bush, and challenging
the concept of “American exception,”
Bordo situates the Canadian
wilderness imaginary within the
dominant cultural project of EuroNorth America, which reverberates
still, in his view, in contemporary
deep ecology. Issues of political
space are also the subject of William
J. Buxton’s approach to Harold Innis’
work, which focuses on the methods
by which civilizations ensure
territorial control and durability, and
the monopolies of knowledge created
in the process. In Innis’ analysis, the
modern era is obsessed with the
control of space while plagued by
“endemic present-mindedness.” This
imbalance, related to mechanization
and commercialization, finds certain
points of resistance in time-sensitive
areas such as orality, the universities
or the humanities. Buxton explores
Innis’ commitment to counteracting
contemporary spatializing tendencies
through universities, as well as the
role of Canada in resisting the spacebiased, globalizing United States.
Randy Williams Widdis’ central
theme, the borderland, is also
primarily a territorial concept, but his
argument highlights precisely the
importance of the time factor in the
definition of place. Through an
analysis of the Canadian diversity of
internal borders—regional, cultural,
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Terra Nullius, mise de l’avant par
les puritains de la baie du
Massachusetts. Cet espace
dépeuplé, tout à l’opposé des
paysages européens chargés
d’histoire et faisant peu de cas de
l’Autre, en l’occurrence les
Autochtones, trouve son expression
ultime dans les représentations
iconiques du Groupe des Sept et
vient légitimer les ambitions
territoriales. En le mettant en
contraste avec la symbolique du
« bush » australien et en remettant
en question le concept
d’« exception américaine », Bordo
situe l’imaginaire canadien de la
nature sauvage dans le contexte du
projet culturel dominant des NordAméricains d’origine européenne,
qui selon lui, trouve encore des
résonances dans l’écologie
profonde contemporaine. L’espace
politique constitue aussi le sujet de
l’approche des travaux de Harold
Innis par William J. Buxton. Son
article met en lumière les méthodes
par lesquelles les civilisations
assurent le contrôle et la pérennité
de leur territoire et le monopole des
savoirs qui s’ensuit. Dans l’analyse
de Innis, l’ère moderne est marquée
par une obsession du contrôle de
l’espace et par une « constante
propension au présent ». Ce
déséquilibre issu de la
mécanisation et de la
commercialisation trouve certains
points de résistance dans des
secteurs où le temps joue un rôle
déterminant, tel les traditions
orales, les milieux universitaires ou
les humanités. Buxton explore
l’engagement de Innis en vue de
contrecarrer les tendances
contemporaines à l’éparpillement
dans les universités de même que le
rôledu Canada vis à vis l’empire
economic—and of cultural
bridges, he reminds us of the
organic, dynamic aspect of
borders and borderlands, of the
evolution of identity and place
over time. In Canada, he
maintains, this includes a
development of national
economies and political-cultural
institutions that transcended
differences and counterbalanced
the north-south integrative forces
(Canada-U.S.) which defenders of
the Borderlands Thesis emphasize.
The paradoxical character of
Canadian identity, Widdis
suggests, will face new challenges
in the present globalized,
postmodern world. In a return to
the symbolic aspects of space,
Guildo Rousseau deals directly
with the realm of the geographic
imaginary of the (North)
American continent. Through the
analysis of a number of literary
works from Québec, Anglophone
Canada and the U.S., he explores
the mental landscapes and the
maps of desire involved in the
fictional criss-crossing of North
America, a space marked
primarily by movement, by
voyages of discovery that insist on
two axes: East-West and NorthSouth. While patterns recur—the
West as object enunciated from
the East, the “descent” south into
the dark continent, the encounter
with the Other—the variations of
the myth demonstrate its fluidity,
which finds one of its most
powerful symbols in North
American rivers, with their
resonance of rites of passage,
death and resurrection.
The second group of articles deals
with specific works of art and their
treatment of the concepts of space
américain toujours plus globalisant et
envahissant.
Le thème principal qu’aborde Randy
Williams Widdis, celui de région
limitrophe, est lui aussi un concept
qui s’applique au territoire.
Cependant, son argumentation met
précisément en lumière l’importance
du temps dans la définition du lieu.
Par une analyse de la diversité des
frontières internes qui se trouvent au
Canada — qu’elles soient régionales,
culturelles ou économiques — et des
rapprochements entre les cultures, il
nous rappelle la nature organique et
dynamique des frontières et des
régions limitrophes, et met en lumière
l’évolution de l’identité et du lieu à
travers le temps. Au Canada,
soutient-il, cette évolution s’effectue
par la mise en place d’économies,
d’institutions politiques et culturelles
de nature nationale qui sont venues
transcender les différences et
contrebalancer les forces
d’intégration nord-sud (Canada —
États-Unis), ceci en opposition aux
thèses mises de l’avant par les tenants
de la théorie des zones limitrophes.
Le caractère paradoxal de l’identité
canadienne, soutient Widdis, devra
relever les nouveaux défis posés par
le monde actuel, global et postmoderne. Dans un retour aux aspects
symboliques de l’espace, Guildo
Rousseau traite expressément du
domaine de l’imaginaire
géographique du continent nordaméricain. Par une analyse de
plusieurs œuvres littéraires du
Québec, du Canada anglais et des
États-Unis, il explore le paysage
mental et les territoires du désir mis
en œuvre dans les traversées fictives
de l’Amérique du Nord, un espace
marqué par le déplacement, par les
voyages de découverte qui se
déploient selon deux axes : est-ouest
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and/or time. Patricia Vervoort shows
how Joe Fafard’s cow sculptures
translate theories of spatial illusion
into three-dimensional subjects. The
many representations of cows in
Fafard’s career, often underrated as
humorous or merely thematic icons
of place, demonstrate the artist’s
long-standing engagement with
spatial representation and with
theoretical issues in science and art.
From his cows in “space wrinkles” to
his more recent techniques, all his
animal sculptures challenge the laws
of perspective and our very
perception of reality. Beverly Curran
and Mitoko Hirabayashi explore the
acts of translation in Nicole
Brossard’s novel Le désert mauve,
especially with regard to the
interactions between the spaces of
life and fiction, male and female
reality, language and body, reading
and writing. As they analyse the gaps
opened by the reader-translatorcharacter Maude Laures in her
transformation of désert into horizon,
the authors invite us to find a new
narrative in the textual spaces of the
novel. From a different theoretical
perspective, S. Ramaswamy’s
consciously “Indian” reading of two
Canadian poems, by Bliss Carman
and Margaret Atwood, exposes us to
a different conceptualization of
space, time and place, a perspective
contrasted in the essay with
European philosophical and literary
traditions. Finally, Valerie Legge, in
her Bakhtinian analysis of Agnes C.
Laut’s Heralds of Empire, shows
how a popular author at the turn of
the century engages in a process of
revisionism of history and literature,
how her fugitive heroes, “liminal
men and chameleon women,” resist
the conventions of time and space,
move from one cultural zone to
another, and embrace the North as
10
ou nord-sud. Bien que des modèles
reviennent — l’Ouest constitué
comme objet à partir de l’Est et la
« descente » vers le sud qui
représente le continent obscur et la
rencontre avec l’Autre — les
variantes du mythe manifestent sa
fluidité, qui trouve l’une de ses
illustrations les plus fortes dans
l’image du cours des rivières nordaméricaines et le cortège de rites
initiatiques et de cycles de mort et
de résurrection qu’elles évoquent.
Le second ensemble d’articles
traite de certaines œuvres d’art et
de la manière dont celles-ci
abordent le temps et(ou) l’espace.
Patricia Vervoort montre de quelle
manière les sculptures de vaches
produites par Joe Fafard traduisent
des théories sur l’illusion spatiale
dans des sujets tridimensionnels.
Les nombreuses représentations de
vaches qui jalonnent la carrière de
Fafard, souvent mésestimées et
reléguées au rang de l’humour ou
de simples icones emblématiques
du lieu, mettent en lumière la
préoccupation constante de l’artiste
eu égard à la représentation dans
l’espace et aux questions
théoriques qui chevauchent les arts
et les sciences. Depuis ses vaches
prises dans des « rides spatiales »
jusqu’à ses productions récentes,
toutes les sculptures d’animaux de
Fafard remettent en question les
lois de la perspective et notre
perception de la réalité. Beverly
Curran et Mitoko Hirabayashi
explorent le processus de
traduction dans le roman de Nicole
Brossard Le désert mauve en
suivant le fil des interactions de
l’espace fictif et du vécu, de la
réalité masculine et féminine, du
langage et du corps, de la lecture et
de l’écriture. À mesure qu’elles
the open territory which allows
creativity and cultural diversity.
In the review essay by Jocelyn
Létourneau, recent literature
proposing chronologies for the
history of Québec is seen to fall
mainly within two categories: the
first, following nationalist
tradition, chooses symbolic dates,
beginning with 1759, as landmarks
for a cultural narrative of
disempowerment and colonization;
the second, born in the 1960s,
works along the lines of socioeconomic experience, the
structural and historical processes
and discontinuities which situate
the development of Québec within
the chronology of the western
world. As the author points out,
both lines have political
implications and theoretical
limitations. Recent chronologies
employing new criteria, such as
media and communication, public
expression of citizens, or women’s
issues, have yet to influence the
general public, for whom the
temporality of place is constructed
along recognizable traditional
lines.
The last three articles constitute
the open topic section of the issue.
Michael O’Neil analyses the
evolving role of the federal
government in the health insurance
system, and traces a pattern of
progressive decline of involvement
and funding on the part of Ottawa.
By leaving health care in the hands
of the provinces, the author argues,
the federal government has shifted
from enabler and guarantor of
citizens’ welfare to financial
administrator, and ceases to make
possible a defining Canadian
characteristic, access to Medicare.
Mark E. Rush, following on the
analysent les brèches que pratique
Maude Laures — la lectricetraductrice-protagoniste — dans sa
transformation de désert en horizon,
les auteures nous convient à
construire un nouveau récit dans les
interstices du roman. Dans une
perspective théorique autre, la lecture
délibérément « indienne », par S.
Ramaswamy, de deux poèmes des
Canadiens Bliss Carman et Margaret
Atwood nous met en présence d’une
autre conceptualisation du temps, de
l’espace et du lieu, une perspective
que l’article contraste aux traditions
philosophiques et littéraires
européennes. En dernier lieu, Valerie
Legge dans son analyse baktinienne
du roman Heralds of Empire d’Agnes
C. Laut montre comment une auteure
populaire du tournant du siècle jette un
regard révisionniste sur l’histoire et la
littérature, comment ses héros fugitifs,
hommes liminaires et femmes
caméléons, s’opposent aux
conventions qui régissent le temps et
l’espace, passent d’une zone culturelle
à une autre pour englober le Nord,
territoire ouvert à la créativité et à la
diversité culturelle.
Dans son essai critique, Jocelyn
Létourneau distingue deux catégories
dans les ouvrages récents portant sur
la trame chronologique de l’histoire
du Québec. La première adopte la
tradition nationaliste pour choisir des
dates symboliques, à commencer par
1759, et les pose comme étape d’un
récit culturel axé sur la dépossession
et la colonisation. La seconde, issue
des années 1960, prend comme fil
conducteur l’expérience socioéconomique et retrace autant les
processus structuraux et historiques
que les ruptures qui situent le
développement du Québec dans la
chronologie du monde occidental.
Comme le signale l’auteur, les deux
11
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theme of the previous issue of this
Journal, discusses the tensions
between the universal rights of
immigrants and the sovereign
rights of citizens. The comparative
study of court cases in Canada and
the U.S. shows a relative
consistency in the treatment of the
jurisprudential conflict which
arises between the relevant federal
and provincial laws. Such
tensions, according to the author,
can only be “managed” (not
resolved) by achieving a balance
between competing interests, and
by means of the legal distinction
between citizens and persons,
between the rights of citizens and
general human rights. The final
article, by David G. Delafenêtre
and Daisy L. Neijmann, discusses
Netherlandic and Scandinavian
acculturative tendencies in
Canada. Through a combined use
of census demographic material
and analysis of the cultural
positioning of Icelandic-Canadian
and Dutch-Canadian writers, the
authors trace the patterns of
adaptation of these two “invisible”
groups, and argue that
multicultural policies such as the
“mosaic” conception of ethnicity
fail to explain or acknowledge
groups whose tendency to
intermarriage and integration is
better defined by the concept of
transculturality, a term which
gauges mutual influence between
the host and immigrant
communities.
With the first nine articles dealing
widely with spatio-temporal
themes, and the three articles in
the final section discussing various
aspects of community- building in
Canada, this issue offers
illuminating insights into Canadian
12
perspectives sont porteuses de
conséquences politiques et de
limitations théoriques. Les
nouvelles approches de la
chronologie posant de nouveaux
critères, tel les média et les
communications, les manifestations
publiques des citoyens ou encore
les questions soulevées par la
condition féminine, n’ont pas
encore fait sentir leur influence sur
le grand public, pour qui la
temporalité du lieu se construit
selon des paramètres traditionnels
et reconnaissables.
Les trois derniers articles
constituent la section Hors-thème
du numéro. Michael O’Neil
examine le rôle changeant du
gouvernement fédéral en regard du
système d’assurance-maladie et
montre le retrait progressif de
l’engagement et du financement
par Ottawa. En remettant aux
provinces la responsabilité des
soins de santé, l’auteur allègue que
le gouvernement fédéral a délaissé
son rôle de maître d’œuvre et de
garant du bien-être des citoyens
pour celui de gestionnaire
financier; ce faisant, l’accès au
régime universel de soins de santé
cesse d’être une caractéristique
déterminante de l’identité
canadienne. Poursuivant le thème
du numéro précédent, Mark E.
Rush examine les tensions entre les
droits fondamentaux des étrangers
et les droits souverains des
citoyens. L’étude comparative de
causes plaidées devant des
tribunaux canadiens et américains
révèle une cohérence relative dans
l’approche des conflits de
jurisprudence existant entre les lois
fédérales et provinciales
applicables. Selon l’auteur, ces
tensions ne peuvent qu’être gérées
self-definition, into crucial
narratives of its present and its
past.
Associate Editor
— et non résolues — en établissant
un équilibre entre les intérêts en jeu
et en préservant la distinction entre
« personnes » et « citoyens », entre
les droits des citoyens et les droits
humains en général. Le dernier
article de David G. Delafenêtre et
Daisy L. Neijmann traite des
tendances canado-néerlandaises et
canado- scandinaves en matière
d’adaptation au Canada. Par le biais
de données démographiques et
d’une analyse de la position
culturelle d’auteurs canadiens
d’origine islandaise et hollandaise,
les auteurs font ressortir les
principales constantes de
ll’intégration de ces deux groupes
« invisibles » et soutiennent que les
politiques multiculturelles qui
conçoivent l’ethnicité comme une
mosaïque ne peuvent ni expliquer
ni reconnaître les groupes dont la
tendance aux mariages mixtes et à
l’intégration sont mieux définis par
le concept de transculturalisme,
terme-repère de l’influence
réciproque qui s’exerce entre les
immigrants et leur terre d’accueil.
Avec neuf articles traitant de
plusieurs thèmes en rapport avec le
temps et l’espace, auxquels viennent
s’ajouter les trois derniers articles
qui examinent divers aspects de la
construction des communautés au
Canada, le présent numéro jette un
éclairage sur la formation de
l’identité canadienne, sur des récits
déterminants de son passé et de son
présent.
Rédactrice adjointe
13
Jonathan Bordo
The Terra Nullius of Wilderness—Colonialist
Landscape Art (Canada & Australia) and the
So-Called Claim to American Exception*
Abstract
The British Imperial project for North America conquered without juridicolegal declarations of terra nullius while the British Imperial project for
Australia was initiated by these very devices. Yet that colonialism and its
political successions in what was initially British North America came to
articulate itself aesthetico-theologically in terms of a symbolics of the
wilderness, first by the Massachusetts Bay puritans, then by the American
19th century transcendentalists, followed by English speaking EuroCanadians during the first third of the twentieth century with Tom Thomson
and the Group of Seven. The close of the millennium is marked by the
alienating of the human from nature of deep ecology, fuelled by that very
imaginary of wilderness. These North American visions intimately configured
the landscape imaginary to what might be called an aestheticizing or
subliming of terra nullius. This paper addresses the wilderness as symbolic
apparatus and the way that Australian and early 20th century Canadian and
American 19th century transcendentalist landscape painting is topologically
named as wilderness, framed by wilderness, and yet wilderness itself is a
condition that is intrinsically unpicturable. What is landscape and what
relation does landscape have to wilderness when wilderness, unlike
landscape, is neither real nor a simulacrum? One might say after Derrida,
that wilderness is a kind of symbolic spacing, a culturally saturated aporia, a
blank. Delineating a double mimetics between the aesthetico-theological
register of wilderness and the juridico-political register of terra nullius is the
conceptual task of this study, leaving as a substantive result the evidence of
the persistence of a colonialist legacy at the heart of contemporary wilderness
visions.
Résumé
Tandis que le projet impérial britannique destiné à l’Amérique du Nord
procédait sans déclaration de Terra Nullius (c.-à-d. terre inhabitée), celui
destiné à l’Australie serait initié par une telle devise. Pourtant, le projet
colonial britannique (ainsi que toutes les successions politiques de
l’Amérique du Nord britannique qui suivirent) s’est orienté sur la symbolique
esthético-théologique visant à opérer un vide pour légitimer l’occupation
violente de ces terres habitées. Tour à tour, les puritains, les
transcendantalistes américains du 19e siècle, les Euro-Canadiens anglais au
cours du premier tiers du 20e siècle avec Tom Thomson et le Groupe des Sept
se constituèrent les agents de cette symbolique du vide nommé « wilderness »
(désert, solitude, abîme, tohu-bohu, néant, faute de terme français
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équivalent). Renforcée par cet imaginaire, l’aliénation de l’être humain eu
égard à la nature marque la fin de notre millénaire. Cette vision nordaméricaine a profondément contribué à transformer l’imaginaire du paysage
canadien en ce que l’on pourrait appeler une « esthétisation » ou une
sublimation de la terra nullius. Le présent article examine l’utilisation de ce
paysage nommé « wilderness » en tant qu’outil symbolique. Il examine aussi
le fait que l’art paysagiste des peintres australiens, des peintres canadiens du
début du 20e siècle et des peintres transcendantalistes du 19e siècle est
topologiquement nommé « wilderness », que celui-ci encadre cet art et que cet
état est intrinsèquement indescriptible et ne peut donc être représenté.
Qu’entendons-nous par paysage et quelle relation y a-t-il entre «
wilderness » et paysage, quand ce premier, au contraire de la notion de
paysage, n’est ni réalité ni simulacre. On pourrait dire à l’instar de Derrida
que la notion de « wilderness » est une rature symbolique, une aporie
culturellement saturée, un vide. Une des perspectives de cette étude est de
délinier un dédoublement mimétique entre le registre esthético-théologique
de « wilderness » et le registre juridico-politique de terra nullius. Ce qui en
résulte substantiellement c’est la mise en évidence d’un héritage
colonialisant au cœur de la pensée et de la pratique écologique
d’aujourd’hui.
Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a
representation and a presented space, both a signifier and a
signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a
real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the
commodity inside the package.
W.J.T. Mitchell1
[A]ll the more striking a concoction because they attached
no significance a priori to their wilderness destination. To
begin with, it was simply a void.
Perry Miller2
The Deserted Landscape
This is how Margaret Atwood describes some landscape paintings of the Group
of Seven, belonging to Lois, her protagonist in Death by Landscape:
None of the pictures is very large, which doesn’t mean they aren’t
valuable . . . [They are] paintings, or sketches and drawings, by artists
who were not nearly as well known when Lois began to buy them as
they are now. Their work later turned up on stamps, or as silk-screen
reproductions hung in the principals’ offices of high schools, or as
jigsaw puzzles, or on beautifully printed calendars sent out by
corporations as Christmas gifts to their less important clients. These
artists painted after the first war, and in the Thirties and Forties; they
painted landscapes. Lois has two Tom Thomsons, three A.Y.
Jacksons, a Lawren Harris. She has an Arthur Lismer, she has a J.E.H.
MacDonald. She has a David Milne.3
The roll call of the painters and paintings, comprising the Group of Seven, reads
like a slide identification test directed to a true Canadian (at least from Toronto
and southern Ontario of a certain generation), visual emblems of the “true north
14
The Terra Nullius of Wilderness
strong and free.” Atwood’s somewhat testy narrative voice treats these images
with a casualness, bordering on lassitude that only serves to inflect their iconic
status. They are so familiar that she seems barely able to remember the names
and the dates of the works she has fictively clumped on Lois’ wall. Her dating is
vague enough to be almost factually erroneous. Tom Thomson, the Group’s
avatar, but never himself a member of the Group, drowned in Algonquin Park in
1917 while David Milne comes and goes with respect to his filiation to the
Group. But such lapses come with the satisfaction of being on intimate terms
with cultural treasures. Perhaps, it was a Varley on Lois’ wall and not a
McDonald? Atwood quickly penetrates the surface of these vague pictorial
place names to locate a disturbance that sits in the heart of the familiarity. Lois,
we are told, didn’t acquire these paintings because of their picturesque
properties but because of a personal trauma whose meaning and source these
paintings somehow contain:
She wanted something that was in them, although she could not have
said at the time what it was. It was not peace: she does not find them
peaceful in the least. Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease.
There is something there in these paintings some person, force or
power something, or someone, looking back out that fills her with
wordless unease. Despite the fact that there are no people in them or
even animals, there is something or someone looking back.4
The narrator’s observation that Lois has purchased them “despite the fact that
there are no people in them or even animals” red circles the epicentre of the
trauma through a succinct account of what marks these paintings of the Group
of Seven as a painting style, namely, landscape devoid of human presence.
Atwood sites the unnameable from that absence, in this emptied hollow or
niche. The pictures turn out themselves to be memento mori for an originating
trauma which the paintings also serve to enshrine and perpetuate:
When she was thirteen, Lois went on a canoe trip. This was to be a long
one, into the trackless wilderness, as Cappie put it. It was Lois’s first
canoe trip, and her last.5
These paintings stand in for the trauma site itself. This site is “the trackless
wilderness” and the occasion was a canoe trip, Lois’ first and last when a cabin
mate of hers, a much accomplished American girl, mysteriously disappeared.
Atwood names “the trackless wilderness” sceptically, putting it in quotation
marks and attributing it to the woodsiest of the woodsy, Lois’ Camp counsellor.
The bracketing jostles the site from the literal, physical reality. Thus the
paintings are mnemonic with respect to a trauma that happened to Lois when
she was thirteen “in the trackless wilderness.” They are for Lois the witnesses to
something that is itself unsayable, inexpressible, reducing her to a condition of
“wordless unease.”6
Atwood’s painting discourse, shot up with realist naturalism, articulates the
unnameable as a picturesque landscape touched by the sublime, as Canadian art
historians qualify the style. The paintings of the Group of Seven have come to
assume the iconic status of the constantly reissued Canadian postage stamp
(Figure 1), because they depict what every Canadian believes to be the real of
the wilderness. The belief coincides exactly with a popular view of wilderness
15
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Figure 1
Tom Thomson, The West Wind, Postage Stamp
Courtesy of Canada Post Corporation.
16
as a physical expanse, usually of land in an ecologically pristine condition,
devoid of human presence, just what these pictures seem to portray—the visual
moment where the fifth day of creation converges with deep ecology.
This void quality of the landscape art of the Group of Seven has not escaped the
attention of aesthetic sensibilities who feel little sympathy toward landscapes
devoid of human presence. As this author has noted elsewhere,7 Guy Boulizon
in Le Paysage dans la peinture au Québec observes that Tom Thomson’s work
“only consists of landscapes where the human beings (except in rare
exceptions) are absent.”8 The radical imbalance between omnipresent nature
and the paucity of human presence provides Boulizon with the device for an
unequal comparison between the austerities of the Anglo-Canadian bush and
the plenitude of the Quebecois paysage. This incommensurability starkly
manifests the most tenacious and dangerous cultural faultline that runs through
the history of Canadian political culture going back to 1756 and the British
conquest of North America, sealed in the Quebec Act of 1774. For it was with
the conclusion of the Seven Years War that North America, which included
New England and Pilgrim Rock, came to be the colonial preserve of “British
North America.” The traditional visual evidences of human occupancy, which
the Euro-North American landscape sought to erase, fill the Quebec paysage
because a palpable and vigorously asserted human presence mark it as a
culturally inscribed landscape.9 Boulizon resurrects, unwittingly it seems, the
very same pattern of dichotomies which first surfaced with the nineteenth
century American Renaissance: Europe vs. North America; Culture vs. Nature;
History vs. Wilderness. Quebec is the delegate of the European and the
cosmopolitan in the Anglo-Protestant bush. The symbolics of landscape art
mark a veritable kulturkampf in the northern bush.
In his mimetic literalism, Boulizon appears to have no concept for this
symbolics of the wilderness. He is without a word for it except as
unharmonious, even bizarre landscape art. Bereft of a concept, he thus only
superficially appears to concur with the classical French lexigraphical
tradition. While French does not have an independent substantive noun for
wilderness, it has a range of words which cover the scriptural meanings of
wilderness: désert, solitude, lieu inculte, abîme, errance, néant, tohu-bohu,
putting aside, terre sauvage, the Group’s own bilingual rendering of their
painterly site. The apparent denial of the symbolics of wilderness under any
lexical description seems curious, especially when there is a rather important
precedent for the French classical usage of “désert” to render the wilderness.
Consider the rather telling example of the opening of Democracy in America, in
the standard translation, where Tocqueville describes the vast physical expanse
of America topographically in these words:
The valley of the Mississipi is, on the whole, the most magnificent
dwelling-place prepared by God for man’s abode; and yet it may be
said that at present it is a mighty desert [et pourtant on peut dire qu’elle
ne forme qu’un vaste désert.]10
Tocqueville declares the Mississippi valley to be “a vast desert,” a desert in the
initial scriptural sense of a humanly bereft space. A strange desert indeed that
yet calls for human dwelling as “the most magnificent dwelling place prepared
17
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by God.” Unlike the geographically specific austere deserts of scripture, the
desert of the Mississippi Valley is verdant in forest and pasture and this desert is
marked by a second feature of wilderness, namely, a wandering across it by
nomadic, indigenous tribes:
These immense deserts were not, however, wholly untenanted by
men. Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered among the
forest shades or on the green pastures of the prairie.[Ces immenses
déserts n’étaient pas cependant entièrement privés de la présence de
l’homme; quelques peuplades erraient depuis des siècles sous les
ombrages de la forêt ou parmi les pâturages de la prairie.11
This almost naive articulation of wilderness as terra nullius, deserted landscape,
tenanted yet unoccupied,12 is confirmed by Tocqueville’s rendering of
William Bradford’s Arbella sermon of 1626. He translates “the hidious and
desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men” which confronted them
as “un désert hideux et désolé, plein d’animaux et d’hommes sauvages.”13
Boulizon would have ordinary French usage at his disposal to address the
symbolics of the Laurentian wilderness as désert, which his nationalist
ideology blocks.
In this regard, Australian lexical practice concurs, curiously enough, with the
classical French usage. The Australian National Dictionary is rather sparse
when it comes to wilderness as an independent lexical concept of particular
Australian relevance. The McQuarrie Dictionary lists “wilderness area” as
terrain not interfered with by humans, but circa 1970, it is a rather late arrival.14
Most, but not all of what is wilderness can be found under that fabulous
variegated entry “bush.” Bush is thick and thin, dense and austere, permeable
and impenetrable, definite and indefinite, visible and invisible, marginal and
ubiquitous. The wild itself is coupled both to desert and bush, to which Marcus
Clarke testifies in his 1874 topographic reverie of the Australian landscape:
In Australia alone is to be found the Grotesque, the Weird,—the
strange scribblings of Nature learning how to write. Some see no
beauty in our trees without shade, or flowers without perfume, or birds
who cannot fly, and our beasts who have not yet learned to walk on all
fours. But the dweller in the wilderness acknowledges the subtle
charm of this fantastic land of monstrosities. He becomes familiar
with the beauty of loneliness. Whispered by the myriad tongues of the
wilderness, he learns the language of the barren and the uncouth, and
can read the hieroglyphs of haggard gum trees blown into odd shapes,
distorted with fierce hot winds, or cramped with cold nights, when the
Southern Cross freezes in a cloudless sky of icy blue. The
phantasmagoria of that wild dreamland called the Bush interprets
itself, and begins to understand why free Esau loved his heritage of
desert-sand better than all the bountiful richness of Egypt.15
The desert ingests the wild and the bush ingests the desert. The bush becomes
the space where “free Esau loved his heritage of desert-sand better than all the
bountiful richness of Egypt.” The eremos of scripture, expelled from the
European mother country, victimized and dispossessed of its European
portion, comes to dwell in the desert of the Bush. It is from the imaginary of the
bush that the exiled European subject becomes present in all its
18
Figure 2
Eugene von Guerard, North-East View from the Top of Mount Kosciusko.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
19
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Figure 3
Arthur Streeton, The Selector’s Hut: Whelan on the Log.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
20
incarnations—as free Esau, as von Guerard’s explorer (Figure 2), as Arthur
Streeton’s Selector (Figure 3), as Robert’s pastoralists and Sydney Nolan’s
cartoon imposter, Ned Kelly, ranging over the reconstituted modernist visual
surface of art that names its ground as “bush” and its figure as “bush ranger.”16
Whether domestic or transported, the European imaginary of the land has
constantly and reiteratively required the existential assertion of the subject
figurally as the basis for its collective claim to place. Thus the imaginary of the
bush in its lush polysemy seems unable to accommodate a space whose concept
requires the exclusion of the human from its symbolic representation. The
traces of human occupancy cannot be effaced from the imaginary as the way of
constituting the landscape site.17 The traces of Aboriginal presence are visually
reiterated despite the official juridico-legal declarations of erasure and the state
sanctioned operations of emptying and enclosure.
Even when the traces of Aboriginal presence have been most deliberately and
systematically effaced both as representation and reality, the bush becomes
denser and more saturated with layers of human scribblings.18
Where do human scribblings end and “nature’s scribblings” in Marcus Clarke’s
metaphor begin? The bush resists visual emptying. The imaginary of the bush, a
hybrid space, is a surface that denies the possibility of the zero degree of itself.
There is no fifth day of creation in the Euro-Australian symbolic of the bush.19
However, the Euro-North American wilderness imaginary from covenant
theology to deep ecology is defined by that very emptying. Atwood in Death by
Landscape is incisive about the emptying of human presence to constitute
wilderness, but silent with respect to the semiosis of this emptying. The iconic
landscapes that she speaks about at the outset are specific and distinct images
that bring into focus the range of the style, namely, that of a foregrounded
solitary northern tree.20 The absence is directed from the figure of the tree,
which (at the same time) signs that absence as a deliberate deletion. It sites
“wilderness” as a sign for the deliberate figural emptying of (signs of) human
presence.
There have been comparisons between the early twentieth century Heidelberg
Painting School of Southern Australia21 and the Group of Seven—gum trees
compared to pine trees, gum trees as pine trees, Tom Thomson’s to Arthur
Streeton’s and so on. Yet, they clearly belong to different and asymptotic
symbolic economies, as the comparison of the Thomson Pine (Figure 1) or the
Varley Pine (Figure 4) to a Streeton Gum (Figure 3) ought to suggest.
For (instance), lone tree in the antipodes has been historically the
symbolization of that colonial presence, of that precarious hold on the land and
its attempted capture of the landscape imaginary. The lone tree accompanies
the subject, becoming both the instrument and the justification for European
presence just as (various) One Tree Hills were the site points for surveying the
land.22 The Northern figure of a solitary tree, on the other hand, occupies the
space where the Subject would have been, signing its absence as wilderness.23
Perhaps it extends the memory of the lost European forest, to the “new
world.”24
21
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Figure 4
F.H. Varley, Stormy Weather Georgian Bay.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.
22
At first glance there seem to be promising points of commonality between the
Australian and Canadian colonialist landscape projects. They seem so
obviously to inhabit different zones of the same colonialist “imaginary” that
was conceptualized so well by Benedict Anderson in Imagined
Communities,25 interchangeable cases of the analysis of Imperial landscape
offered by W.J.T. Mitchell.26 I began by problematizing the figural sign of the
subject in Canadian post-colonial and Australian colonial landscape art and
established a difference of quality in the imaginary between “wilderness” and
“bush” respectively as indicators for that which animates and frames the picture
rather than that which the picture portrays. I then correlated what Mitchell calls
some “hard facts of Landscape”27 namely the juridico-legal operations of terra
nullius, of emptying and enclosure to the imaginary of the Canadian wilderness
as emptied and the bush as inscribed. My third entrance is to invite into the
wilderness imaginary, the project of the American republic which in freeing
itself from British colonialism transferred the very wilderness symbolics into
its own domestic coloniality, a subliming of terra nullius as its own version of
and claim to modernity.
The Witness in the Landscape
Even the most cursory inventory of the work of Tom Thomson, whom one
might call the founder of the Laurentian wilderness image, would reveal a
singular dedication on his part to eliminating human and living animal traces
whether of human figures proper, conveyances, cabins and encampment,
lumber booms and wildlife. Thomson painted all of these things at one time or
another, but in terms of the wilderness style of the Group, these evidences of
human occupancy were the witnesses to a presence that had to be removed.28
Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven share the new world site for the
landscape as wilderness with their nineteenth century Euro-North American
transcendentalist predecessors. The notion of a “deserted landscape” remained
an elusive aspiration, thwarted as much by method as a contrariness in
ambition. The fact remains that the American landscape picturesque is secured
by reflexively declared human presence (Figure 5).
The Western European landscape from the fifteenth century forward is marked
by deliberate signs of human presence: if not human beings figuratively
present, then evidences of living human presence, shelters, dwellings, paths,
roads, signs marking enclosures such as walls and fences, smoke rising from a
fire; if not material evidences of living human presence, then traces on the land
of former human occupancies, cairns, tumuli, ruins, graves, architecture. In all
these respects, the landscape image of Tom Thomson and the Group aspires to
an effacing of human presence as figure, material evidence and trace. The
Group were inheritors of a landscape tradition that had already established the
rhetorical figuration of Euro-North American landscape as wilderness, namely
the Hudson River School of Painting and the influence that it had on late
nineteenth century Canadian landscape art, especially on Lucius O’Brien.29
Thus, the uniqueness of early twentieth century landscape art of the Group of
Seven is not its invention of a visual rhetoric of the wilderness. Rather, its
innovation rests with what it made of a Romanticist legacy, and a Northern
23
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Figure 5
Frederic Edwin Church, The Heart of the Andes.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. David Dows, 1909.
24
symbolic apprenticeship in order to work through to another starker and austere
wilderness visual poetics.30
Even when the American transcendental poetics raised ontological questions
concerning human presence itself, the thought of no place is never fulfilled by a
visual step to erase completely figural inscription of the subject from the poetic
surface. Rather, the ontological question of human presence becomes the
assertion of the wilderness as the sign that marks America’s cultural superiority
over Europe: America > Europe; Wilderness > History. Europe is history,
agony, architecture, ruins where “everywhere the traces of men” contaminate
in their ubiquity. The European landscape refuses to surrender the inescapable,
unerasable traces of human continuance.31 However, wilderness incults
American specialness by positioning the subject as a witness in the wilderness,
bearing witness to the condition of wilderness.32
Emerson puts into words what Church and the Hudson River School enunciate
visually when he begins Nature:
Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. The
foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we,
through their eyes. Why should we not also enjoy an original relation
to the Universe? Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of
insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not
the history of theirs? Why should we grope among the dry bones of the
past?33
The American Romanticist Wilderness aspired to pristine, edenic expanse,
thinned of the historical encumbrance of human presence while posing
pictorial conundrums about the limits of picturing that required the subject to
bear witness to the condition of wilderness as an unpicturable index of the
sublime. Without going into an extended comparison here between Emerson’s
aesthetic solipsizing meditation in the solitude of the woods to its obvious
textual prototype of Descartes’s meditation in the seventeenth century pastoral
of a French hotel, suffice it to note that Emerson obviously transfers Descartes’
conditions of philosophical preparation to a subject positioning, “standing on
the bare ground” where the classical French discourse of solitude becomes
transposed to the New England woods:
In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel nothing can
befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes.)
which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head
bathed by the blythe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean
egotism vanishes.34
Where Cartesian Inquiry feigns the cancelling of the external world in order to
posit the absolute solitariness of the philosophizing subject, Emerson calls the
wilderness that solitude of the woods surrounding this philosophizing subject.
He posits the wilderness as an enduring condition, a substratum whose
continuity has to be reiteratively established and confirmed testamentally. The
testamental gaze establishes the priority or firstness of nature in its wild
condition. Nature is the word that comes to be used to name its extension but
wilderness is that which names its firstness as a humanly prior natural
substratum. Reduced to a naked specularity as the medium of testamental
25
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transfer, Emerson is understandably reluctant to part with his eyes, unlike his
European philosophy tutor, Descartes, who seems willing to part with the body
but not with the tropes of sight as vision. The American Romanticist sublime
aspired to wilderness drained of human presence but deposited instead a subject
of pure presence, stripped bare to the zero-degree of a pure opticality, bearing
witness to nature, and through this cogito to justify its special entitlement to
dominion.35
The subject testifies to its condition as an ekphrasis of testimony where seeing
is writing and writing is seeing. Consider the writing in the essay entitled
“Nature” as testimony to nature and compare it to the beholder’s view in
Church’s The Heart of the Andes (Figure 5), where the “witness” is doubled as a
minute figure forming part of an ensemble of human traces—a crucifix, some
dwellings, fields, human measuring rods to that which the picture portrays as
sublime, which is but the picturing limit of that divine nature which is beyond
the picture. Optical testimony transcribed as writing inscribes the testimony of
sight.36 In the ekphrasis of American transcendentalist poetics, there is no
landscape without an ocular witness; the testimony takes place at the site of the
wilderness and the wilderness is the discursive interface, the bar, both signifier
and signified, for the ekphrastic conversion to take place.37 The Emersonian
subject in the testamental writing to Nature is identical with the testamental
figure in Church’s The Heart of the Andes.38
Overall, the nineteenth century romanticist landscape taught the Group what
evidences and traces of human presence had to be eliminated as pictorial signs
to achieve a fully reduced image, a reduction as it were to the Fifth Day of
Creation, an emptying that required the voiding of the subject as a witness
figure. Thus the inscribed, figural witness (in/at/to) the wilderness had to be
effaced to purify the Canadian wilderness symbolic. The passage toward that
further emptying occurred through the Aboriginal in part because for the
American transcendentalist, the Aboriginal was the favoured European figure
to bear witness to the condition of wilderness. The Aboriginal as figural
presence was not only a common but an exalted thematic in 19th century
Northern new world art, be it as picturesque idealization and/or ethnographic
documentation (Figure 6).
Henry David Thoreau elucidates the arcadian and archeological complexity of
the Aboriginal figure in the emptying of the landscape for the 19th century
wilderness picturesque:
At first perchance there would be an abundant crop of rank garden
weeds and grasses in the cultivated land,—and rankest of all in the
cellar holes,—and of pinweed, hardhack, sumach, blackberry,
thimble berry, raspberry, etc. in the fields and pastures. Elm, ash,
maples, etc., would grow vigorously along old garden limits and main
streets. Garden weeds would soon disappear. Huckleberry and blue
berry bushes, lambkill, hazel, sweetfern, barberry, elder, also shadbush, chokeberry, andromeda, and thorns, etc., would rapidly prevail
in the deserted pastures. At the same time the wild cherries, birch,
poplar, willows, checkerberry would reestablish themselves. Finally
the pines, hemlock, spruce, larch, shrub oak, oaks, chestnut, beech and
walnuts would occupy the site of Concord once more. The apple and
26
Figure 6
Thomas Cole, The Falls of Kaaterskill.
Courtesy of the Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Alabama.
27
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perhaps all exotic trees and shrubs and a great part of the indigenous
ones named above would have disappeared, and the laurel and yew
would to some extent be an underwood here, and perchance the red
man once more thread his way through the mossy, swamplike,
primitive wood.39
Thoreau’s deconstructive reverie terminates with the red man treading
“through the swamplike, primitive wood.” It might have ended as it will later
end in Agassiz’s inspection of the contents of rocks and in the birth of the
dinosaur museum testifying to extinct cultures not in arcadian but in geological
time. But it stopped almost conveniently at the moment just before the arrival in
some mythic archaic past, just before the Arbella advent. Thoreau’s beginning,
before the advent, becomes the next place to explore the meaning of the
symbolic emptying of landscape called “wilderness.” In this respect one might
say that the American pursuit of the dinosaur moves the wilderness imaginary
back from the just “before” (of the landing) to the “before of the before.” The
wilderness drops into geological time40 where the fossil record contains the
evidence of a prior history which enforces the Puritan fear of communal
extinction. Extinction lies not only on the surface of the land with the vanishing
of Aboriginal peoples; it lies beneath the land with the discovery of extinct
forms of life, most recently the mastodon still in the memory of Aboriginal
peoples and most remotely the dinosaurs.41
Wilderness’ New World Genealogy
The 19th century American Renaissance was unerring in its archeological
retracing of wilderness back to the Plymouth Rock foundation of 1626. The
wilderness, that vague space, became the frame for the descent—both a descent
and an apotheosis. While Thoreau elevated the wilderness as the apotheosis of
the Other, it was Hawthorne who excavated it as the very symptom of an
impossible foundation. Wilderness sublime became the terror of the wilderness
as other. The City on the Hill was erected and justified its instauration precisely
by separating and elevating itself from the terror of the wilderness. Hawthorne
reworks the Calvinist wilderness of his own recent ancestors into the
wilderness as the virtually interchangeable alterities of Indigen, woman and
child.42
Between the vague space—wilderness—as primordial terror and the
apotheosis of wilderness as a sublime beyond the picture, an intervening
symbolization surfaces, where the myth of wilderness erupts at the foundation
of community. Perry Miller noted the void character of the wilderness as
comprising the core of the “Puritan metaphor” en passant without fully
realizing the potency of it as symbolic apparatus:
But if they had set it up in America—in a bare land, devoid of already
established (and) corrupt institutions, empty of bishops and courtiers,
where they could start de novo and the eyes of the world were upon
it—and if then it performed just as the saints predicted of it, the
Calvinist internationale would know exactly how to go about
completing the already begun but temporarily stalled revolution in
Europe.43
28
As an afterthought in a footnote, Miller then detects the systematic character of
the Puritan “concoction” that made up their “metaphor” of the wilderness. It
made it “all the more striking a concoction because they attached no
significance a priori to their wilderness destination. To begin with, it was
simply a void.”44
The very naming of the wilderness as that vague space, the void, creates the
compulsion for covenanting as an actus foundatio from the named abyss itself.
The terra nullius of wilderness is a covenant of the land that finds itself
endlessly repeated in representational practices. One such family of practices is
landscape pictures as devices of colonial legitimation. Speaking not about the
wilderness but about “Columbus’ formalist” declaration of possession of New
Spain, Stephen Greenblatt views it as trying “to make the new lands
uninhabited—terra nullius—by emptying out the the category of the other. The
other exists only as an empty sign or a cipher . . .”45 Wilderness is the name of
that empty sign or cipher in the Calvinist project. To bring the second epigraph
into the text, if one substitutes “wilderness” for “landscape” one might say with
W.J.T. Mitchell that wilderness “is both a representation and presented space,
both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what frame contains.” It comes
to invent real places, as this author has shown elsewhere (e.g., wilderness
parks). Wilderness performs all three semiotic roles—signifier, bar, signified.
The treatments here are to show it as the in-between, as the slippage, the spacing
or difference itself.
Wilderness names the prior condition, temporal, ontological of the European
displace called the New World. One might say that under certain historical and
cultural conditions “wilderness” is the name of the prior symbolization that is
the imagining out of which “an imagined political community” of the nation
emerges. Wilderness is utterly unlimited and yet out of it the political
community of the nation territorializes limit, makes a claim about territory, etc.
just as it is the source from which it makes its claim to being sovereign. Colonial
landscape pictures perform both those roles.46 To enact a kind of landscape
requires that a voidal condition of the imaginary be posited already in advance.
Wilderness is thus prior to the landscape picture that occasionally names its
content “wilderness”47 (Figure 7).
The ordering for the Puritan political theological project of the nation is thus:
out of Wilderness, the City on the Hill; from the City on the Hill as precinct, the
Wilderness as the excluded part, la part maudite, the Other. Wilderness is the
myth at the very foundation of North American community—it is both
foundation and fiction. The myth of wilderness erupts as the expression of the
groundless ground, in the absence of ground, the abyss, the myth: Wilderness.
How did the Puritan rediscovery of “the new world in scripture” become a
pivotal episode in the constitution of modernity? And what relationship did it
have to wilderness? Further, what made the New England politico-theological
project of occupation and settlement not only a pivotal moment but also the key
to understanding why this colonialist actus foundatio was not only an original
version of modernity but what made the New England experiment, as Sacvan
Bercovitch has recently claimed, “exceptional.” A text from Bercovitch
outlines the symbolic and scriptural basis for the American claim to cultural
29
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Figure 7
A.Y. Jackson, Terre Sauvage.
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.
30
exception. Speaking about the Puritans’ “three lasting contributions to the
American Way,” Bercovitch describes the first in terms of the innovative and
successful strategy of appropriating the new land which was intimately tied to
the textual inscription of the geographical metaphor:
They justified the New World in its own right. Other colonists and
explorers brought Utopian dreams to the New World, but in doing so
they claimed the land (New Spain, New France, Nova Scotia) as
European Christians, by virtue of the superiority of Christian
European culture. In short, they justified their invasion of America
through European concepts of culture. The Puritans denied the very
fact of invasion by investing America with the meaning of progress
and then identifying themselves as the peoples peculiarly destined to
bring that meaning to life. “Other peoples,” John Cotton pointed out in
1630 “have their land by providence; we have it by promise.” The next
generation of New Englanders drew out the full import of his
distinction. They were not claiming America by conquest, they
explained; they were reclaiming what by promise belonged to them,
as the Israelites had once reclaimed Canaan, or (in spiritual terms) as
the church had reclaimed the name of Israel. By that literal-prophetic
act of reclamation the Puritans raised the New World into the realm of
figura.48
Post-contact “New England” is the “new world” with Plymouth Rock as the
originating monument. The clock started ticking with the arrival of the Arbella
in the New World and the declaration of William Bradford. This is the absolute
beginning point, not the terrible voyage and the wilderness of the sea, not the
Calvinist prolegomena, not the dissenters and the puritan sects of Christopher
Hill’s English Revolution, there is no English-New English condominium
here. Pilgrim Rock is the Uhr site, the Uhr-text is the Bible.49 “Errand in the
Wilderness” refers to Miller’s original formulation. Bercovitch deploys the
formula first of all to name the New England foundational project, specifying as
it were, the state or condition of the geographically fixed topos of the New
World. Modernity unfolded in the wilderness state or condition of the New
World. Wilderness thus names, as it were, the condition of the Calvanist project
of New World foundations.
Bercovitch affirms that the American exception—what distinguishes it from
Nova Scotia or New Zealand—is intimately tied to this symbolic
refiguration— to the way that the Puritans as New Israelites biblically inscribed
their occupation of new lands, not through a justification in terms of cultural
superiority, but in terms of a “promise.” Is this, indeed, where the exception lies?
The Wilderness in Terra Nullius
The symbolical inscription of wilderness, coupled with the notion of an
emptied sign, seems to bear a strong family resemblance to other European
declarations of right to possession that link Columbus to Jacques Cartier to the
Puritans and the Nova Scotians and James Cook at Botany Bay in 1788. Is there
a discursive analogy between Miller’s metaphor of “wilderness as void” and
the speech acts of occupation whose performances declare and emblematics
seal such “new world” space to be void, to be terra nullius?
31
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Indeed the Puritan “wilderness” is the scriptural refiguring of these juridicotheological declarations and emblems of terra nullius. By symbolically
refiguring terra nullius as wilderness, the Puritans fashioned an emblem with
terra nullius on one side and wilderness as the zero degree of the sign on the
other. “Wilderness” is the scriptural figure of terra nullius for the New England
Puritans. Dallenbach notwithstanding, such declarations are juridicotheological mise-en-abîme.50 The wilderness was a sign in that domain of
“New World” as capture and appropriation. Once again, how then were the
New England Puritans different from the Spanish or the French or the Nova
Scotia English or the English at Botany Bay in 1788 since they all deployed a
variety of juridico-theological formalizing devices to reduce inhabited land to
terra nullius? The crucial difference might lie in the fact of the symbolic
refiguring of the juridico-theological operations of terra nullius into
wilderness—of an aestheticizing of the legal and political devices, of a double
operation, a mimetic doubling of the zero.
At least this seems to mark the difference between Catholic and Protestant
historia but does it mark the difference within the project of what Miller calls
the “Calvinist Internationale”? Many examples weaken such a claim to
distinction. One need only consider the Calvinist claims of the Dutch in South
Africa who also claimed to hold the land by promise. The word “bush” is often
traced to Afrikans “bosch.” Indeed British North America is coincidental with
having a source in or deriving from and running parallel to the New England
experiment until it splits off with the American Revolution. The Group of
Seven’s symbolic of the wilderness might well be the remarkable eruption of
that original Massachusetts Bay wilderness fragment—a fragment preserved
by the United Loyalists taking a hike North and away from the American
Revolution.51 On this conjecture, the British North American wilderness splits
in two from an original source. Such an insight receives confirmation from the
image of the Northern Pine itself. In its austere, stark and solitary resoluteness,
it passes over the visual grandiloquence of the American transcendentalists, an
echo back to Bradford’s wilderness of terror. With Thomson’s Jack Pine, the
fifth day of creation and deep ecology converge. And by that same token one
might also say that the contemporary wilderness of deep ecology is the myth of
the American errand refigured.52
To summarize, it is useful to draw a distinction between “wilderness” as miseen-abîme, positioned as the Saussurean bar itself at the site for the emergence of
the symbolic, and wilderness as a “tableau,” as content and referent. The error
of the Americanist is to treat wilderness exclusively from the side of the
signified, as tableau. Thus the distinction between wilderness as mise-enabîme and wilderness as tableau allows one to identify what comprises the
“radical” and “original” modernity of “America” while finding a way of
articulating just what is improbable and counter-intuitive about Americanist
claims for wilderness as being what marks the American exception. In the
foundational project of America, wilderness and terra nullius are inextricably
bound together, politically and aesthetically. Indeed for the American project
wilderness is terra nullius sublimed.
* * *
32
The British Imperial project for North America conquered without juridicolegal declarations of terra nullius while the British Imperial project for
Australia was initiated by these very devices. The Royal Proclamation of 1763,
which recognized the prior title over the lands by indigenous North Americans,
was confirmed in the Quebec Act of 1774. These legal recognitions of prior
Aboriginal title are often understood as the causis belli of the American
Revolution in 1776.53 It might be said that the history of Canada has always
been a negotiation between the settler culture and its first inhabitants about title.
Yet the dominant cultural project of Euro-North Americans came to articulate
itself aesthetico-theologically in terms of the emptying of wilderness initially
by the Massachussets Bay colonists, then by the post-Constitution, American,
nineteenth century transcendentalists, followed by Euro-Canadians during the
first third of the twentieth century with Thomson and the Group of Seven. The
emptying of deep ecology with the imaginary of wilderness at its source marks
the close of the twentieth century. These North American colonialist visions,
intimately configured the landscape imaginary to what might be called an
aestheticizing or subliming of terra nullius. The Australian imaginary came to
articulate a hybrid space that contradicted the official operations of voiding. In
other words, the landscape imaginary overcame the declaration of terra nullius
as preparation for the recent legal judgment on Wednesday, June 3, 1992 in the
the case of Eddie Mabo vs. Queensland, two hundred and four years after the
declaration of 1788.
Acknowledgment
*
This paper is among the results of two seminars given at the Humanities Research Centre at
the Australian National University over 1993-94 . The outline of the paper was given as the
overview for the paper I delivered “On the Line: The Rehanging of Australian Art,” June 11
1994. An earlier and extended version of part 3 was published as a critical notice of Sacvan
Bercovitch Rites of Assent under the title “Cultural Symbology,” Semiotic Review of Books
5.1, Spring 1993. For the problematics of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven and the
iconology of the Northern Tree see my “Jack Pine—Wilderness Sublime or the Erasure of
Aboriginal Presence from the Landscape,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 19921993) pp. 98-128 abbreviated to “Jack Pine”. The paper is a reworked version of a fragment
from, Terra Nullius Sublimed—The Trauma of Wilderness, an Essay (Forthcoming). The
author wishes to thank D.J. Mulvaney, Paul Duro, Yves Thomas, Douglas McLean, Bruce
Hodgins, Ian McLachlan, John Wadland, Terry Smith, Molly Blyth, Tom Mitchell and
Doreen Small.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
W.J.T. Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in Mitchell, ed., Landscape and Power (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994) p. 7.
Perry Miller, Errand in the Wilderness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976)
p. 12.
Margaret Atwood, “Death by Landscape,” in Wilderness Tips (Toronto: Seal Books, 1992)
pp. 103-104.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Wilderness” is the very name of that which denies the event, that something has happened,
while trauma clinically refers to the blow that denies to consciousness that something
happened. One might say that wilderness is the idealized site of trauma, a correlation
addressed in “Picture and Witness at the Site of the Wilderness” given at the 4th International
33
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7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
34
Word & Image Conference in Dublin in August 1996 and at the Conference, “Refiguring
Wilderness,” Lake Temagami, September 2 1996.
Jonathan Bordo, “Jack Pine—Wilderness Sublime or the Erasure of Aboriginal Presence
from Landscape,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 1992-1993) pp. 98-128.
Guy Boulizon, Le Paysage dans la peinture au Québec (Éditions Marcel Broquet, 1984)
p. 25.
See the essay by Esther Trépanier, “The Expression of a Difference: The Milieu of Quebec
Art and The Group of Seven,” in Michael Tooby, ed., The True North (London: Lund
Humpries, 1991) pp. 99-116.
Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Éditions Vrin, 1990) p. 20.
Ibid., p. 30.
Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Australia: Penguin Books, 1987) especially chapter
2.
de Tocqueville, op. cit. p. 21.
For a comprehensive overview of the whole issue of indigenous Australians and the impact
that colonisation had on the land, see D.J. Mulvaney, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Australia under the entry “environmental issues.”
Marcus Clarke, “The Weird Melancholy of the Australian Bush 1874,” in Bernard Smith,
ed., Documents on Art and Taste in Australia: the Colonial Period 1770-1914 (Melbourne:
Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 135f. I am indebted to Sasha Grishin for having brought
this passage to my attention.
See Tim Bonyhady, Images in Opposition: Australian Landscape Painting 1801-1890
(Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985), Bernard Smith European Vision and the South
Pacific 1768-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Wally Caruana, Aboriginal Art
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1994).
In the latter chapters of The Road to Botany Bay, Paul Carter carefully considers how the
traces of Aboriginal presence came to disappear into a palimpsest of roads, fences and
property came to run along and form over the aboriginal network of dreamings. [Static
monuments on top of and effacing the original fluid tracks of transmission.] In a paper
delivered at the conference, “Re-Hanging Australian Art,” Carter returned to that
palimpsest, reproblematizing it as a kind of Derridean writing, hybrid scribblings that allow
for cultural co-existence. See P. Carter The Lie of the Land (London: Faber, 1996).
Pedder Lake in its ecologically pristine condition as “wilderness” was saved by the
intervention of archeologists one of whom was D.J. Mulvaney. They discovered over forty
thousand years of Aboriginal traces, which provided the primary justification for the eco
system’s preservation.
Canadian political theorist Peter Kulchyski problematizes the “north” as an imaginary of the
bush which has many parallels to the Australian symbolics of the bush. See for example, his
essay, “bush culture for a bush country: an unfinished manifesto,” Journal of Canadian
Studies 31, 3 (Fall 1996) pp. 192-196.
So the decision by Charles Hill, the curator of the recent The Group of Seven — Art for a
Nation Exhibition and Catalogue, to cut Tom Thomson off from the Group of Seven has the
effect of dispersing the iconic target of the style, facilitating its dispersion and deflating its
iconic power. This is the subject of a separate treatment in Terra Nullius Sublime. See M.
Brower, “Framed by History,” Journal of Canadian Studies 31, 2 (Summer 1996) pp. 178182.
On the Heidelberg School, see Bonyhady 1985 chap. 8.
See Matthew Teitlebaum’s, “Siting the Single Tree—Siting the New found land,” in
Augaitis and Pakasar, eds., Eye of Nature (Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1991) which
strikes out on the path of a post-colonialist re-evaluation of Canadian art. See also Albert
Boime, The Magisterial Gaze: American Landscape Painting... (Washington and London:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).
See “Jack Pine” esp. pp. 112-115.
Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
especially chap. 2.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1990).
Ibid.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
W.J.T. Mitchell’s essay “Imperial Landscape,” appeared after the writing of the Australian
manuscript of this text. Two observations: (1) I hope my approach confirms some of the
theoretical ambitions of Mitchell’s analysis when he writes “my aim in this essay as taking a
harder look at the framework in which facts about landscape are constituted—the way, in
particular that the nature, history, and semiotic or aesthetic character of landscape is
constructed in both its idealist and skeptical interpretations,” ibid., p. 7; (2) Mitchell chooses
to delineate British colonialist landscape in a way that insulates the most obvious instance of
his analysis, namely the American landscape tradition of the Hudson River School. There is
a telling aside with respect to that omission: Speaking about Australia and New Zealand as
colonial landscape exceptions, Mitchell writes “Unlike North America, it did not quickly
develop its own independent pretensions to be an imperial metropolitan centre.” (Mitchell,
p. 18) What would be more “colonial” than that westward expansion? On the other hand,
Mitchell’s manner of ekphrastic treatment is pitched in such a way that it would make
“wilderness” which he does not mention, a genre of landscape art, a kind of tableau, rather
than the driving force of an imaginary, the site itself for “landscape.”
The argument is worked out in the early sections of “Jack Pine,” ibid.
Elizabeth Mulley, “Lucius O’Brien: A Victorian in North America,” Journal of Canadian
Art History XIV, 2 (1991):74-81; Dennis Reid, Lucius O’Brien: Visions of Victorian
Canada. See Doreen Small, “Picturing Grand Manan: 19th Century Painting and the
Representation of Place” M.A. Thesis, Trent University, 1997.
See Robert Rosenblum, Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition (Harper
1988) and Roald Nasgaard, The Mystic North (University of Toronto Press, 1984); see “Jack
Pine” especially pp. 114-118.
See “Jack Pine” p. 110 ff. for a treatment of these European themes.
“Witness and Picture at the Site of the Wilderness” problematizes the witness and picturing,
and the question of what is meant by site. Cf. Note 6.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Richard Poirier, ed., Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1990) p. 6.
Op. cit. p. 19.
Emerson, op. cit. p. 6 “Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the
dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the savior rode. It offers all its kingdom as the
raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up.
He forges the subtile and delicate air into wise and melodious words, and gives them wing as
angels of persuasion and command. One after another, his victorious thought comes up with
and reduces all things, until the world becomes at last, only a realized will—the double of
man.”
See my essay, “The Witness in the Errings of Contemporary Art,” in Paul Duro, ed., The
Rhetoric of the Frame (New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) esp.
pp. 190-197 where I sketch out this logic of testamentaly as a feature of early modern
picturing.
I work this argument out in detail in the paper “Picture and Witness at the Site of the
Wilderness.”
I am grateful for the conversations with Tom Mitchell and a recent reading of Picture Theory
which have suggested ekphrastic routes for advancing this testamental epistemology. See
W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) esp. chap. 5.
Cited in Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1985) p. 74.
See for example Barbara Novak, Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting 18251875. (Oxford 1983) esp. chap. 4.
See W.J.T. Mitchell’s forthcoming The Last Dinosaur Book, University of Chicago Press,
where he links Jefferson’s observations of the imminent vanishing of indigenous peoples
with his zoological interests with the mastodon whose disappearance was recollected by
indigenous peoples, revealing a chain of extinctions that lead up to a sense of the
precariousness of early American settler consciousness. On the mastodon, see Laura Regal,
“Teale’s Mammoth,” in David Miller, ed., American Iconology (Yale University Press,
1993) p. 18-38.
35
IJCS / RIÉC
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
36
See Trinh Minh Ha, The Language of Nativism (Indiana University Press, 1990). On the
modernity of wilderness, see especially Hayden White “The Forms of Wildness” in Tropics
of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Stephen Greenblatt, Marvellous Possessions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
p. 60.
Here I am rephrasing Anderson’s elaboration of his definition of the nation as an imagined
community, Anderson, op. cit. p. 6f.
See Angela Miller’s penetrating analysis of Church’s “Twilight in the Wilderness,” in
Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and Cultural Politics, 1825-1875 (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell, 1993) esp. chap. 3, and also Franklin Kelly, Frederick Edwin Church and the
National Landscape (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988) chaps 5 & 6.
Sacvan Bercovitch, The Rites of Assent (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 81.
I am indebted to conversations with the historian Alastair Maclachlan who opened up this
important path of thought to me. The crossing becomes a conceptual and historiographical
no man’s land between the rival versions of the seventeenth century puritan revolution.
Dallenbach, Le Récit spéculaire (Paris: Seuil, 1977).
See Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants, Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper
Canada/ Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982).
In this regard I am thinking both of Robert Pogue Harrison’s, Forests mentioned above, but
most naively and stridently in Max Oelschlager, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1990) which claims to succeed Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the
American Mind. For a critique of Deep Ecology see Peter van Wyck, “Deep Ecology and the
Absent Subject” M.A. Thesis, Trent University, 1993, forthcoming as Primitives and
Wilderness: Deep Ecology and the Absent Subject (State University of New York Press
1997).
I am indebted to a conversation with the commonwealth historian John Milloy for a
clarification on this point.
William J. Buxton
Time, Space and the Place of Universities in
Western Civilization: Harold Innis’ Plea1
Abstract
Many discussions of Harold Innis’ work are based on the assumption that he
viewed the media as determining the time-space configuration of societies by
virtue of their inherent properties. This paper takes a different approach,
arguing that Innis’ main concern was how civilizations addressed the
problems of ensuring territorial control (in space) and duration (through
time). It examines Innis’ account of how the dialectical interaction of spaceand time-binding media provide the motor of history with particular attention
given to how the modern era has become obsessed with the control of space
accompanied by “present-mindedness.” After addressing the points of
resistance to this trend that Innis outlined, the implications of his theory for
understanding Canada are explored.
Résumé
De nombreuses discussions portant sur les travaux d’Harold Innis partent de
l’hypothèse suivante : ce dernier estime que, vu leurs propriétés inhérentes,
les médias déterminent la configuration spatio-temporelle des sociétés. Le
présent article aborde le sujet sous un autre angle : la principale
préoccupation d’Innis était de savoir comment les civilisations abordaient la
question du contrôle territorial (espace) et de la durée (temps). Cet article
examine l’explication que fait Innis de la façon dont les échanges dialectiques
par la voie des médias qui lient l’espace et le temps constituent le moteur de
l’histoire, en insistant tout particulièrement sur la façon dont l’ère moderne
est obsédée par le contrôle de l’espace et par une « propension au présent ».
Après avoir abordé les points de résistance à la tendance que soulignait Innis,
l’article passe en revue les répercussions de la théorie proposée par ce
chercheur pour comprendre le Canada.
Innis on Time and Space
Issues of time and space are commonly recognized as central to Harold Innis’
work in communications. Largely based on the widely quoted summary
statements from Empire and Communications and The Bias of
Communications2, these accounts have developed their own form of bias.
Above all, they have been preoccupied with Innis’ claims about how the
inherent properties of early communications media left their mark on ancient
civilizations.3 Strikingly, the closer Innis’ analyses approach the present, the
IJCS / RIÉC
less they emphasize the bias inherent in the properties of the media. In his
analysis of ancient civilizations, this mode of interpretation predominates.
However, in his discussion of the Middle Ages and of the early modern period,
the properties of the media work in tandem with other factors, and vary
according to the particular contexts. Finally, when Innis comes to discuss the
modern period following the onset of printing, the nation-state system and
capitalism, the role played by the properties of media is almost negligible.
When Innis considers the development of later media such as the book, the
newspaper and radio, he makes only scant reference to how their inherent
characteristics (such as their weight, durability or flexibility) are linked to
biasing time or space.
The properties of communications media become increasingly incidental to the
structuring of time and space as Innis’ analyses move closer to the present.
Indeed, in his explanation of what accounts for patterns of change in societies,
the physical characteristics of the media, if discussed at all, are considered only
in relation to broader social and political factors.4 Innis’ approach is not to
begin with the media and to understand how they biased societies; his point of
departure is civilizations and how they addressed the problems of ensuring
territorial control and achieving duration. “Large-scale political organization,”
he noted, “implies a solution of problems of space in terms of administrative
efficiency, and of problems of time in terms of continuity” (Innis, [1950]
1986:168-169). Innis gives particular attention to how civilizations tend to
create monopolies of knowledge in order to deal with the problems of time and
space.5
Concentration on a medium of communication implies a bias in the
cultural development of the civilization concerned either towards an
emphasis on space and political organization, or towards an emphasis
on time and religious organization. (Innis, [1950] 1986:169)
As these forms of organization developed, however, they set in motion the
emergence of new, countervailing tendencies at the margins of society. These,
in turn, served as a check on the prevailing monopoly of knowledge, giving rise
to composite forms of political organization: “Introduction of a second medium
tends to check the bias of the first and to create conditions suited to the growth of
empire” (Innis, [1950] 1986:169). Innis views history, then, as a dialectical
dance of time and space as civilizations seek to deal with the problems of
political control and durability. In discussing how empires and civilizations
rise, fall and succeed one another, he gives particular attention to the formation
of binary political organizations through the fusion of prevailing monopolies of
knowledge with a countervailing tendency which serves to check the
limitations of the dominant medium of communication:
Monopolies of knowledge had developed and declined partly in
relation to the medium of communication on which they were built,
and tended to alternate as they emphasized religion, decentralization,
and time; or force, centralization, and space. (Innis, [1950] 1986:166)
As Innis observed, these hybrid forms have differing degrees of success
depending upon the particular circumstances giving rise to the combination in
question (Innis, [1950] 1986:166). In his view, the optimal society was one able
38
Time, Space and the Place of Universities
to achieve some kind of balance between its time- and space-binding media.6
Greece of the fifth century B.C., for instance, combined its “powerful oral
tradition” with “the flexibility of the alphabet” in such a way that it was able to
resist the tendencies of empire in the East towards absolute monarchism and
theocracy (Innis, [1950] 1986:81). According to Innis, this attainment of
harmony between time and space enabled Greece to make notable advances in
artistic and literary creativity (Innis, [1950] 1986:79). However, when Innis
discusses the modern era, this pattern of development is no longer in evidence.
Rather than examining how space- and time-binding media emerge, decline
and come into balance within empires and civilizations, he now turns his
attention to the forces set in motion once the binary relationship between
church and state was severed, and to the way in which commercialization and
the print revolution emerged as a result of this breakdown. The Church’s
monopoly on time increasingly conflicts with “the demands of the bureaucracy
centring on space,” leading to the eventual decline of the church and the
consolidation of the state. Without the “check” provided by the time-oriented
church, the state became increasingly rigid and was unable to withstand the
growth of commercial interests. The growth of printing was particularly
significant in this respect and, according to Innis, “marked the first stage in the
spread of the Industrial Revolution” and led to “savage religious wars of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” More generally, the “application of
power to communication industries hastened the consolidation of vernaculars,
the rise of nationalism, evolution, and new outbreak of savagery in the
twentieth century” (Innis, [1951] 1991:29-30).
Accompanying the development of nationalism, Innis argues, is increasing
fragmentation and misunderstanding, as the emergent nation-states embarked
on different trajectories, attendant upon how they chose to deploy post-print
communications: “The varied rate of development of communication facilities
has accentuated difficulties of understanding. Improvements in
communication . . . make for increased difficulties of understanding” (Innis,
[1951] 1991:28). Indeed, Innis seems to even suggest that the new forms of
communication no longer operate as “checks” to the prevailing monopolies of
knowledge; they owe their form and nature to the broader transformations in
the organization of knowledge and cultural production that have taken place.
This meant, it turn, that the definition and structuring of time underwent
profound transformations as a result of the new forces unleashed.
[I]ndustrial demands meant fresh emphasis on the ceaseless flow of
mechanical time. Establishment of time zones facilitated the
introduction of uniformity in regions. And advance in the state of
industrialism reflected in the speed of the newspaper press and the
radio meant a decline in the importance of biological time determined
by agriculture (Innis, [1951] 1991:74).
These tendencies were accentuated by scientific developments which sought to
“apply . . . measurements of space to time, ie. astronomy, and destroy concept of
time in myth and religion” (Innis, 1980:133). This suggested a loss of ability to
understand what time had meant in a previous era. Much of the loss of a sense of
time could be attributed to the press, which “[insisted] on time as a uniform and
39
IJCS / RIÉC
quantitative continuum. [This] . . . obscured qualitative differences and its
disparate and discontinuous character.” Innis contends that “under the guise of
democracy freedom of the press has led to the defence of monopoly. These
monopolies exert an important influence on the news. News can be selected and
even made by a powerful journalist.” This results in a chronic sense of present
mindedness and a preoccupation with the immediate. Moreover, oral and aural
communications—once linked to questions of time—had been subsumed
under the new space-binding communication:
The disastrous effect of the monopoly of communication based on the
eye hastened the development of a competitive type of
communication based on the ear, in the radio and in the linking of
sound to the cinema and to television. Printed material gave way in
effectiveness to the broadcast and to the loud speaker (Innis,
1991:81).
As he argued, with mechanization, printing became geared toward meeting the
demands of increasingly large numbers of people. Such a tendency was
particularly evident in the radio and cinema, in which emphasis upon the
“ephemeral” and the “superficial” accompanied the drive for entertainment
and amusement.“The demands of the new media,” Innis argues “were imposed
on the older media, the newspaper and the book. With these powerful
developments time was destroyed and it became increasingly difficult to
achieve continuity or to ask consideration of the future” (Innis, [1951] 1991:8283). Indeed, the act of thinking itself became more difficult as a result of the
printing press and the radio. The endemic present-mindedness detected by
Innis was not confined to industry, science and the media; it was also evident in
professional and educational practices. Law, for instance, which he
characterized as “brittle, brilliant type work” tended to neglect “continuity in
time” and to ignore “long-term factors.” Lawyers concentrated instead on the
detailed intricacies of whatever case was before them, rather than considering
more transcendent philosophical issues (Innis, 1952:56-57). Closer to home,
Innis was dismayed at the degree to which “present-mindedness” had taken
hold in the universities which were “menaced by specialization and the belief
on the part of specialists that no other interest than their own is important”
(Innis, 1946:viii). University teaching, like other professions, had become
“narrow and sterile.” It was almost impossible to develop “a broad interest in
the complex problems of society.” This meant that “student and teacher are
loaded down with information and prejudice,” and “the capacity to break down
prejudice and to maintain an open mind are seriously weakened” (Innis, [1951]
1991:208).
Drawing on the work of his former colleague, Eric Havelock (1951), Innis
maintained that the application of intelligence to the solution of problems was
jeopardized by the wide-spread present-mindedness that had taken hold in
Western civilization. In this regard, “the present—real, insistent, complex, and
treated as an independent system . . . has penetrated the most vulnerable areas of
public policy.” This means that human action is unable to move beyond the
present, resulting in war. Hence, “power, and its assistant, force, the natural
enemies of intelligence, have become more serious as “the mental processes
activated in the pursuit and consolidating of power are essentially short range”
40
(Innis, 1952:v). It is evident that in his discussions of modern life, Innis is
obsessed with the endemic “present-mindedness,” and the lack of concern with
issues related to time and temporality. This was not simply an analytical
concern on his part. As the scathing tone of Innis’ commentary reveals, he
believed that the loss of time-consciousness represented an unmitigated
disaster for contemporary Western societies. By grasping the extent to which
Innis was disturbed by the trends in twentieth-century civilization, one can
begin to understand why he so obsessively scanned the past in order to detect
patterns of bias and processes of change in monopolies of knowledge. By doing
so, he believed that we would be better equipped to understand and overcome
biases in the present. By becoming “alert to the implications” of the bias of
other civilizations, this would “enable us to see more clearly the bias of our
own.” Innis was acutely aware that given the tendencies of mechanization and
present-mindedness at work in contemporary civilizations, rigidities and
inflexibility would make critical reflection increasingly difficult. He noted that
“the use of a medium of communication over a long period will to some extent
determine the character of knowledge to be communicated and suggest that its
pervasive influence will eventually create a civilization in which life and
flexibility will become exceedingly difficult to maintain. . . .” (Innis, [1951]
1991:34). It was through the hermeneutic act of retrieving the wisdom of past
cultures whose sense of time had not yet been subject to objectifying and
spatializing tendencies, that Innis sought to help create a temporal sensibility
that could serve as a countervailing current to the massive wave of presentmindedness sweeping the contemporary world. Through the process of
subjecting the past to this kind of scrutiny, Innis sought to gain perspective on
where time-binding forms of communication and practice could still be
detected, with a view toward strengthening and encouraging them. Innis’
recovery and reactivation of earlier forms of time-sensibility could be seen as
an effort to help establish a new, time-binding form of communication. In the
same way that time-binding forms of communication had arisen in the past to
serve as checks upon the monopolies of knowledge based on space-binding
forms of communication, this inchoate tendency would act as a countervailing
force to mechanization, commercialization and present-mindedness, thereby
giving contemporary society more balance.
Points of Resistance
Innis’ remarks on the form this tendency would take are sketchy at best, and in
no way constitute a coherent and well articulated vision. Had he not died an
untimely death, he may well have sought to provide a detailed account of the
form and nature of this movement. For the most part, in a manner akin to the
negative dialectics of the Frankfurt School (Wernick, 1986; Stamps, 1995),
Innis offered few specifics of an alternative vision, preferring to critically
assess the then current trends in thought, communication and culture.
Nevertheless, he did reveal glimpses of what he had in mind in some of his
essays written during the last years of his life. By piecing them together against
the backdrop of his critiques, it is possible to get some sense of what Innis saw as
a possible corrective to the cataclysmic directions of contemporary life.
41
IJCS / RIÉC
“The first essential task,” as he saw it, was “to see and to break through the
chains of modern civilization which have been created by modern science.” In
particular, words have been produced “on an unprecedented scale” and have
become powerless. Moreover,“[o]ral and printed words have been harnessed to
the enormous demands of modern industrialism and in advertising have been
made to find new markets for goods. Each new invention which enhances their
power in that direction weakens their power in other directions” (1946). In his
view, this perversion of language was simply an aspect of the destruction of
culture which accompanied the mechanization and commercialization of life.
Culture, in his view “is concerned with the capacity of the individual to appraise
problems in terms of space and time and with enabling him to take the proper
steps at the right time.” However, “the tragedy of modern culture has arisen as
inventions in commercialism had destroyed the sense of time” (Innis, 1991:8586). Indeed, “States are destroyed by lack of culture . . . and so, too, are empires
and civilizations. Mass production and standardization are the enemies of the
West. The limitations of mechanization of the printed and the spoken word
must be emphasized, and determined efforts to recapture the vitality of the oral
tradition must be made” (Innis, 1986:168).
What Innis suggested, then, was that a balance between time and space could be
restored through the development of cultural forms in which orality was
revitalized. A formation of this kind would restore the former power of the
printed and oral word. And where was such a tendency to be found? In the same
way that Innis looked to the margins for signs of revitalization in the past, he
turned his gaze to an institution whose traditions were at odds with the
spatializing tendencies of contemporary societies in the present, namely the
universities of the West.7 Here one could find the vanishing species of the
scholar, whose influence had all but been destroyed by “the industrial
Revolution and mechanized knowledge.” Not only were dominant interests
based on force “no longer concerned with his protection” but were “actively
engaged in schemes for his destruction.” Indeed, even science, mathematics
and music as the last refuge of the Western mind have come under the spell of
the mechanized vernacular (Innis, [1951] 1991:30-31).
This attack on the scholar was part of a much broader onslaught against the
university and the traditions it represented. Reflecting the deterioration of
Western civilization, it was now assumed by “businessmen and . . . by
university administrators trained in playing for the highest bid” that
“universities can be bought and sold” (Innis, 1946:75). This recurrent
“business and political exploitation of universities by bribes” had led to “the
descent of the university into the market place” (Innis, 1946:76). In Innis’ view,
this had grave implications for scholarly and intellectual life: “The
mechanization of modern society compels increasing interest in science and the
machine, and attracts the best minds from the most difficult problems in
western civilization” (Innis, 1946:74). Innis was particularly dismayed that
knowledge had become prone to specialization as a result of bureaucratic
demands (Innis, 1946:141). The university, moreover, had become
increasingly susceptible to the influences of mass media such as the newspaper,
the cinema and the radio, which “demand the thinning out of knowledge to the
point where it interests the lowest intellectual levels.” Since higher education is
42
bound up with problems of communication, the university has difficulty
escaping the “demands of mechanization,” as revealed by the increasing
presence of state radio stations, adult education programs and university
extension courses (Innis, 1946:74). With its drive toward the popularization of
education, and “direct selling of their wares to the public,” the universities have
transformed the role of the professor from a scholar to a “particular type of
entertainer.” As Innis scathingly summed up his view of the trends in university
life, “we need a study of the professor as sandwich man—perhaps a doctoral
thesis” (Innis, 1946:74).
Despite these discouraging tendencies, Innis remained hopeful that the
university could recover its tradition of “humanities and learning.” This would
permit it to “resist the tendencies to bureaucracy and dictatorship of the modern
State, the intensification of nationalism, the fanaticisms of religion, the evils of
monopoly in commerce and industry” (Innis, 1946:66). It was imperative that
the university “continue its vital function in checking the dangerous extremes
to which all institutions with power are subject,” including “the rise of the
modern state and . . . the tyranny of opinion” (Innis, 1946:141). Rather than
continuing its complicity with mechanization and present-mindedness, he
believed that “the University must play its major role in the rehabilitation of
civilization which we have witnessed in this century by recognizing that
western civilization has collapsed” (Innis, 1946:73). It was aptly suited to play
this role because of its “great tradition of freedom from state control.” This
means that it could serve as “a platform on which we may be able to discuss the
problems of civilization. We stand on a small and dwindling island surrounded
by the flood of totalitarianism” (Innis, 1946:73).
And how was the university to serve as a point of resistance to ongoing trends,
and the site for the rehabilitation of Western civilization? While Innis did not
elaborate on how it could play this role, he did put great stock in a particular
orientation towards the production of knowledge that challenged the trends he
detected in Western civilization. The university has served as a “stabilizing
factor” in “various periods in the history of civilization” because it has
“preferred reason to emotion, Voltaire to Rousseau, persuasion to power,
ballots to bullets” (Innis, 1946:141). More specifically, the tradition of the
university has included the search for truth, an “obsession with balance and
perspective” (as rooted in the Greek tradition of the humanities), “a constant
avoidance of extremes and extravagance,” and scepticism about proposals to
cure the world’s ills (Innis, 1946:141). Innis was particularly adamant about
this final point. He believed that the university “must steadfastly resist the
tendency to acclaim any single solution of the world’s problems at the risk of
failing to play its role as a balancing factor in the growth of civilization” (Innis,
1946:141).
Innis has often been characterized as championing pure and detached
scholarship as opposed to practical involvement (Creighton, 1957). This
account, however, is highly misleading. Innis disagreed with the efforts of
social scientists to be relevant because he felt it made them prey to the broader
trends of the instrumentalization of knowledge, specialization, endemic
quantification. However, his stance was practical in a much more profound
43
IJCS / RIÉC
sense. He seemed to propose a much more dialogic and open-ended approach to
the production of knowledge, unbound to the demands and needs of particular
social interests. This would involve the recovery of a time-sensibility and
orality that he felt had been overwhelmed by the trends toward mechanization
and present-mindedness.8 Behind Innis’ plea for time was another plea for the
university to recover its traditional role as a critical counterpoint to entrenched
and largely unchallenged monopolies of knowledge.
Time, Space and Canada’s Place in Innis’ Thought
In discussions of Innis’ work, it is often claimed that he abandoned his early
work on Canadian economic history in favour of global accounts of civilization
based on his analyses of communications technologies and their impacts.9 To
be sure, some efforts have been made to demonstrate the continuity of Innis’
thought from his writings on political economy and Canadian economic
development to communications. But for the most part, commentators have
largely confined themselves to showing the primacy of a staples-oriented form
of thought in Innis’ work. They suggest that Innis’ later views on how the
physical properties of communications (such as lightness or durability) served
to bias civilizations in particular ways were derived from his earlier analyses of
how the characteristics of staple production had a determinative impact upon
culture and politics.10 While accounts of this kind are suggestive, they largely
fail to closely examine the latter part of Innis’ sweeping historical narrative, in
which he gives particular attention to developments in Western civilization
ushered in by the advent of industrialization, and the print revolution particular
to the development of newspapers. In considering these trends, Innis’ point of
reference shifted away from ancient civilizations and Europe toward
developments in North America. In this respect, Innis’ vantage point was very
much Canadian, both in terms of the changing political, economic and cultural
landscape of his native country, and in relation to the increasing power of the
United States on the world stage. Innis was convinced that Canada’s neighbour,
whose very origins were founded on print culture and the principles of the “free
press”, had become the bearer of “space-biased” communications, with
devastating consequences for local culture and independent critical thought.
Canada had become increasingly absorbed into the American empire through
its pulp and paper industries and hydro-electric power resources.
Paradoxically, the same pre-Cambrian shield that had long been considered a
barrier to economic development had provided the basis for Canada’s
incorporation into a United States dominated continentalism. The cheap
newsprint and power which flowed from Canada to the United States was
reintroduced back into the country in the form of mass circulation newspapers
and cheaply produced magazines and books. In the same manner that Greece
and Scotland became corrective counterpoints to the space-biased imperial
designs of Rome and Britain respectively, Innis came to view Canada as a point
of cultural resistance to the expansionist tendencies of American empire. As
Arthur Kroker suggests, it was Innis’ most tragic insight that at stake in the
contest of Canadian culture and American economy was nothing other than the
possibility for an emancipatory recovery of the “heritage” of western
civilization itself . . . The reclamation, and defence, of an emergent cultural
44
practice in Canada against the ideological hegemony of the “commercial
empire” of the United States was also a sensitive political index of the struggle
between “time” (duration and extension) and “space” (discontinuity and
extension) in the modern mind (Kroker, 1984:97).
While Kroker’s account is rich in insight, he largely fails to examine what this
“emancipatory recovery” meant for Innis in terms of political and cultural
engagement. His account lacks any clear sense of which elements in Canada
Innis saw as providing the basis for reclaiming and defending “an emergent
cultural practice.” Specifically, he gives little attention to how Innis had come
to map Canada in terms of its time/space coordinates, a mapping that would
strongly influence his views on the prospects for cultural resistance. In terms of
how Canadian space had been controlled and organized, Innis’ analysis
differed from that which he offered for the United States. As Canada became
integrated into the American empire, regional and provincial power centres had
formed for the specific purpose of mobilizing natural resources for exploitation
by American interests (Innis, 1946:ix-x). This led to a fracturing and
decentralizing tendency within the country. At the same time, the federal
government was gradually increasing its capacity to administer the country, a
trend that had gained momentum during World War II. This tendency was
aided and abetted by the expansion of the civil service, which had developed an
insatiable desire for statistical material to support policies and programs. This
form of knowledge was provided only too willingly, in Innis’ eyes, by social
scientists, who had largely come to define their role as one of producing
quantitative studies that would be of potential use to policy-makers. In effect,
given his opposition to “present-mindedness,” Innis had become increasingly
disenchanted both with the federal government and with the social sciences.
The former, true to its counter-revolutionary roots, favoured authoritarian rule
and social control over dialogue and participation (Dorland, forthcoming). The
latter, largely abandoning its origins in moral philosophy and classical political
economy, had sacrificed its historicity on the alter of positivistic fact-grubbing.
Indeed, this trend within the social sciences was part and parcel of the direction
taken by Canadian universities. Caught up in the federal government’s designs
to expand its realm of control, they had become willing accomplices in the
strategic production of knowledge for instrumental ends. The autonomy of the
universities increasingly eroded as their boards of directors gained the upper
hand in questions of governance, a process that downplayed critical reflection
and scholarly debate in favour of applied work serving the needs of dominant
social interests. Unsurprisingly, then, in the latter decade of his life, Innis
resolutely aligned himself with the humanities in Canadian universities, an
academic sector which he saw as beleaguered if not under siege. His leadership
was largely responsible for derailing the plans to close humanities departments
during wartime (proposed by Cyril James and others). And through his efforts,
the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored Committee on Economic History
established a research agenda that included attention to changing conceptions
of time. While Innis’ angle of vision on the course of Western civilization was
profoundly Canadian, he was only too aware of the “twisted and distorted
cultural growth” in his homeland, a state of affairs that had been brought about
by a “fanatical interest in nationalism” and the excesses of the price system
45
IJCS / RIÉC
(1946:10). Yet he harboured the view that by interrelating “patterns of
Canadian development with those of the Western world,” the overall impact of
industrialism and mass communications upon knowledge could be better
addressed (Innis, 1946:xvi).11 To this end, Innis’ Archimedean point became
the humanities in Canada. While they were weak and underdeveloped, by
virtue of their foundations in classical thought and their propensity to reflect
upon the cultural growth of civilizations, they provided the basis for balancing
and correcting the fashionable present-mindedness that threatened to rob
humanity of its collective memory and sense of time. “With imperfect
competition between concepts,” Innis argued, “the university is essentially an
ivory tower in which courage can be mustered to attack any concept which
threatens to become a monopoly” (Innis, 1946:xvii).
Notes
1.
2.
3.
46
Harold Innis is recognized as one of Canada’s leading intellectual figures. He was born in
Otterville, Ontario in 1894 and studied at McMaster University (then located in Toronto).
While serving with the Canadian expeditionary force during World War II, he was injured in
battle at Vimy Ridge (Gwyn, 1992). During his convalescence in England, he completed his
master’s degree at McMaster. Following his return to Canada, he pursued doctoral work in
economics at the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on the Canadian Pacific
Railway. He began his academic career at the Department of Political Economy of the
University of Toronto in 1920, remaining there until his death (of cancer) in 1952. Innis
became best known for his studies of how the production of staple products such as fur
(1930), fish (1940), lumber ([1938] 1956) and wheat ([1939] 1956) shaped and directed the
path of Canadian economic development. In the later years of his life, he turned his attention
to the history of communications, with particular attention to the relationship between forms
of media and broader patterns of power and social control ([1950] 1986; [1951] 1991). This
focus represented a lifelong concern with the role played by universities and intellectuals in
helping to sustain and nourish Western Civilization (1943; 1944). Reflecting this interest,
Innis was closely involved with numerous academic and funding bodies including the Royal
Society of Canada, the Canadian Social Science Research Council, the Canadian
Humanities Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim
Foundation. Despite his abiding suspicion of academics who participated in the policy
process, he was a member of such consultative bodies as the Nova Scotian Royal
Commission of Provincial Economic Enquiry (1934) and the Royal Commission on
Transportation (1951). For biographical accounts of Innis’ life and career, see Berger
(1976), Creighton (1957), Christian (1988, 1989), Cooper, (1979), Havelock (1982), Neill
(1972) and Watson (1981). For collected commentaries on Innis’ work, see Journal of
Canadian Studies, (1977); Melody, Heyer, and Salter (1981); Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (1994), and Acland and Buxton (forthcoming). For bibliographies of Innis’s
writings, see Innis (1953) and Innis Foundation (1973).
For instance, in Empire and Communications, Innis writes that:
The concepts of time and space reflect the significance of media to
civilization. Media that emphasize time are those that are durable in
character, such as parchment, clay, and stone. The heavy materials are
suited to the development of architecture and sculpture. Media that
emphasize space are apt to be less durable and light in character, such
papyrus and paper. The latter are suited to wide areas in administration and
trade (Innis, [1950] 1986:5).
See, for instance, Drache (1995:xlvi) and Melody (1981:6). As Patterson points out, the
account of Innis is far from deterministic. Rather, the same medium has much different
effects in different situations (Patterson, 1990).
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
That Innis’ history of communications was bound up with his political theory has been
remarked on by numerous commentators including Christian (1977), di Norcia (1990), Pal
(1977), Watson (1977; 1981), Whitaker (1983), and Noble (forthcoming).
An excellent discussion of Innis’ views on time and space can be found in Patterson (1990).
Indeed, he even suggested that civilizations that had achieved a balance sought to maintain
this state (Innis, 1964:75).
As Noble (forthcoming) points out, Innis also looked to such institutions as the commonlaw, the court system, parliaments and churches as “vestiges of the pre-modern era,” which
served as the basis for the continuation of the oral tradition.
Innis’ own work could also be seen as an effort to approximate this oral tradition. What he
did was to juxtapose quotes from various authors, taken out of context, with only minimal
attention given to the exact sources of the quotes, as I can attest. It was up to the reader to fill
in what this all meant, to establish the connections between observations. Innis was
particularly fond of quoting from the memoirs of observers on modernity, such as Benda,
Mark Pattison, or Lord Morley. One of his favourites was Graham Wallas, who, according to
Innis, “emphasized the importance of the oral tradition in an age when the overpowering
influence of mechanized communication makes it difficult to even recognize such a
tradition” (Innis, 1952:78). This tendency, as noted by McLuhan (1964) and elaborated on
by Angus, could be likened to “a modernist technique of writing, through a plurality of
glimpses and montage, to encourage the perception of patterns and thereby, an oralist
intervention in the system of writing” (Angus, 1993: 31).
See, for instance, Melody, 1981:8.
Creighton, for example, maintains that Innis’ interest in newspapers derived from his
previous work on pulp and paper (Creighton, 1957:112). Salter argues that his early interest
in transportation represented a particular concern with the “transportation of ideas,” an
orientation that foreshadowed his later writings on communications (1981:194). Wernick
claims that “Innis turned from pulp and paper to the publishing industry itself, and thence, on
the one, to the more general analysis of industrialised communication and, on the other, to
the place of publishing within the history of communication as such” (1986:141).
Innis suggested that the influence of American imperialism could be effectively resisted by
Canada “by adherence to common-law traditions and notably to the cultural heritage of
Europe” (Innis, 1986:168).
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Culture, Communication, and Dependency: The Tradition of H.A. Innis. (Norwood, N.J.:
Ablex).
Neill, Robin. 1972. A New Theory of Value: The Canadian Economics of H.A. Innis. (Toronto:
Noble, Richard. Forthcoming. “Harold Innis’ Whig Conception of Liberty”, in Acland and Buxton
(eds)., Harold Innis in the New Century.
Pal, Leslie. 1977. “Scholarship and the Later Innis,” Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 12, no. 5:
32-44.
Patterson, Graeme. 1990. History and Communications: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, the
Interpretation of History. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
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(Halifax: King’s Printer).
Report of the Royal Commission on Transportation. 1951. Ottawa:
Salter, Liora. 1981. “Public and Mass Media in Canada: Dialectics in Innis’ Communications
Analysis,” pp. 193-207 in W. Melody et al (eds).
Stamps, Judith. 1995. Unthinking Modernity: Innis, McLuhan and the Frankfurt School.
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Watson, A. John. 1977. “Harold Innis and Classical Scholarship,” Journal of Canadian Studies,
Winter.
____________. 1981. “Marginal Man: Harold Innis’ Communication Works in Context.”
Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto.
Wernick, Andrew. 1986. “The Post-Innisian Significance of Innis.” Canadian Journal of Political
and Social Theory, vol. X, no. 1/2: 128-150.
Whitaker, Reg. 1983. “To Have Insight into Much and Power over Nothing: The Political Ideas of
Harold Innis,” Queen’s Quarterly, Autumn.
48
Randy William Widdis
Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity:
A Canadian Perspective
Abstract
Borders—internal and external, socio-economic, geopolitical and
psychological—have always played a role in developing Canadian identity.
Yet borders and borderlands are organic; they evolve over time and space to
become different kinds of places. This paper examines the relationship
between the development of identity and changing dimensions of space and
place over time, placing particular emphasis on the border and borderlands
metaphors. It maintains that identity and place, both interdependent
concepts, are defined by borders and borderlands. Yet these concepts present
a paradox which both frames and complicates the Canadian identity. While
borders separate, borderlands are regions of interaction where functional
relationships are established. The paper concludes that while the
Borderlands Thesis supporters are justified in emphasizing the importance of
cross-border interactions and synthesis, they must also recognize that, over
time, Canada developed national economies and political-cultural
institutions which transcended internal regional boundaries and provided a
counterbalance to the North-South integrative forces existing within
transborder regions.
Résumé
Les frontières (qu’elles soient internes ou externes, socio-économiques,
géopolitiques ou psychologiques) ont toujours joué un rôle dans le
développement d’une identité canadienne. Pourtant, les frontières et les
régions limitrophes sont de nature organique : elles évoluent de façon spatiotemporelle pour former divers types de lieux. Le présent article examine le
rapport entre le développement de l’identité et l’évolution des aspects « lieu »
et « espace » au fil du temps, en insistant particulièrement sur les métaphores
que sont les frontières et les régions limitrophes. Il est connu que l’identité et
le lieu — deux concepts interreliés — sont définis par les frontières et les
régions limitrophes. Cependant, ces deux concepts constituent sur les deux
plans, un paradoxe qui complique l’identité canadienne. D’une part, les
frontières divisent; d’autre part, les zones limitrophes favorisent les échanges
menant à des relations fonctionnelles. Selon le présent article, même si les
fervents de la théorie des zones limitrophes ont raison d’insister sur
l’importance des échanges et de la synthèse inter-frontières, ils doivent
également reconnaître que, au fil du temps, le Canada a permis la mise en
place d’économies et d’établissements politico-culturels de nature nationale
outrepassant les frontières régionales internes et contrebalançant les forces
d’intégration nord-sud au sein des régions transfrontalières.
IJCS / RIÉC
If the national mental illness of the United States is
megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.
Margaret Atwood
It is fashionable in socio-psychological history to look back and discover or
invent identifications and attachments to place. Individuals and groups
conceptualize their identity within the context of place—the household, the
community, the region, the nation. Conceiving a feeling of “who-ness” in terms
of a sense of “where-ness” is a voyage of discovery everyone takes. In this
passage, the voyageur searches for frames of reference which facilitate the
development of attachments to place and, in doing so, creates structural and
psychological boundaries. These boundaries, in turn, delineate territories
which are deemed necessary to both physical and psychic survival. And
survival is dependent on the strength or vulnerability of the borders that
separate the individual or group (“us”) from others (“them”) (Group for the
Advancement of Psychiatry, 1987: 11).
Borders—socio-economic, geopolitical and psychological—have always
played a role in the development of a Canadian identity.1 These boundaries
represent structural centripetal and centrifugal forces that both unify the
country and pull it in different directions. Such contradictory energies have
created a country which is in itself a paradox. And trying to make sense of this
paradox is in many ways an impossible and even schizophrenic task. Yet try we
must for this is a responsibility that Canadianists cannot shirk. This paper
attempts to examine the relationship between the development of identity and
changing dimensions of space and place over time as symbolized by the
metaphorical concepts of border and borderland.
Space, Place, Identity and Borders
While critical theorists such as Giddens (1976, 1978, 1981) and Foucault
(1980, 1982, 1986) recognize that space is basic to experience and action, it is
place that captures the imagination of the geographer. “Place is space to which
meaning has been ascribed” (Carter, Donald and Squires, 1993: xii) and “place .
. . [is] seen as the foundation of . . . identity” (Eyles, 1985: 72). Geographers
have increasingly rejected abstract spatial relations in favour of elucidating
place associations, a trend, one could argue, that reflects the growing
importance of postmodern geography. In the context of specific places,
geographers attempt to understand the spatiality of social life. In terms of
identity, “it is not spaces which ground identifications, but places” (Carter,
Donald and Squires, 1993: xii). Identity develops as people engage in
placemaking, i.e., “the way all of us as human beings transform the places in
which we find ourselves into places in which we live” (Schneekloth and
Shibley, 1995: 1). Placemaking occurs within particular, socially constructed
realities which range over different spatial scales, including the space of
housing, the space of the community, and the space of the nation-state.
For Charles Taylor (1989: 35), questions of identity are bound up with the
spaces we inhabit and assign meaning to—the places with which we identify:
50
Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity
I define who I am by defining where I speak from, in the family tree, in
social space, in the geography of social statuses and functions, in my
intimate relations with the ones I love, and also crucially within which
my most important defining relations are lived out.
Both place and identity are interdependent and defined by borders. “Place is
bounded,” states Robert Sack (1992: 13), and “thus can be seen literally and
imaginatively from within and from without.” Identity provides boundaries for
individuals, bearings with which they need to function.
The practice of placemaking and the development of identity in Canada has
necessarily involved the creation of territories which serve to strengthen and
retard association with place at different levels. The interconnections between
space and behaviour hinges on territoriality (Sack, 1986: 25). Territoriality, as
Sack (1986: 216) explains:
as the basic geographic expression of influence and power, provides
an essential link between society, space, and time. Territoriality is the
backcloth of geographical context—it is the device through which
people construct and maintain spatial organizations.
Socially constructed territories are expressed by the use of borders which
function as a device in which to view the development of a Canadian identity.
Borders, the one shared with the United States and those created internally,
frame the Canadian identity. Identity is a concept that is both discovered and
invented. The Canadian identity is extremely complex and therefore is not
easily understood even by those who attempt to identify or create it. The fact
that the country exists in a dialectic of regional and ethnic tensions further
complicates the search for identity. These internal borders of religious and
ethnic division are reinforced by geographical separation and socio-economic
distinction both within and between regions.
A pan-Canadian identity has always been countered by the panoply of
attachments existing in this country: allegiances to region, to ethnic group, to
religion, to outside interests. While not a collection of warring tribes,
Canadians have always erected boundaries that have shaped the contours of the
Canadian identity. The effects of these borders are the subject of much debate
and confusion.
Internal Borders
Regional Borders
While regionalism is a narrow prism through which to view a political
landscape, history teaches us that regional differences in this country are the
consequence of distinct historical development and geographical realities. The
regional dimension of Canadian life has been and continues to be a major factor
in the development of a Canadian identity, as noted by many observers never
more eloquently than by the recently deceased giant of Canadian literary
criticism, Northrop Frye.
Through a lifetime of study, Northrop Frye became one of the foremost
students and interpreters of Canadian culture. In doing so, it might be argued, he
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unconsciously adopted an historical geographical approach to the study of
Canadian identity. He views the elusive question of identity as nothing more
than an expression of culture including the human imagination. Since the
imagination—that is, the ideas by which we live—is so shaped by personal
experience and perception, Frye maintains that in a country as large and diverse
as Canada, identity is not a “Canadian” question but a “regional” question. Frye
(1971: ii) insists that unity and identity in Canada, though quite different
concepts, are often confused in the minds of Canadians:
Identity is local and regional, rooted in the imagination and in words
of culture; unity is national in reference, international in perspective,
and rooted in political feeling.
The tension between national unity and regional identity, Frye (ibid: 220)
believes, means that the important question perplexing Canadians is not “Who
am I?” but rather “Where is here?” According to Villeneuve (1993: 9899), this
question gives “a definite geographical dimension to the paradox of Canadian
identity, [a paradox] . . . strongly anchored in the territorial experiences of the
people of Canada.” Frye emphasizes the fact, later elaborated upon by Cole
Harris (1982), that there was no temporally and spatially continuous settlement
experience as in the United States. Small communities and regions,
geographically isolated from one another, generated what Frye calls a
“garrison mentality” and Harris terms an “island archipelago.”
Both Harris and Frye express their views of the historical geographical essence
of Canada in the form of metaphors, the former seeing Canada as a collection of
islands in a stormy sea called Confederation, and the latter comprehending the
country in the form of a cartographical metaphor, that is using the legends and
conventions of a map (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1975). To Frye,
each voyageur (Canadian) in search of the national image (Here) is involved in
a journey that has no arrival; the map is not yet complete. The individual
identifies and interprets ideas, events and experiences largely within a
geographic frame, which enables him to orient himself in time and space. Selfidentity can only be discovered in the context of community yet is not
ontologically prior to community. Individual values are both enabled and
constrained through those of the community, however defined. Yet it is this
ambiguous process of definition or placement that creates an ontological crisis
for the individual.
He asks himself “Where is here?” but this leads him still into uncharted
territory. In this quest, the voyageur must recognize that a body of cultural
assumptions, framed by regional/local consciousness, influences an
appreciation of the nature of Canada and filters its imagery. Frye reasons that an
individual’s “Here” is neither static nor complete but continually evolves as
new ideas, events and experiences permeates one’s consciousness.
To Frye (1982: 59), every part of Canada is a separation, segregated from each
other along several grounds. Complicating matters for the voyageur is a
pluralistic ethos which admits the possibility of a multiplicity of communities.
Canada as a “community of communities,” a society where differences do not
have to be adversarial, where unity in diversity is seen to be the essence of a
collective identity, poses conceptual challenges to its members who more
52
readily and easily align themselves with the immediate—the group, the
locality, the region. Separation doesn’t have to imply segregation but exclusion
or inclusion is often what results (Taylor, 1989, 1991, 1993).
What effect the physical environment, a factor considered very important by
geographers in any interpretation of regionalism, has had on both unifying and
dividing the country has been a subject of considerable discussion, much of it
centering on the theme of environmentalism. A tradition of cultural
environmentalism evident in Canadian literature attributes both national and
regional character to the shaping forces of terrain and climate. It is the reality of
Canada’s geography, many argue, that has nurtured strong regional identities
which act as barriers against national unity and retard national identity
(Malcolm, 1985; Westfall, 1993). The role of geography in Canadian life was,
in fact, recognized by the country’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A.
Macdonald, who described Canada as having “too much geography and too
little history.” The immense size of the country combined with its relatively
small population even today constrains the possibility of economies of scale
from internal markets. Those communities on the periphery are still
marginalized and isolated from the mainstream.
Canada’s earliest European agriculturalists were limited to patches of suitable
farmland, fishermen were huddled in protective coves, and lumbermen were
scattered in isolated camps. This discontinuous settlement experience, which
produced isolated communities and retarded the development of a common
identity, created a different frontier experience in Canada than in the United
States, one in which “European social formations were bent . . . by nonEuropean space” (Harris, 1987: 207).
Cultural Borders
Regional separation within Canada, however, is not just related to geographical
isolation; cultural plurality based on language, religion and ethnicity also serve
as centrifugal forces. To most Canadians, the search for identity is complicated
by the fact that the country has been divided by what Hugh MacLennan (1945)
terms the “two solitudes.” Culture is shared and transmitted between
generations through the medium of language. Through much of Quebec’s
history, language, faith and the family have acted as a “triad” of FrenchCanadian culture and have served to protect both the interests and identity of
this group (Barkan, 1980: 392). The English-French duality is a basic reality of
Canadian existence, but even among Canadians who share the English
language, religious and ethnic differences, often exacerbated by geographical
isolation, have created boundaries both between and within regions.
The whole question of ethnicity and ethnic identification is extremely
problematical. Scant literature addresses the problem of distinguishing
between ethnic and cultural boundaries. It is difficult to discern, for example,
the degrees of Irishness and Canadianness in the second- and third-generation
Irish-Canadian. Developing theories of relationship between individual
behaviour and ethnic background is very difficult. Ethnicity is an abstract,
heuristic device defined on both objective and subjective grounds used to create
boundaries of inclusiveness and exclusiveness. Yet it is important “to
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distinguish the sense of boundary from what is enclosed by the boundary”
(Chun, 1983: 195); in other words, to separate ethnic identity (who am I?) from
the traits associated with ethnicity (what am I?). The lack of theoretical
guidance has meant that most researchers focus simply on the ethnic, i.e. those
aspects of culture (speech, dress, custom) that people recognize as setting one
group apart from the rest.
Economic Borders
Well into the nineteenth century, “preindustrial methods of production and
distribution still fostered a strong localism in British North American life”
(Harris and Warkentin, 1974: 323). Differences in settlement policy, resource
base, social organization and level of urbanization and industrialization
contributed greatly to local and regional variations in economic development.
The link between economic development and the formation of identity at the
national, regional and local scales has most often been understood from the
functional approach which adheres to the metropolitan/hinterland
interpretation of staples theory. In this approach, “Canada is organized into a
series of regions that link together strong metropolitan centres of capital and
hinterlands of staple exploitation” (Westfall, 1993: 338-339). The fact that
investment from foreign and domestic metropolises was never effectively
coordinated under a national policy of economic development only served to
exacerbate regional differences associated with history and geography (Bell
and Tepperman, 1979: 249).
European powers saw profit in the New World in the exploitation of staple
resources, native wealth and labour, and a barter trade. Because exploitation
was the primary objective, exploration was aimed at this end. The development
of the Maritimes took place in a mercantilist/metropolitan context in which its
staple resources (fish, timber, furs) were exploited for European markets.
Access to Europe, the West Indies and America significantly counteracted a
limited hinterland and small local markets. Maritime settlements developed as
small colonial links in a metropolitan chain with no one centre asserting its
dominance within the region. Small urban centres with limited regional
hinterlands were more closely linked to outside metropolises than to each other
(Harris and Warkentin, 1974: 170).
As was the case for the Maritimes, the National Policy has been interpreted as
an economic instrument of metropolitan interests based in central Canada to
develop the West as a colony of central Canada (Francis, 1993: 453). The
economic troubles of the 1880s tarnished the image of “Eden” associated with
the West, and many felt betrayed by the Eastern interests who promoted such an
impression (Owram, 1992: 178). Western farmers sold grain on an unprotected
world market but were forced to buy expensive goods produced in central
Canada. This cost-price squeeze, the monopoly power of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, and federal control of Prairie crown lands all fostered anger and a
sense of regional alienation in the West.
With the improvement of the economy in the 1890s, regional tensions declined
and confidence grew that Canada was economically strong enough to survive.
The Maritimes, however, did not share in the general turn-of-the-century
54
prosperity, and a legacy of regional antipathy towards central Canada was
firmly established.
Attempts to Create Cultural Bridges
While Confederation brought the colonies together in a political alliance, it
could not unite them spiritually. That could only take place over the course of
time with the development of economic linkages and the evolution of an
indigenous culture shared by the inhabitants of all regions. Regional
differences at the time of Confederation were arguably most pronounced in the
cultural realm. The major problem with Confederation, according to Frye, was
its impoverished cultural basis. Instead of relying on a native cultural base,
Canada instead “was thought of, however unconsciously, as a British colony
and a Tory counterpart of the United States, with French and indigenous groups
forming picturesque variations in the background” (Frye, 1991: A17). At
Confederation, Canada outside Quebec did not really have an indigenous
national culture either in the sense of a shared heritage of historical memories
and customs or in terms of artistic creation through literature, music,
architecture, scholarship and the applied arts.
Culture needs roots from which to grow. At Confederation, the roots of culture
were confined largely to regions and locales. Through a combination of
exogenous metropolitan influences and indigenous social processes, regional
cultures had developed over time. People were moulded by both what they left
behind and what they experienced in the new world. Many view this process as
a “simplification” of Europe overseas. While Hartz (1964) argues that the
mechanism of simplification was the emigration of fragments of the larger
European society, fragments whose backgrounds facilitated their adjustment to
their new environments, Harris (1977) and Meinig (1986) believe that the
simplification of Europe overseas had to do more with the nature of the
environments immigrants encountered rather than their own backgrounds.
Regional cultures were not simple transplants but developed over a
considerable period through processes of adaptation to the local environment,
cultural selection and interactions with people of other races and ethnic groups.
No strong national culture existed to provide citizens of the new country with a
common frame of reference. For Anglo-Canadians, heritage was primarily of
British rather than native origin, a point often noted in the literary journals of the
period. A poor development of social communication among the regions
contributed largely to this lack of clarity in Canada’s self-conception. As
Deutsch (1966: 172) maintains, “national consciousness . . . is the attachment of
secondary symbols to primary items of information moving through channels
of social communication, or through the mind of an individual.”
Symbols lie at the core of culture but they first have to be created and then
communicated to others. Anglo-Canadians in the late nineteenth century could
only draw upon a meagre reservoir of national symbols and myths for guidance
in the act of placemaking. Symbols help us to interpret who or what we are and
what we can be and myths are particularly important because they transform
secular history into sacred legends. Yet powerful obstacles existed in late
nineteenth century Anglo-Canada which retarded the development of myths,
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symbols and ideals that would serve to articulate a national experience. Most
fundamental was the element of time. Not enough time had passed by the turn of
the twentieth century for the infant country to develop a strong sense of history
and a set of traditions which reflected a national rather than a colonial
experience.
The sluggish development of literature and arts also impeded the establishment
of national symbols. Post-Confederation literature, according to Marchak,
ignored non-British groups, racism and poverty and presented romantic and
unrealistic portraits of Canadian life. This was due to “the fact that Canada
remained a colony long after [its] ‘declaration of independence”’ (Marchak,
1978: 180). Colonial symbols continued to dominate despite increased efforts
among Canadian writers to develop indigenous symbols, myths and themes in
novels and journals. Anglo-Canadian writers operated within two literary
frames of reference: the British and the American. By mid-century, influenced
by their distinct environment and close proximity to the United States,
Canadian writers were more committed to revitalizing British civilization
within a New World setting. Yet the passion for all things British diminished
over time, although many were unwilling to break all links with the Old World.
The Canadian West never gripped the imagination of Canadians as the
American West had captivated the minds of Americans. The initial ingredients
of an Anglo-Canadian national identity were based primarily on a British
cultural tradition. In this heritage, there was little passion for a frontier myth
more closely associated with an American vision. Yet imperialist sentiment
and British tradition were not enough to counteract strong regional sentiments
and increasing American penetration.
Most of the Canadian-developed literature was regional as opposed to national
in character, a quality Cappon (1978: 60) argues to be “an extension of the
economic and social reality of Canada’s situation as ‘hinterland’ to first the
British and then the American ‘metropolis’.” Many of the Canadian-born
writers of the period were attached geographically and emotionally to their
region which, for most of this group, was a colony during their formative years.
Any ideas that developed about a national identity were shaped by the writer’s
regional and, if applicable, colonial contexts.
Most importantly, Canadian literature had relatively little influence on the
public because most during this period had little time for reading and reflection.
Unfavourable copyright laws, a small readership, cheaper and more readily
available American and British literature, and a high illiteracy rate resulted in
hardship for Canadian writers and a restricted capability for developing and
communicating native ideas, interpretations and symbols (Altfest, 1979: 235238).
Margaret Atwood (1972) believes that the central symbol for Canada is
survival, survival in a harsh environment and in the struggle to find an identity.
The border is another, perhaps complementary, symbol for this country. We
are, as Russell Brown (1991: 13) states, a country “encoded by borders.” As we
have seen, many types of borders exist within the country to support the
regional dimension of Canadian life. While identity is moulded to a significant
56
extent by a regional consciousness shaped by cultural plurality and
geographical isolation, the frame used by the voyageur to orient himself in
territory is bounded east and west by the rest of Canada and north and south by
his transborder relationship with the United States.
Borders and Borderlands
Canada as an historically contingent society, developing within the context of
its own internal evolution, has always framed its “becoming” through its
changing political, economic and cultural relationships with the United States.
That the relationship with the United States functions as a barometer by which
Canadians, particularly Anglo-Canadians, measure their evolving identity is
not surprising given the complex and varied nature of the ties linking different
transborder regions. French Canada identifies with its distinctive language,
religion, art, literature and other indigenous cultural traits and has developed its
own cultural boundaries within the country, shields serving to strengthen its
own sense of national identity. The fact of being “non-French” and the
perception of being “non-American” have been the principal characteristics
identifying Anglophone Canadians. At the same time, regional separation
within Canada resulting from cultural plurality and geographical isolation,
producing in effect internal borders, combined with different kinds of
relationships with American border regions to create a variable settlement
experience, produce different levels of identification with the idea of Canada,
and elicit different interpretations of the symbolic meaning of the border
separating Canadians (“us”) from Americans (“them”).
That different meanings have been offered regarding Canadian-American
relations is evident upon an examination of metaphors used to describe the
border. Canadians, particularly Anglophone Canadians, in their fiction and
popular culture have tended to view the border as a dividing line or shield,
protecting a fledgling culture from a dominating presence. The metaphor of the
border as shield symbolizes that for Canadians, our relationship with the
United States has played a major role in developing what symbols we do have,
an important consideration given the reality of living in an environment
dominated by American symbols, icons and myths.
A discontinuous and disjointed settlement experience, combined with the
overwhelming American presence, have restricted efforts to create national
symbols. Quebec exists largely as a nation because of its unique culture,
reinforced by language, and its association with a distinctive historical
geography, but Anglophone Canada has always struggled to find its niche
within the continent. For this group, the Canadian-American border takes on an
even greater meaning. It is understood as an interpreted emotional experience, a
symbolic marker defining a Canadian community, at least an Anglo-Canadian
community.
The most striking aspect of the border as shield metaphor is its oppositional
character. As Anthony Cohen (1985: 58) wisely states, “boundaries are
relational rather than absolute; that is, they mark the community in relation to
other communities.” The border serves as the basic reference point for
historical, literal, symbolic and psychological interpretations of an Anglo-
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Canadian identity. Yet as discussed, identity is a problematical concept; it is
heavily contextual, difficult to measure, differs from place to place, and
changes over time. But what is constant in the Canadian experience is that all
groups in different regions and at different times have interpreted their identity
vis-à-vis their relationship with the United States. And in this context, the
border is the emotional and ideological focal point for the never-ending debate
over the nature of these relationships.
Yet the border as symbol should not blind us to the importance of place. In this
context, we can distinguish between borders as lines symbolizing
differentiation and as places or zones of mediation. It is the latter view in which
the concept of borderland is included. The borderlands concept, developed
years ago in other settings but only adopted recently by scholars interested in
Canadian-American relations, serves as a worthwhile albeit polemic
framework in which to view the complexity of this relationship. While borders
separate, borderlands are regions of interaction where functional relationships
are established which are acceptable for intercourse. Borderlands are created
by various economic, social and family networks which serve to integrate
communities on both sides of the boundary. The idea of borderlands takes on a
decidedly geographical flavour, given that its primary features “are revealed in
the dialectic between boundary as a political demarcation, and region as a
geographic entity . . .” (McKinsey and Konrad, 1989: 2).
Within North America, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands has long been the focus of
attention by a large number of scholars. This school of “southern borderlands
history” (egs. Bolton, 1921; Bannon, 1964; Nostrand, 1968; Martinez 1994,
1996) view this transborder region as an overlapping territory resulting from
functional interrelationships. Members of this school and those studying other
borderlands typically depict the two constituent spatial units of these regions as
peripheral within the context of their respective nations and therefore
particularly subject to foreign influences emanating from the adjacent country.
The border itself is seen as a determining force in the sense that all of those who
live along such a geopolitical boundary share a common experience resulting
from geographical propinquity and functional interdependence. It is this
transnational interaction that sets borderlands apart from interior zones.
These ideas have been adopted by the organizers of the Canadian-American
Borderlands Project, an interdisciplinary research and compiling effort whose
basic premise is that “North America runs more naturally north and south than
east and west . . .” (McKinsey and Konrad, 1989: ii). In the first of a series of
publications which include a modest number of monographs, regional
compendia and an anthology, the originator of the project, Lauren McKinsey,
and its major proponent, Victor Konrad, chair of the Fulbright Scholarship
Program in Canada, provide a working definition of the borderlands concept:
Borderlands is a region jointly shared by two nations that houses
people with common social characteristics in spite of the political
boundary between them. In a more narrow sense, borderlands can be
said to exist when shared characteristics within the region set it apart
from the country that contains it: residents share properties of the
region, and this gives them more in common with each other than with
58
members of their respective dominant cultures. More broadly, the
borderlands is an area in which interaction has a tempering effect on
the central tendencies of each society (1989: 4).
While borderlands proponents concentrate on similarities occurring within this
transborder region, selecting those features which are evident of “resistance to
an artificial division imposed by a political border” (ibid: 2), others focus on
expressions of difference. Borderlands are regions of both similarity and
difference, a duality of dualisms; what is emphasized often reflects underlying
ideology.
Most important in the contribution of the borderlands concept to an
understanding of the historical geography of Canadian-American relations is
that it returns the symbol of border to the fact of place. Our propensity in
this country to discern the border as a shield should not blind us to the powerful
and sometimes overwhelming forces which bridge us with the United States.
Yet at the same time, the Canadian-American border/borderland is a complex
line/place. Borderland communities certainly are “spatially proximate” as
Victor Konrad (1992: 199) states, but the degree of economic and social
integration varies both spatially and temporally, a fact that is recognized by
Borderlands scholars but is largely ignored in the research so far conducted.
Borderlands are organic; they evolve over time to become different kinds of
places.
Investigations of Canadian-American borderland interactions along different
transborder regions supports many of the arguments made by proponents of the
Borderlands Thesis (e.g. Coats, 1937; Hansen and Brebner, 1940; McInnis,
1942; Brebner, 1946; Lipset, 1950; Podea, 1950; Sharp, 1952; Bicha, 1962;
Preston, 1972; Brookes, 1976; Brookes, 1977; Hareven and Langenbach,
1978; Palmer, 1982; Breen, 1983; Louder and Waddell, 1983; Hammer and
Gartrell, 1986; Widdis, 1987; Fedorak, 1988; Widdis, 1988; Gibbins, 1989;
McKinsey and Konrad, 1989; Widdis, 1989; Wynn, 1987; Lipset, 1990;
Granatstein and Hillmer, 1991; Everitt, 1991; Lecker, 1991; McIlwraith, 1991;
Widdis, 1992; Ramirez, 1994; Shepard, 1994). Peoples, ideas and institutions
rarely have clear, precise identities. These elements of identity are mobile; they
begin from somewhere else and move across borders. To assess national and
regional identities in Canada, we must identify those historical-geographic
forces operating both from within and outside these units. Besides describing
similarities that occur on both sides within the borderland region, the
borderlands concept focuses on those shaping forces extending from and into
the United States. Economic, social and family relationships across the border
serve to integrate regions, cultures and communities.
Yet borderland regions were and are integrated at different levels and in
different ways. The variance in borderland experiences emphasizes that
borderlands are zones of difference and divergence as well as similarity and
convergence. The Canadian-American borderland is a parallax; the
ideological position from which it is viewed certainly influences the ways in
which it has been addressed. Proponents of the Borderlands Thesis view
integration as determined largely by geographical proximity, migration and
capitalist forces. As the frontierists did in the past, they look for those north-
59
IJCS / RIÉC
south linkages that resulted in a synthesis within border regions. To a
considerable extent this argument is valid; geography and capitalism have
produced linkages that have resulted in considerable synthesis. Yet this in no
way implies that the border is either “meaningless” or “undesirable” (Buckner,
1989: 156).
Even though the core-periphery model is useful because it describes the
development of a relationship that has characterized all borderlands, the nature
of north-south linkages have varied over time and among borderland regions. It
seems to me that many, but not all, Borderlands supporters show little regard for
characteristics and events which differentiate people on both sides of the
border. Critics of the Borderlands Project see geography shaping a country very
different from its southern neighbour. Following the arguments of Innis and
Creighton, Harris (1990a: 152) maintains that the emergence of Canadian
regions, regional identities and even a national consciousness had more to do
with the east-west transcontinental expansion of trade and settlement than
proximity to American regions. Regional borders in Canada, he insists, are
more the result of distinctive European encounters with different Canadian
settings than simply being peripheries of American core regions (1990b: 1).
Both Harris and the Borderlands proponents overstate their case; the truth lies
somewhere in the middle of this dialectic. Harris and others cannot deny the
importance of integrative forces taking place within trans-border regions. The
existence of borderlands, zones of interaction, mediation and some degree of
integration, is obvious. At the same time, while Borderlands supporters are
justified in emphasizing cross-border interactions and synthesis, they must also
recognize that, over time, Canada developed national economies and politicalcultural institutions which transcended regional boundaries. Confederation
served to formalize the differences between Canada and the United States and,
accordingly, the border acquired a greater symbolic significance to Canadians.
To ignore this significance, Buckner (1989: 158) argues, unwittingly promotes
continentalism and supports “a variant of an even older American
concept—Manifest Destiny.”2
Borderlands: Essays in Canadian-American Relations, edited by Robert
Lecker (1991), is the most ambitious product of the Borderlands Project to date
and noteworthy not only for the material presented in its fourteen essays but
also for the fact that the collection conveys some dispute over the manner in
which borderlands are to be interpreted. Most of the contributors share the view
of the first presenter, Victor Konrad (1991: viii), that borderlands “have a
tempering effect on the centralizing tendencies of each society, and these
regions reveal the ways in which the nation-states blend into each other.” Yet
five essays express a profound sense of Canadian-American difference in
various contexts. This debate over the nature and extent of integrative and
divergent forces challenges the aforementioned view of Konrad. Yet Konrad
(1991: x), to his credit, recognizes and welcomes such dialogue, stating that
“the borderlands between Canada and the United States largely remain open to
interpretation and subject to debate.”
Yet while they were influenced greatly by American goods, technologies,
myths and ideas, Canadians did not see their place in North America in exactly
60
the same way that Americans did. Canadians from different regions and groups
formed variable ideas about society and their relationship with the United
States. Many continued to espouse certain of the social and political principles
inherited from Britain, but realized that a strong Canada was necessary to
ensure the continuance of those same ideals. But their view of Canada
continued to be framed by island perspectives. The islands in the late nineteenth
century were shrouded in the fog of ignorance and the few bridges that had been
constructed were in danger of collapsing from too little structural support. Yet
this archipelago of solitudes, created within an institutional framework which
in many ways furthered division, slowly developed associations that
transcended differences and strengthened ties even in the face of developing
north-south integration. That this was a struggle, there is no doubt; yet it was in
this effort that Canadians discovered what they shared in common and
constructed bridges.
Conclusion: A Perspective on the Present
The turn-of-the-century voyageur, with his psyche of juxtaposed identities,
borders of division and bridges of association, belonged to a time and place in
which his thinking was situated. The culture that acknowledged this belonging
was none the less real for being poorly articulated. The few but potent symbolic
identifications with “here” and symbolic differentiations from “there” were
fundamental to a collective sense of identity in the face of powerful forces of
integration. Contingency and situatedness were and still are the qualities of the
voyageur. It is through these frames of reference that he took his identity.
The voyageur was, is, and always will be, confronted by a series of paradoxes
which complicates his search for identity and the border metaphor symbolizes a
collective struggle with an existence that has a multitude of contradictory or
inconsistent qualities. To a significant extent, comprehension of these
paradoxes was and still is beyond the capabilities of the ordinary voyageur. For
various reasons, the complexities and dimensions were not well articulated to
the average Canadian in the late nineteenth century. The primary goal was to
maximize life chances of survival. For many, that meant leaving familiar
waters for what was perceived as more hospitable shores in other regions of
Canada or south of the border. Yet the voyageur was not simply an economic
animal driven by desire for wealth and security. He was related, however
tenuously, to a symbolic realm of culturally relative values. The voyageur took
with him the values, experiences and memories of his particular island and his
archipelago.
It is worthwhile to inquire as to the place of the voyageur now as this century
draws to a close. Some things have not changed much. Canada still exists as a
country with many layers of identity and possessing the same internal regional,
cultural and economic divisions. Local places continue to provide the most
important frame of reference and structure wider networks of economic,
political and social interaction. Canada can still be described as “a reluctant
partnership composed of two separate nations sharing a single state, or as a
series of regions, each with their own identities, not denying each other’s
distinctiveness but attempting to establish a frame whereby the efforts to secure
61
IJCS / RIÉC
their own separate identities is juxtaposed against the desire to find grounds for
integration” (Thorsell, 1995: D6).
Yet while the voyageur is still on his journey, the map has changed
significantly, a transformation that has been decoded in different ways. For
some, Canada represents the archetypal postmodern society. The noted
Canadian novelist, Robert Kroetsch (1989), portrays Canada as a fragmented,
postmodern country because it lacks unifying meta-narratives such as
revolutionary genesis or a single, unifying National Dream. Canadians, he
believes, do not exist in a tight matrix of ideals; they come together because of
the threat of death and disintegration. “If it is correct that postmodern culture
thrives on irony, parody, and paradox”, the geographer Paul Villeneuve (1993:
99) reasons:
[T]hen Canada has been postmodern for quite some time. The
postmodern attitude seeks to transgress boundaries, and it emerges at
a time when the cultural boundary between Canada and Quebec seems
to be getting thicker and thicker. The same events do not have the same
meaning in Canada as in Quebec. To transgress a cultural boundary,
one literally has to “balance the boundary.” And balancing on the
boundary is the same, in this case, as staying in a paradox. This is the
only vantage point from which to question spatial metaphors built on
binary oppositions.
In such a postmodern society, “the forces of new technologies, globalization
and ‘time-space compression’ have together created a sense of information
flows, fragmentation and pace replacing what is . . . perceived [even in
Canada’s case] to be a previous stability of homogeneity, community and
place” (Carter, Donald and Squires 1993: viii). In this world of expanding
horizons (for some) and dissolving boundaries, where space becomes less
important in a society where accessibility via the satellite dish and the Internet
is freed from propinquity, places are no longer clear supports of identity. In this
new world order, regional differences are increasingly diminished in the face of
homogeneous economic forces and a global culture which promotes
simplification. Although regional circumstances continue to shape the impacts
of broader forces, a gradual convergence is taking place and regional identities
are vanishing.
Some may point to the reemergence of place expressed in postmodern culture
as evidence of a strong reaction against the homogenizing forces of modernity.
Yet the creation of renovated warehouses, pedestrian malls, and nouveau-deco
architecture that reflect something of the history and geography of the places in
which they are situated and stand in direct contrast to the utilitarian, universal
landscapes produced in the postwar period are actually part of a culture and
philosophy that is “the latest . . . expression of the transition from rationalist/
Modernist . . . capitalism to an emergent, globalizing advanced capitalism”
(Knox 1991: 203). A material culture imposed from a disorienting
global/American space is replacing local spaces or moulding them into
landscapes of consumption. Increasingly, places of consumption are as
important as the items being purchased, and visits to these places take on an
almost ritualistic flavour. It almost seems as if individuals and groups are
deriving some sense of identity as they shop, eat and drink in these shrines.
62
In this new global environment, place is no longer the defining element of our
new identity. Where is here? The geographic compass points which enable the
voyageur to orient himself in time and space are disappearing. The promise of
arrival that was such an important part of the journey no longer seems possible.
Without the legend and conventions of the map, without the symbol of the
border, the voyage is cancelled and the voyageur is left adrift searching for a
frame of reference.
Notes
1.
2.
The meaning and symbolism of the border, particularly that separating Canada and the
United States, is discussed in greater detail in my article: A Canadian Geographer’s
Perspective on the Canada-United States Border. In D. Janelle, ed. Geographical Snapshots
of North America, Commemorating the 27th Congress of the International Geographical
Union and Assembly (New York: Guilford Press, 1992). A discussion of CanadianAmerican borderland regions is included in my forthcoming book entitled With Scarcely A
Ripple: Intracontinental Anglo-Canadian Migration At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998).
I plan to write a synthetic overview which compares and contrasts the historical geography
of Canadian-American interactions within borderland regions that were and are integrated at
different levels and in different ways. This research will not adhere to either extreme view
discussed in this paper but will attempt to sensitively explore the changing relationships
between Canada and the United States as manifested in different borderland regions.
Specifically, it will explore migration flows, the diffusion of technologies and ideas, the
common transformation of landscapes, and the evolution of industrial and capitalist
relations across the border. As such, it will attempt to deal with the criticism made by
Worster (1992: 226) that there exists “no real school of northern borderlands history, no
Herbert Bolton or John Francis Bannon for these parts.”
This inquiry will recognize, however, some fundamental differences between the northern
and southern borderlands, particularly the fact that the former is in many ways more diverse
and therefore more puzzling than the latter despite the fact that a far greater percentage of
people living on both sides of the Canadian-American border share the same language and
culture and interact within social and economic contexts than do those who live along the
Mexican-American boundary. The complexity of the northern borderlands is due to regional
variations that, when viewed through an historical-geographical perspective, are seen to be
more pronounced than those along the southern borderlands. While Oscar Martinez (1994:
303), a notable member of the southern borderlands school, argues that “notwithstanding
local variations . . . the [U.S.-Mexico] borderlands constitute a single transnational system
that focuses essentially the same from Brownsville-Matamoros to Tijuana-San Diego . . .”,
the same statement cannot be made for the Canadian-American borderlands where regional
differences in the historical geography of cross-border interactions have produced a picture
that is much more paradoxical than is commonly believed. Yet at the same time, this research
will recognize that developments within the borderland regions were shaped to a
considerable extent by larger processes of a developing global capitalist system. In this
context, the analysis will examine core and periphery relations within and among borderland
regions as a means of assessing differences in borderlands experiences.
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66
Guildo Rousseau
La descente du continent
Résumé
Le transfert dans l’ordre de l’imaginaire et du mythe des solutions aux
problèmes que l’homme ne parvient pas à résoudre effectivement est un
phénomène commun à toutes les sociétés du monde. La persistance d’un tel
phénomène dans l’univers mental du temps renvoie nécessairement à une
vision du monde et du sujet humain dans le monde. C’est en quelque sorte
l’étude mythocritique de ce « passage » du Temps à l’Espace — voire leur
nécessaire confluence — que l’auteur cherche ici à mettre en lumière à partir
d’une double hypothèse d’interprétation du Mythe de l’Amérique dans la
littérature nord-américaine. L’analyse comparée d’un certain nombre
d’œuvres littéraires américaines, canadiennes-anglaises et québécoises
l’amène à examiner les polarités spatiales (Nord/Sud, Est/Ouest) comme
autant de pôles inducteurs du pluralisme cohérent qui traverse les grandes
images culturelles du temps, du lieu et de l’espace. La géographie imaginaire
nord-américaine est d’abord pour l’auteur une « descente du continent » qui
conduit à l’ultime anamnèse : au Léthé mythique dont la représentation
symbolique, réactualisée à travers celle des grands fleuves du continent (le
Saint-Laurent, le Mississippi, le Columbia, le Mackenzie, le Rio Grande . . .)
constituerait l’une des topiques fondamentales de l’imaginaire géographique
nord-américain.
Abstract
Transferring solutions to the problems humankind is unable to effectively
resolve from the realm of the imaginary and myth is a process common to all
societies of the world. The persistence of this phenomenon in the mental
construct of time necessarily references a vision of the world and of human
beings in the world. Here, the author engages in what might be termed a
mythical-critical study to shed light on this “passage” from Time to
Space—their necessary convergence even—based on a two-fold hypothesis
for interpreting the Myth of America in North American literature. A
comparative analysis of a certain number of American, English-Canadian
and Québécois authors leads to an examination of spatial polarities
(North/South, East/West) as the inductors of a coherent pluralism apparent in
the major cultural images of time, place and space. For the author, the North
American geographic imaginary is above all a “descent of the continent”
leading to the final analysis: the mythical river Lethe and its symbolic
portrayal, evoked by the continent’s major rivers (the St. Lawrence, the
Mississippi, the Columbia, the Mackenzie and the Rio Grande), is a
fundamental theme of the North American geographic imaginary.
IJCS / RIÉC
Les notions d’imaginaire et de culture souffrent d’ambiguïté. Les deux termes
sont tantôt opposés, tantôt juxtaposés, quand ils ne s’englobent pas
mutuellement. Le fait majeur est que leurs rapports se fondent sur un matériel
sémiotique fort complexe. C’est en effet dans et par un ensemble de « signesdiscours1 », et ceux propres à la manifestation des « sémiotiques verbales2 »
que l’univers mental d’un individu ou d’une société se réalise le plus souvent et
le plus intensément. Discours, langue et culture ne se conçoivent pas non plus
sans rapports entre eux, sans une structure sociosémiotique qui anime leurs
interrelations. Plus encore, toute sémiotique verbale ou culturelle répond à une
situation géographique, historique et civilisatrice, où se débattent non plus des
faits bruts mais des hommes. Si bien que les traits culturels d’une société ne
s’additionnent pas arbitrairement les uns les autres. Ils prennent place dans un
monde naturel, dans un milieu humain, dans des rituels et des pratiques
sociales, dans des institutions qui les véhiculent; ils s’adaptent encore aux
nécessités et aux circonstances ou subissent les érosions du temps. Ces traits
culturels se présentent aussi sous la forme de relations interpersonnelles, donc
d’échange de besoins, de sentiments ou de paroles, qui instaurent l’événement,
la crise, ou encore le changement. De ces réalités géohistoriques, naissent les
topiques socioculturelles de l’imaginaire, certes peu nombreuses, mais grâce
auxquelles, comme le soutient Bachelard, « le monde vient s’imaginer » de
façon nouvelle dans la vie imaginative d’une société.
Ainsi il ne saurait y avoir de découpage statique des réalités imaginatives et
culturelles qui enlèverait à l’événement sa valeur d’événement. Pour avancer
dans cette direction, il suffit d’ailleurs d’interroger, à titre d’exemple, la culture
géographique répandue dans les littératures américaine, canadienne et
québécoise. Une géographie d’abord mythique, où les lieux de l’identité et de
l’altérité ne cessent de puiser aux mêmes confluences la pluralité de leur
pouvoir de représentation; une « géographie de l’imaginaire », pour reprendre
une expression chère à Gilbert Durand, où la narration de « l’Amérique
introuvable », celle d’un Jack Kerouac, d’un Leonard Cohen ou d’un Louis
Hamelin, fait ressortir des « cartes mentales » jamais accidentelles ou
différenciées, mais qui épousent plutôt des territorialités à partir desquelles les
sociétés actualisent dans le temps leurs expériences imaginatives sous forme de
discours ou de représentations symboliques. Mais voilà! L’espace imaginaire
une fois supposé, il reste le temps comme fabrique d’images. Aussi parler de
l’Amérique imaginaire, c’est d’abord renouer avec le temps primordial; c’est
encore réfléchir longuement sur la mémoire de l’espèce et sur ses engagements
dans des mythologies, des utopies, ou tout simplement dans des « images du
monde ». Le questionnement proposé ici sera donc forcément incomplet.
Impossible, en effet, d’en faire entièrement le tour sans se soumettre, entre
autres, à un long débat sur les déterminants géographiques nord-américains qui
se trouvent, encore aujourd’hui, au centre des interprétations dominantes de
l’histoire canadienne et québécoise; il faudrait également s’interroger sur les
imaginaires sociaux et leurs ancrages fondamentaux dans les mémoires
collectives; il faudrait, pour que ce questionnement ait du « sens », réfléchir
encore sur cette « mentalité de garnison » (on est soit un guerrier, soit un
déserteur) dont parle Northrop Frye et qui est assez curieusement une vision du
monde commune aux discours culturels canadien et québécois. Notre ambition
68
est plus modeste. Elle s’articule autour de deux hypothèses d’interprétation de
l’espace imaginaire nord-américain dans les littératures canadiennes
d’expression anglaise et française.
***
Première hypothèse
« Le mythe est vécu à l’Ouest mais raconté à l’Est »
La première question de fond, qui nous vient, lorsqu’on s’interroge sur la
sensibilité culturelle des écrivains canadiens d’expression anglaise et française
à l’égard du monde naturel nord-américain, est de savoir « de quoi ici est-il
fait »? Or, pour peu que l’on fréquente leurs œuvres, il nous apparaît vite
évident qu’ils n’ont pu réussir à formuler une mythologie littéraire vraiment
imaginative, c’est-à-dire une mythologie à partir de laquelle il est possible
d’imaginer autrement le monde réel; au contraire, ils ont dans une très large
majorité produit des œuvres qui demeurent conformes à la mythologie sociale
de leur époque. Sans doute trouve-t-on chez les écrivains américains des XIXe
et XXe siècles le même phénomène. Plus encore, à bien considérer les
contextes interculturels dans lesquels les littératures américaine, canadienne et
québécoise se sont développées, il est même banal de dire que ces trois
littératures ont en commun un corpus d’œuvres où triomphe une telle
mythologie qui a comme point d’appui un mythe pastoral.
Rechercher l’articulation de cette mythologie sociale, qui médiatise un pan
certain de la mémoire collective nord-américaine, y compris celle des
Québécois d’expression française, c’est d’abord s’interroger sur les « trajets
anthropologiques » à partir desquels émergent et finissent par se rationaliser les
grands mythes antagonistes propres à une aire géographique particulière. Or,
c’est avec l’image centrale du fleuve Saint-Laurent que l’on peut, croyonsnous, le mieux saisir la « fonctionnalité québécoise » de notre première
hypothèse qui, soit dit en passant, se retrouve aussi comme mythe social dans
les cultures américaine et canadienne3. Sur le plan géographique et culturel, le
Saint-Laurent est un véritable symbole : on y pénètre comme Jonas dans la
baleine, en ressentant un sentiment d’engloutissement; puis, le « mouvement
laurentien » nous pousse vers l’Ouest par des voies d’eau qui conduisent aux
mystères du continent4. Voilà, nous semble-t-il, l’espace primordial du désir
qui circule à travers toute l’histoire géographique et culturelle québécoise et
canadienne : un espace pénétré et traversé par des savoirs oniriques et
rationnels hérités du monde européen 5 , mais aussi soumis à des
déstructurations et restructurations politiques, économiques et sociales qui ont
provoqué au cours de l’histoire des « déplacements » de sens.
S’il y a en effet une certaine logique dans l’élaboration du mythe de l’Amérique
pastorale, cette logique est éminemment profane. Ici, la métis humaine, c’est-àdire l’intelligence pratique et technique6, fonde et nourrit les représentations
collectives. Énoncé comme espace sacré et comme discours que la société (de
l’Est) tient sur elle-même, l’Ouest — entendons surtout celui de la Nature
sauvage et amérindienne — est soumis à la temporalité, au discours historique,
plus exactement, à la durée existentielle. Il se présente comme « l’objet »
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culturel de l’Est par excellence. Les figures légendaires du Canadien
découvreur de terres neuves, du Pionnier civilisateur de la Frontière, ou encore
du Coureur de bois, frère de sang de l’Indien, ne commencent ni ne finissent
avec le pattern imaginé par Turner; leurs épiques parcours et errances dans le
monde fictif de l’Ouest se révèlent davantage le produit culturel et imaginatif
des sociétés urbaines de l’Est que le fruit d’une expérience humaine réellement
vécue au sein de contrées inconnues7.
L’espace narratif du mythe de l’Amérique est donc tendu entre deux pôles :
l’Est, lieu de l’émission et de la réception du mythe, et l’Ouest, l’objet
d’énonciation du récit lui-même, le tiers interposé entre le destinateur et le
destinataire. Plus justement, le discours mythique ne vient pas « d’ailleurs »,
plongeant profondément ses racines dans les rêves culturels importés
d’Europe8, il est revécu et redit par une ou plusieurs consciences en même
temps qu’il devient un lieu d’échange culturalisé et culturalisant.
*
Un tel discours mythique prolifère dans l’histoire culturelle et littéraire nordaméricaine. Tissé et retissé à partir de légendes et de contes, il envahit au XIXe
siècle le roman, le cirque, les récits de voyage, voire encore des formes d’art
comme la peinture et la musique, et apparaît dans le répertoire théâtral où il
trouve parfois sa forme la plus achevée. Or, c’est notamment le cas avec la pièce
de théâtre La Dalle-des-Morts (1965) de Félix-Antoine Savard, dont le contenu
dramatique énonce un « rêve culturel » éminemment itératif. Voilà, en effet,
qu’au beau milieu de la Révolution tranquille, le thème de la course aux
fourrures « fait retour » et redit le mythe de l’Amérique pastorale, française
cette fois, sous une forme toute particulière : la vision de la grandeur historique
(disparue) qu’aurait été la geste passionnée et courageuse des Voyageurs des
Pays-d’En-Haut. Ici encore, le « Grand-Ouest » renaît et meurt par l’utilisation
excessive du langage et de la culture savante (de l’Est). Le jeune Gildore, le
fiancé de Délie (la Femme-Terre), n’en finit plus de demander à son père JoséPaul, lui-même coureur de bois, de lui nommer les lieux de passage vers
l’Ouest : « Et, au-delà, qu’y a-t-il, mon père? ». En fait, il y a la Mort9, et c’est ce
à quoi pense le père. Or, c’est bien ce projet d’énonciation des lieux comme
savoir technique et rationnel10 qui définit ici la quête du héros épique et qui, en
même temps, le perdra, non pas à ses yeux, mais aux yeux de ceux qui voient à
l’Ouest l’Ailleurs de l’Autre. De fait, la cartographie empirique et descriptive
du père, bien que liée à l’activité profane de la course aux fourrures, sous-tend
ici une organisation discontinue et sacrée de l’espace historique canadien.
À vrai dire, la culture géographique, intériorisée et savante, de José- Paul11 est
doublement signifiante : elle l’est pour son fils Gildore et pour tous les autres
acteurs du drame qui la reçoivent objectivement comme l’Ailleurs de leur Ici;
elle l’est pareillement pour Félix-Antoine Savard qui, en tant que lecteur et
énonciateur du Mythe, éprouve en lui cet Ailleurs de l’Autre comme
narrativement le sien12:
Ces hommes que j’ai toujours considérés comme le plus pur produit
de la grande nature de mon pays et son expression la plus authentique,
70
Paul Kane, La Dalle-des-Morts
Source et droits de reproduction accordés : Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
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m’ont fait comprendre, admirer et aimer l’une des plus belles et des
plus riches époques de notre histoire.
C’est grâce à leur contact fraternel, à l’observation sans cesse
émerveillée de leur finesse, de leur force et incroyable endurance, de
leur amour de la véritable liberté, que j’ai pu reconstituer en moi une
sorte de carte vivante et parlante non du seul Québec, mais de tout le
grand pays français de jadis [. . .].
La seconde source, je l’ai trouvée dans l’histoire de mon pays; et
d’abord dans cette sorte de conflit qui, dès les premiers temps de la
Nouvelle-France, n’a cessé d’opposer les paysans sédentaires aux
découvreurs, explorateurs et coureurs de bois [. . .]13.
Ainsi, c’est par le détour de l’Ailleurs que Félix-Antoine Savard nous présente
le lieu actif et productif du Mythe. C’est effectivement pour le lecteur de l’Est14
qu’il écrit sa mise en œuvre, dramatique et narrative, de La Dalle-des-Morts15.
Que dire! Pendant qu’il compose son œuvre, il n’a de cesse, lui aussi, qu’il
parte. . . Tel le jeune Gildore, Savard prend l’ordre du récit pour l’ordre du
monde, tel qu’il fut et tel qu’il devrait être encore grâce à la force illocutoire du
mythe. Qu’il suffirait de croire au récit, de faire en quelque sorte, dans l’ordre
du temps narratif, un certain voyage vers l’Ouest pour vivre à nouveau ce que
l’Ancêtre a vécu une fois et ainsi retrouver, dans son lieu d’accomplissement,
les gestes héroïques qui façonnent l’identité de l’homme. . . En tournant son
regard vers l’eau du Fleuve, c’est bien vers la profondeur du continent nordaméricain que « descend » l’auteur de Menaud et de L’Abatis.
*
Cet entrecroisement de la mémoire individuelle et collective, tel qu’il apparaît
chez Félix-Antoine Savard, constitue une forme d’expression largement
répandue dans la littérature nord-américaine. Il arrive cependant que le mythe
de l’Amérique pastorale s’exprime sous une forme plus imaginative et
autonome et qu’il soit ainsi à l’origine d’une véritable mythologie littéraire.
Une mythologie où le phénomène de l’identification du sujet (le héros ou
l’écrivain) à l’objet se situe à l’intérieur des formes littéraires elles-mêmes, et
non plus séparé de l’objet, comme cela se produit dans toute mythologie
sociale, produite par la société, et dont la finalité est de nous persuader
d’accepter les valeurs sociales existantes. Ces formes d’expression plus
imaginatives du mythe, où le processus d’identification est renversé, nous
pouvons les retrouver, par exemple, dans le roman de Philip Grove, A Search of
America (1927), où le narrateur est à la recherche du mythe de l’Amérique, non
plus dans ses formes sociales (la petite maison de campagne, l’univers heureux
de la ferme, les vastes horizons de la Frontière. . .), stéréotypes qu’il rejette
d’ailleurs, mais dans ses formes d’expression verbale. Aussi voyons-nous
celui-ci parcourir plutôt le Walden (1854) de Thoreau, ou encore suivre le héros
de Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn, 1885) se laissant aller au fil du Mississippi.
L’Amérique de Grove se réactualise dans les rituels et les rêves que constituent
en quelque sorte les œuvres littéraires elles-mêmes et dont la lecture, par
l’écrivain ou par le lecteur, rend possible l’avènement du mythe.
Travels With Charley (1962) du romancier américain John Steinbeck nous
conduit lui aussi d’est en ouest, dans une quête identitaire qui rappelle celle
72
entreprise par le héros de Philip Grove. D’ailleurs sous-titré « In Search of
America », le roman met en scène un écrivain fictif, Steinbeck lui-même, qui se
rend compte de sa méconnaissance du pays. Un long voyage le conduira donc
de Sag Harbor (Long Island) à San Francisco, en compagnie d’un chien —
Charley — avec qui il traverse une Amérique bien différente de celle qu’il avait
jusqu’à lors peint le tableau dans ses œuvres. Mais plus le voyage avance vers
l’Ouest, plus le narrateur voit dans le pays qu’il parcourt la représentation
désolante d’une société consommatrice de l’artifice et du clinquant16; bref, une
société aux mille et une contradictions, dont la vision imaginaire de son destin
n’a rien à voir avec celle des Pèlerins du Mayflower. Incapable de saisir la
réalité profonde d’une Amérique qu’il voudrait pourtant décrire, le narrateur se
remémore alors, suivant les étapes du voyage, des souvenirs de lectures faites
au temps de son enfance ou pendant sa période productive d’écrivain : The
Great Divide, Main Street (1920) de Sinclair Lewis, Heavenly Discourse
(1927) de Charles Erskine Scott Wood, You Can’t Go Home Again (1940) de
Thomas Wolfe. . ., et d’autres encore, dont le contenu mythique est, à ses yeux,
l’expression même des grandes images reliantes (ou archétypales) de l’éternel
désir de l’Amérique. Travels With Charley est une géographique du mythe
américain à la recherche de son éternel voyageur.
Plus près de nous, Jacques Poulin, dans son roman Volkswagen Blues (1984),
nous livre, d’une très belle manière, la recherche du mythe de l’Amérique chez
son héros. De Gaspé à San Francisco, l’écrivain Jack Waterman17, l’un des
personnages à qui l’instance narrative à la troisième personne prête la parole,
est à la recherche de son frère aîné, en compagnie d’une métisse surnommée la
Grande Sauterelle. Or, lui aussi, à l’instar du héros de Grove, prend (ou est
obligé de prendre à cause de son contrat énonciatif) la contrepartie imaginative
du Mythe, s’arrêtant dans les musées et les bibliothèques, et se livrant à toutes
sortes de lectures, dont celle toute particulière de The Oregon Trail, dans
l’espoir de percer le mystère qui entoure son désir inconscient de l’Amérique. Il
n’y arrivera pas. Contrairement à celle du jeune Gildore dans La Dalle-desMorts, sa quête le ramène vers l’Est. Le roman Volkswagen Blues apparaît
comme une anti-épopée liquidant la figure du héros mythique telle qu’elle est
déployée dans La Dalle-des-Morts18. Volkswagen Blues est le récit de la perte
définitive des origines nord-américaines19. Seule la Grande Sauterelle, la
femme métisse, retrouve à l’Ouest le sens de l’éternel recommencement de
l’Histoire des Amériques. . .
***
Deuxième hypothèse
« Le Nord et le Sud, ou la forme hétérologique du mythe de l’Amérique
pastorale »
C’est encore en réfléchissant sur les lois et les conditions de l’histoire culturelle
canadienne et québécoise que l’on peut le mieux saisir la polarisation sur l’axe
Nord/Sud du mythe de l’Amérique pastorale. Porte d’entrée à l’intérieur du
continent, le Saint-Laurent n’apportait pas précisément la possession du
Nouveau-Monde. Quelque chose se dressait entre lui et le continent et qui le
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désavantageait : le littoral de la mer. Cette réalité géographique a marqué
profondément, croyons-nous, l’histoire culturelle du Québec et du Canada :
pénétrer et s’installer aux États-Unis furent le fait de traverser l’océan et de se
déplacer jusqu’à la Frontière; pénétrer et s’installer au Canada furent le fait
d’être englouti par un continent étranger et de sentir la frontière tout autour de
soi20. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que notre culture, et en particulier nos
littératures, tant canadienne que québécoise, soient traversées par des images,
des « fixations » sur le monde nord-américain qui interpellent sans cesse notre
sensibilité : les canaux contre les rivières, les chemins de fer contre les fleuves,
les voies maritimes contre les routes, le roc contre la plaine fertile. . . Véritable
tragédie! D’un côté Moby Dick, de l’autre l’impossible Passage du NordOuest. Au Sud, la « ceinture dorée du soleil » (le Sunbelt), au Nord les pays de la
neige et du froid (le Snowbelt et le Frostbelt).
Perçue et ressentie suivant des structures affectives ou imageantes qui courent
de l’Est vers l’Ouest21, la géographie du pays est ainsi soumise à une autre
forme de mentalité continentale plus critique et plus idéologique : une mentalité
plus portée à considérer le monde (naturel) canadien ou québécois comme étant
destiné à d’autres fins. C’est que l’axe Nord/Sud permet la division des
contraires, d’introduire la coupure, le partage — l’acte culturel par excellence
— qui produit un espace séparé et délimité où s’inverse le sens de toute chose.
Alors tout est possible. Le mythe peut se métamorphoser pour s’adapter à un
nouveau temps et à un nouvel espace mental, et ainsi répondre à de nouveaux
besoins, à un plus grand consensus social, voire à de nouvelles quêtes des
origines22.
Ainsi ce qu’on a appelé « le Mythe du Nord » serait d’abord, dans sa dimension
idéologique, la polarisation sur l’axe Nord/Sud du mythe de l’Amérique
pastorale 23 . Plus exactement, la vision d’un idéal social dont les
représentations imaginatives se retrouvent d’ailleurs dans la majorité des
cultures ou des civilisations : la nostalgie d’un monde paisible et protecteur,
étroitement lié au monde animal et végétal; « la vie simple, libre et ordonnée24 »
du défricheur ou de l’habitant enraciné dans sa terre; la cité habitée par des
hommes naturellement bons, ignorant le péché et vivant une vie pleine d’aise. . .
Que ce mythe domine notre culture, autant savante que populaire, qu’il prenne
ses appuis sur des images spatiales et sur des habitudes de pensée enveloppées
dans les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, la raison en est qu’il permet une «
commune manière de penser » les enjeux de la société. Par conséquent,
s’employer à la compréhension de ce mythe, c’est entrer de plain-pied dans le
va-et-vient des représentations mentales en ce qu’elles se découvrent dans et
par la société. En ce sens, il n’est pas du tout certain, comme on l’a prétendu, que
l’image profonde du Nord soit dans l’inconscient des Québécois un « calque »
de « l’image de la féminitude25 ». Les mythes sociaux ne se collent jamais, «
comme des plantes desséchées, sur l’herbier de l’imaginaire26 ». Ils sont plutôt
des efforts pour réorganiser une vision du monde troublée, ou ils se veulent une
réponse à l’angoisse du changement.
*
74
Certes, l’axe Nord/Sud se constitue en représentations imaginaires ou
symboliques de toutes sortes27. Selon les périodes de l’histoire canadienne ou
québécoise, il recouvre un jeu d’oppositions qui débordent de tous côtés, tantôt
au gré des réalités sociales et économiques28, souvent tragiquement vécues,
tantôt selon les déplacements de sens, les pulsions ou les répulsions, qui
éprouvent la quête épique ou identitaire du héros canadien ou québécois29. Du
Mémoire sur les mœurs, coustume et relligion des sauvages de l’Amérique
septentrionale (entre 1710-1717?) de Nicolas Perrot à Né à Québec (1933)
d’Alain Grandbois, de La Longue traverse (The Conjuror’s House, 1903) de
Stewart-Edward White à La Rivière sans repos (1970) de Gabrielle Roy, de The
Foreigner (1909) de Raph Connor aux Fous de Bassan (1982) d’Anne Hébert,
la géographie imaginaire du continent nord-américain se fait antinomique, se
renverse sur elle-même, comme pour libérer le Nord et le Sud de leurs prélogiques et de leurs mythes irréductibles : le Sud, espace du péché, de la faute,
de la punition, de la souillure ineffaçable; le Nord, espace de la rédemption, de
la folie créatrice, de l’innocence native, de la quête spirituelle. . . La formule
est elliptique! Nous en convenons. Elle permet néanmoins de saisir les deux
axes du monde qui interpellent sans cesse les héros des œuvres que nous venons
de citer. La quête nordique de Pierre Cadorai dans La Montagne secrète (1961)
de Gabrielle Roy a son centre dans la « nuit arctique », dans l’éblouissement de
la Montagne qui devient pour le jeune peintre le symbole même de sa lumière
intérieure : « . . . elle était devenue son âme30 », écrit la romancière. La descente
vers le Sud de Berthold Mâchefer dans Oh Miami, Miami, Miami (1973) de
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu se fait pour sa part sous le signe d’une américanité
refoulée : miroir de sa sexualité infantile et de son homosexualité ignorée, mais
aussi et — par-dessus tout — expression de l’ultime Grand Retour (interdit)
vers la Mère31 par laquelle le héros brûle d’être introduit dans le monde de la
sexualité 32 . Impossible régénération, comme si Éros et Thanatos
convergeaient trop vers la même errance androgyne, vers le même Deep South
faulknérien.
D’autres Suds imaginaires sont aussi possibles, qui dédoublent la quête d’un
Grand Sud obsessionnel. Des Suds soumis aux fureurs de l’inconscient ou
livrés aux profondeurs de la Night of America : celui des Fous de Bassan
d’Anne Hébert, qui est un va-et-vient intérieur entre Griffin Creek, Montréal et
Key West; celui du Premier mouvement (1987) de Jacques Marchand : récit
mimétique d’une nouvelle fantastique d’Edgard Allan Poe intitulé William
Wilson; celui encore du Cœur éclaté (1993) de Michel Tremblay, dont la
texture s’écoule semblable à un triste lamento sur la mort; ou celui tout récent de
Pâques à Miami (1996) de Claude Jasmin, avec ses exils burlesques et ses
licencieuses mystiques. Voilà donc autant de Suds, qui n’existent que par
rapport au Nord : « The South is what I want! », aimait à dire Jack Kerouac. À
dire vrai, la « vastitude » du continent se perd en quelque sorte dans ces
descentes fictives du Nord au Sud, dont les parcours se mêlent parfois aux eaux
du Mississippi, sur les rives duquel l’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain rêvait,
autour des années 1850, de voir se réaliser le mythe de La France américaine;
descente cardinale, mais aussi vision perdue d’un monde, dont Alain
Grandbois dans Né à Québec (1933) et William Carlos William dans In the
American Grain (1925) nous donnent la juste mesure. L’aventure américaine
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qu’ils prêtent à leurs « conquérants sans conquête33 » — pour l’un, Louis
Jolliet; pour l’autre, Ferdinand De Soto — est une lecture des commencements
des Amériques.
*
L’axe Nord/Sud génère des paysages mentaux inscrits dans les formes
expressives même du continent34. Un écrivain de talent comme Félix-Antoine
Savard l’a bien compris; au lieu d’user du symbolisme traditionnel européen de
la hache ou de la charrue pour signifier toute la valeur mythique du Nord, il fait
plutôt appel au vol des oies sauvages, métaphore extrêmement riche de sens.
Sans doute l’idéologie colonisatrice y est-elle encore affirmée, mais elle
s’exprime entièrement dans l’aventure éternellement recommencée de la
grande vie sauvage nord-américaine :
Elles s’avancent par volées angulaires, liées ensemble à l’oie capitale
par un fil invisible. Inlassablement, elles entretiennent cette
géométrie mystérieuse, toutes indépendantes, chacune tendue droit
vers sa propre fin, mais, en même temps, toutes unies, toutes obliques,
sans cesse ramenées, par leur instinct social, vers cette fine pointe qui
signifie : orientation, solidarité, pénétration unanime dans le dur de
l’air et les risques du voyage.
C’est une démocratie qu’il nous serait utile d’étudier pour le droit et
ferme vouloir collectif, pour l’obéissance allègre à la discipline de
l’alignement, pour cette vertu de l’oie-capitaine qui, son
gouvernement épuisé, cède à une autre, reprend tout simplement la
file, sans autre préoccupation que sa propre eurythmie, sans autre
récompense que le chant de ses ailes derrière d’autres ailes et la
victoire de l’espace parcouru [. . .].
ADMIRABLES, admirables, intrépides et fidèles, que vous
m’enseignez de choses!35
Dans sa polarité systémique avec le Sud, le mythe du Nord serait donc
comparable au vol des oies sauvages toujours fidèles à leur destin. La migration
qu’elles accomplissent ainsi du Nord au Sud fait figure d’un rituel qui n’est pas
sans rappeler la quête du héros mythique; comme ces oiseaux migrateurs qui
s’envolent à chaque automne vers le sud américain, le héros doit en effet
descendre, passer par l’autre monde, pour effectuer sa naissance, puis remonter
vers la mort-résurrection36, vers l’Ancêtre qui lui a donné la vie. . . Ainsi se
trouve résolu, il nous semble, l’épuisement du désir que symbolise dans
l’imaginaire nord-américain, le parcours vers l’Ouest. Parcours solaire, l’axe
Est-Ouest constitue à la fois une quête de la transcendance et une perte de
l’énergie dépensée37 par le héros civilisateur, une entropie du destin inscrit
dans l’immanence et dans sa durée existentielle. L’homme de l’Ouest est, en
effet, l’étranger : celui qui est dépourvu d’ascendance et de descendance.
« Pays de l’obscurité et du déclin », pour reprendre une expression de Gilbert
Durand, l’Ouest symbolise le couchant de la vie38 : il est le lieu où s’accomplit
la descente vers la mort absolue, c’est-à-dire une mort retranchée du monde des
siens, comme la reçoivent le vieux trappeur Bas-de-cuir de Fenimore Cooper
ou encore Tristan Bonhomme, le héros de L’Homme qui va (1929) de JeanCharles Harvey. Et c’est sans doute parce qu’un tel parcours est livré aux forces
76
de la nuit que nos héros légendaires et romanesques, après avoir parcouru le
continent d’Est en Ouest, remontent vers le Nord, c’est-à-dire vers l’Est, vers le
lieu de leur origine. Encore une fois, seul l’Amérindien, parce que né dans la
Sauvagerie de l’Ouest, a le pouvoir de traverser la Mort américaine et d’y conaître l’achèvement du Mythe.
L’ultime rencontre de l’homme Blanc avec les Amériques ne se réaliserait donc
qu’au prix d’une identité avec l’Autre de l’homme. . . Un Félix-Antoine Savard,
poète de la profondeur et de la nuit américaine, en a saisi toute la portée
mythique39. À Gildore, son jeune héros, il accorde un corps de sagesse dont
celui-ci ne trouvera cependant la signification que dans une dissolution dans «
la Dalle-des-Morts » : « [. . .] dalle funèbre où l’eau se précipite avec violence
entre des rochers abrupts40 », mais par-delà de laquelle se trouve l’Origine de
toutes les origines. Descendre le fleuve Columbia, pour y vaincre « la Dalledes-morts », au prix d’une mort certaine, voilà la quête finale du jeune Gildore,
une quête qui le conduit définitivement vers l’Autre, vers le Père amérindien
dont il est par le sang l’arrière-petit-fils. . .
***
L’imaginaire n’a rien d’imaginaire. Il s’inscrit dans les styles multiples de
l’histoire et de la mémoire collective. Il s’enracine dans les cultures et les
civilisations. Loin de résulter d’une construction cristallisée, il est une
nourriture qui s’adapte sans cesse à la dynamique des sociétés et des individus.
Mais, par-dessus tout, l’imaginaire est une géographie onirique, une carte
mentale, « grandeur nature », sur laquelle s’entrecroisent les rêves culturels et
les apories du temps.
L’imaginaire nord-américain résulte des mêmes « alogiques41 ». Il vit à travers
des héros-culturels dont les actions dépassent toujours les limites de la Nature:
« les illusions collectives ne sont pas illusoires », affirme avec justesse Pierre
Bourdieu, qui ajoute : « [. . .] les mécanismes les plus fondamentaux — ceux de
la vie et de la mort — ne pourraient fonctionner sans le secours de la
croyance42»; ajoutons, sans les discours que les sociétés tiennent elles-mêmes
sur leurs croyances, sur leurs rêves culturels contés ou rapportés, discours
choisis non plus en fonction seulement des investissements affectifs, mais pour
leur caractère d’événement frappant, leur valeur d’échange collective, leur
capacité de ressasser l’ordre culturel. Certes, tout imaginaire est réducteur, et
l’imaginaire nord-américain n’échappe pas non plus à cette loi. C’est pourquoi
il faut démêler les entrecroisements de ses parcours, repérer les strates
culturelles à travers lesquelles il nous donne à voir les modes de production et
de représentation des mentalités. Ces approches intradisciplinaires, il suffit de
les poser pour que surgissent les « résidus » de la chose sociale et culturelle, les
écarts différentiels que l’intelligibilité historique essaie de combler par sa
théorie. Mais l’histoire culturelle — et en particulier celle des représentations
mentales — n’est jamais réductible à l’objectivité du code. La culture n’a de
sens véritable qu’à travers sa pluralité : « les différences culturelles peuvent
être placées n’importe où », soutient avec raison Edmond Ortigues : « entre
deux individus, entre deux professions, entre deux régions, entre deux
continents, et ainsi de suite par degrés infinis de variations43 ». La culture est
77
IJCS / RIÉC
fondamentalement un échange de significations, de signes et de symboles, une
communauté d’images, de pratiques et d’usages, d’attitudes et de discours.
« Le Mythe est raconté à l’Est et vécu à l’Ouest », avons-nous soutenu. Ce qu’un
tel Mythe donne d’abord à raconter, c’est le naturel des Amériques épiques :
celles des Conquistadors, des Explorateurs français ou anglais, des
Missionnaires, des Engagés du Grand-Portage, des Émigrants vers la frontière,
etc. L’Histoire elle-même est naturalisée, celle surtout de l’Ouest, qui devient
« surnaturel44 ». Mais il faut aller plus loin. En tant qu’il permet le récit de toutes
les Amériques, l’imaginaire nord-américain est une descente vers les fleuves de
l’Oubli45. Voilà le mouvement instinctif du Mythe. Chateaubriand en dresse
magistralement les tracés géographiques dans son Prologue d’Atala; quatre
grands fleuves, « nés dans le même berceau », écrit-il, qui coulent
inexorablement leurs eaux vers d’autres eaux — vers leur embouchure — dans
une unité primitive avec la terre américaine : le fleuve Saint-Laurent « se perd à
l’est dans le golfe du même nom », la rivière de l’Ouest46 « porte ses eaux à des
mers inconnus », le fleuve Bourbon47 « se précipite du midi au nord dans la baie
d’Hudson » et le Meschacebé « tombe du nord au midi dans le golfe du
Mexique48 » où, selon le texte de l’édition originale, il « s’ensevelit49 ».
Fleuves de la Chute ou de la Perte50! Fleuves d’Amérique dont les eaux vont
rejoindre les eaux primitives : celles de la Mer de Champlain. Sans doute est-ce
à de semblables eaux que pense le narrateur des Anciens Canadiens, lorsqu’au
début de son récit, il convoque son lecteur à méditer avec lui sur la marche du
monde. Tout naturellement, c’est vers « l’immense fleuve Saint-Laurent » qu’il
lui dit de regarder. Une direction alors s’impose : celle qui va de l’amont vers
l’aval. Soit, non plus celle de l’Ouest — de la Descente du continent — qui
donne à l’homme la possibilité « de vivre une autre fois51 », ou une autre vie,
mais celle tournée vers l’Est, où le lit du fleuve finit « par s’engloutir dans le
gouffre de l’éternité52 ».
Notes
1.
2.
3.
78
Nous empruntons cette expression à L. Hjelmslev, pour qui le signe est le résultat d’une
sémiosis, autrement dit d’un enchaînement de signes; voir à ce sujet A.J. Greimas et J.
Courtés, Sémiotique : dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Paris, Hachette, vol. I,
1979, p. 349-350; aussi M. Arrivé, F. Gadet et M. Galmiche, La Grammaire d’aujourd’hui,
Paris, Flammarion, 1986, p. 615.
On entend habituellement par « sémiotiques verbales » les systèmes de signification qui
utilisent pour leur manifestation une langue naturelle; c’est notamment le cas de la littérature
et de différents types de discours d’ordre religieux, mythique, folklorique, historique,
juridique, scientifique, etc. (M. Arrivé et coll., op. cit., p. 615).
À consulter : Robert Edson Lee, From West to East. Studies in the Literature of the American
West, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1966, 172 p. Voir aussi : Laurence Ricou, Vertical
Man/Horizontal World: Man and Landscape in Canadian Prairie Fiction, Vancouver,
University of British Columbia Press, 1973, 152 p.; Dennis Duffy, Gardens, Covenants,
Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/Ontario, Toronto, University of
Toronto Press, 1982, 160 p.; Northrop Frye, The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian
Imagination, Toronto, Anansi, 1971, 256 p.; Edwin Fussel, Frontier: American Literature
and the American West, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1965, 45 p.; Élise
Marienstras, Les Mythes fondateurs de la nation américaine, Paris, François Maspero, 1976,
377 p.; Henry Nash Smith, The Virgin Land. The American West as Symbol and Myth, New
York, Random House, 1950, 305 p.; Robert Viau, L’Ouest littéraire : vision d’ici et
d’ailleurs, Montréal, Éditions du Méridien, 1992, 170 p.; « L’Amérique des langues »,
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
numéro spécial de la revue Études françaises, vol. 28, nos 2-3, automne 1992-hiver 1993,
186 p.
Voir Donald Creighton, The Commercial Empire of St. Lawrence, Toronto, MacMillan of
Canada, 1957, 619 p.
Citons, à titre d’exemple, l’« île de Thevet » — île fictive — dessinée par André Thevet
(1516-1592) lui-même, à titre de cosmographe du Roi, sur l’une de ses cartes du Golfe SaintLaurent, et dont on retrouve notamment l’illustration dans son ouvrage le Grand insulaire
(environ 1590); voir à ce sujet André Thevet’s North America. A Sixteenth-Century View, An
Edition-Translation with Notes and Introduction by Roger Schlesinger and Arthur P.
Stabler, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1986, p. XLIX et 272.
Sur la cosmographie imaginaire de la Nouvelle-France, voir Frank Lestringant, « NouvelleFrance et fiction cosmographique dans l’œuvre d’André Thevet », Études littéraires, vol. 10,
no 1, 1977, p. 145-173.
Voir Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America,
New York, Oxford University Press, 1964, 292 p.
Il s’agit en quelque sorte des processus mentaux à partir desquels l’homme catégorise le
monde réel. Selon Annamaria Lammel, « les objets réels, identiques, donnés dans le monde
indépendamment de la culture, peuvent être universellement catégorisés, les objets
mentalement construits qui n’ont aucune chance d’être confrontés à une réalité externe,
semblent au contraire être regroupés, classés et nommés de manière arbitraire et variable
selon les cultures » (« Connaissance culturelle et catégorisation du monde réel », L’Individu
et ses cultures (sous la direction de F. Tanon et G. Vermes), Paris, L’Harmattan, 1993,
p.119).
Voir à ce sujet : Fernando Ainsa, « L’Invention de l’Amérique », Diogène, no 145, 1989, p.
104-117; Miguel León-Portilla, « Le Nouveau Monde, 1492-1992. Un débat
interminable? », Diogène, no 157, 1992, p. 3-26; Pierre Chaunu, L’Amérique et les
Amériques : de la préhistoire à nos jours, Paris, Armand Colin, 1964, 470 p.; Thomas
Gomez, L’Invention de l’Amérique. Rêves et réalités de la Conquête, Paris, Aubier, 1992,
332 p.; Edmundo O’Gorman, The Invention of America, Bloomington, Indiana University
Press, 1961, 178 p.
Située sur le fleuve Columbia (approximativement à 51o, 45’ de latitude nord et à 118o, 45’
de longitude ouest), la Dalle-des-Morts, dont le site et l’histoire ont inspiré l’artiste et
l’illustrateur Paul Kane (voir la reproduction de son tableau en page suivante), était à
l’époque de la course aux fourrures un passage extrêmement dangereux pour les brigades de
voyageurs qui osaient affronter ses rapides. Elle était aussi un lieu de campement et de
rencontre, comme le rappelle Paul Kane (1810-1871) lui-même, qui fit deux voyages dans
l’Ouest, de 1845 à 1848, au cours desquels il a peint cette funèbre Dalle-des-Morts. Son
tableau La Dalle-des-Morts n’évoque cependant que très partiellement les faits historiques
survenus en cet endroit au cours des années 1800. Dans son journal de voyage du 4 octobre
1847, il souligne sommairement les circonstances qui auraient été à l’origine des
événements tragiques. Voici le premier paragraphe de son récit : « We camped at night
below the “Dalle des Morts”, or the Rapids of the Dead, so called from the following
circumstance. About twenty-five or thirty years ago, an Iroquois, a half-breed, and a French
Canadian, having charge of a boat, had to descend this frightful rapid. Fearful of running it,
the affixed a long line to the bow, and being themselves on the shore, they attempted to lower
her gradually by means of it down the foaming torrent. The boat took a sheer and ran outside
of a rock, and all their efforts to get her back, or reach the rock themselves through the boiling
surge were unavailing. The rope, chafing on the sharp edge of the rock, soon broke, and she
dashed down among the whirling eddies, ans broke to pieces, with their whole stock of
provisions on board » (Paul Kane’s Frontier, Including « Wandering of an Artist the Indians
of North American », edited with a Biographical Introduction and a Catalog raisonné by J.
Russell Harper, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1971, p. 127-128). On retrouve le
toponyme « La Dalle-des-Morts » sur plusieurs cartes anciennes ou récentes; voir, entre
autres, Tackabury’s Atlas of the Dominion of Canada with General Description, by T. Sterry
Hunt and coll., Drawn, Compiled and Edited by H.F. Walling, C.E., Published by George N.
Taskabury, Montreal, Toronto, and London, 1876, p. 107; New Map of British Columbia by
R.T. Williams, Publisher, Victoria,; reproduite à la même grandeur que l’originale de la
Collection nationale de cartes et plans, Archives publiques du Canada.
79
IJCS / RIÉC
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
80
La Dalle-des-Morts, Montréal, Fides, 1965, 154 p. Voir en particulier le deuxième acte,
scène 1.
Il faut souligner que le père ne répond guère aux questions de son jeune fils; ce sont plutôt ses
compagnons de voyage — Théo la Corneille, Michel dit Trompe la Mort, Rossignolet,
Kanaoui, un vieil indien outaouais — qui apprennent au jeune homme les parcours et les
lieux géographiques qui mènent les coureurs de bois jusqu’aux confins de l’Ouest canadien.
Il s’agit en quelque sorte de l’identité narrative, telle que la définit Paul Ricœur. Pour
l’auteur de Temps et récit, « la voie de l’identification de soi » (du sujet réel) passe en effet
par « l’identification avec l’autre »; « la réception du récit par le lecteur, écrit encore
Ricœur, est le lieu d’une multiplicité de modalités qui s’intitulent identification » (Paul
Ricœur, « Identité narrative », Revue des sciences humaines, no 221, 1991, p. 35-47; voir
encore du même auteur : Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1990, 424 p. et,
naturellement, Temps et récit, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1983- : vol. I (Temps et récit), vol. II
(La configuration dans le récit de fiction) et vol. III (Le temps raconté).
« Préface » à La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 17-18. L’italique est de nous.
Les intentions de Félix-Antoine Savard sont d’ailleurs tout à fait explicites. À ses yeux, les
voyageurs des Pays-d’En-Haut étaient une race d’hommes extraordinaires : « leur valeur, le
pittoresque de leurs mœurs et allures, écrit-il, les traditions de contes, de chansons, de
légendes grâce auxquelles ils poétisaient, si je puis dire, les plus durs travaux, ont forcé
l’admiration de beaucoup d’auteurs anglais. La connaissance, hélas bien fragmentaire, de
cette geste extraordinaire m’a fait regretter qu’on n’ait pas, dans l’une de nos quelconque
universités françaises, pour la recueillir, un centre de documentation, de recherches et
d’études. La jeunesse trouverait là, il me semble, un objet de légitime et saine fierté et, pour
une littérature nationale, une source inépuisable d’inspiration et d’information » (« Préface » à
La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 19).
La pièce fut également présentée pour la première fois le 20 mars 1966, à Montréal, au
théâtre Orpheum.
À son compagnon de voyage, le narrateur fait un jour cette remarque : « Let’s go a little
farther into other fields, Charley. Let’s take the books, magazines, and papers we have seen
displayed where we have stopped. The dominant publication has been the comic book. There
have been local papers and I’ve bought and read them. There have been racks of paperbacks
with some great and good titles but overwhelmingly outnumbered by the volumes of sex,
sadism, and homicide. The big-city papers cast their shadows over large areas around them,
the New York Times as fas as the Great Lakes, the Chicago Tribune all the way here to Norh
Dakota. Here, Charley, I give you a warning, should you be drawn to generalities. If this
people has so atrophied its taste buds as to find tasteless food not only acceptable but
desirable, what of the emotional life of the nation? (Travels With Charley. In Search of
America, New York, The Viking Press, 1962, p.127).
La quête qui conduit Jack Waterman de Gaspé à San Francisco ressemble fort étrangement à
celle qu’accomplit Steinbeck dans Travels With Charley; voir à ce sujet Jonathan M. Weiss,
« Une lecture américaine de Volkswagen Blues », Études françaises, vol. 21, no 3, 19851986, p. 90. Dans son dernier roman Petit homme Tornade (Montréal, Stanké, 1996, 284 p.),
Roch Carrier reprend à peu près le même scénario; son héros, qui répond au nom de Robert
Martin, est un historien dont le voyage dans l’Ouest américain se transforme peu à peu en une
quête initiatique des Canadiens français partis chercher fortune aux États-Unis. À l’instar de
Jack Waterman, Robert Martin se met à la recherche de documents historiques (archives,
procès-verbaux, correspondance, etc.) susceptibles de lui dévoiler le fabuleux passé d’un
nommé Joseph Dubois qui, après avoir traîné sa misère de « Canadien errant » (p. 204) aux
quatre coins de l’Amérique, est tué d’une balle de revolver par son meilleur ami lors d’une
partie de cartes à Santa Fe. . . D’une façon parfois plus explicite que Volkswagen Blues, Petit
homme Tornade actualise un métarécit dont le contenu renvoie à des œuvres littéraires prises
comme mythèmes de la quête du héros : Moby Dick, Le Dernier des Mohicans, Le Tueur de
daims, Fils de Peau-Rouge, autant de titres dont la lecture dicte tantôt au narrateur, tantôt aux
personnages eux-mêmes, le sens et la finalité du Mythe de l’Amérique.
Sans doute est-il utile de distinguer ici le mythe de l’Amérique de sa reconfiguration
littéraire. Par-delà une recherche certaine du mythe « véritable » et « pur », le roman
Volkswagen Blues laisse voir une « nostalgie des origines » qui appartient davantage au récit
mythique lui-même qu’aux hommes de l’Histoire dont le(s) narrateur(s) ou les (la)
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
narratrice(s) nous rappellent sur un ton critique l’aventure peu glorieuse en terre
d’Amérique : celle notamment des découvreurs et des pionniers de l’Amérique française et,
très souvent, celle aussi des pionniers américains qui ont participé à la marche de la
Frontière. Voir aussi à ce sujet Leslie Fiedler, Le Retour du Peau-Rouge (1968), traduit de
l’américain par Georges Renard, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1971, 172 p.; Suzan J. Rosowski,
« La Femme, la frontière et l’écriture », Le Mythe de l’Ouest, Paris, Éditions Autrement,
1993, p. 145-162.
Volkswagen Blues n’est pas cependant le seul roman québécois contemporain à dériver ainsi
hors du Mythe d’origine. . . Depuis le début des années 1970, la littérature québécoise dans
son ensemble — et sans doute pourrait-on aussi affirmer à peu près la même chose de la
littérature canadienne-anglaise — se lit comme un flux étranger en tout sens : la Matrice de
l’américanité, métaphore miroir de nous-mêmes, accouche de nouveaux héros et, ce qui est à
notre avis très révélateur et postmoderne, de nouvelles héroïnes, dont la quête est une
recherche non pas d’une Amérique, mais des Amériques : celles amérindienne, féminine,
migrante, native, minoritaire, régionale, urbaine, intime. . . Nouveau mythe? Sur cette
dérivation mythique, voir notre article « L’Amérique comme métaphore », Écrits du Canada
français, vol. 58, 1986, p. 156-167; aussi Ian G. Lumdsen, Paysages de l’Amérique du Nord
Britannique, Toronto, The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 1995, 76 p; et Marguerit E. Turner,
Imagining Culture: New World Narrative and the Writing of Canada, Montréal, McGillQueen’s University Press, 1995, 134 p.; Lucie Guillemette, « Femmes et Amériques dans
Une histoire américaine de Jacques Godbout : l’Ouest revisité », Canadian Review of
American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines, vol. 24, no 3, automne 1994, p.
121-135 et « Pour une nouvelle lecture des Fous de Bassan d’Anne Hébert : l’Amérique et
ses parcours discursifs », Voix et images, vol. 32, no 65, hiver 1997, p. 332-354.
Voir à titre d’exemple, les romans : Maria Chapdelaine (1914) de Louis Hémon, La Forêt de
Georges Bugnet (1935), Les Opiniâtres (1941) de Léo-Paul Desrosiers, ou encore
Wacousta : or, the Prophecy (1964) de John Richardson, où on peut lire : « The forest, in a
word, formed the gloomy and impenetrable walls of a prison. . . » (p. 159). On trouve dans de
nombreuses monographies, tant d’expression canadienne-anglaise que française, la même
représentation symbolique d’un espace humain emmuré de toute part : « une forêt
d’épouvante, comparable à celle que le ciseau de Gustave Doré a gravée pour illustrer
certaines scènes de l’Enfer de Dante » (Estras Minville, La Forêt, Montréal, Éditions Fides,
1944, p. 13-14); voir aussi Richard Lippincott Williams, Les Bûcherons, Amsterdam, TimeLife Books, 1980, 240 p. Enfin, sur les représentations culturelles de la forêt, on consultera
tout particulièrement l’ouvrage de Robert Harrison, Forêts : essai sur l’imaginaire
occidental, traduit de l’anglais par Florence Naugrette, Paris, Flammarion 1992, 396 p. Voir
aussi Northrop Frye, « Conclusion », Histoire littéraire du Canada. Littérature canadienne
d’expression anglaise, publiée sous la direction de Carl F. Klinck, traduit de l’anglais par
Maurice Lebel, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1970, p. 975.
Cette vision est déjà énoncée à grands traits dans L’Histoire véritable et naturelle des mœurs
et productions du pays de la Nouvelle-France, vulgairement dite le Canada (1664) de Pierre
Boucher. Percevant le pays canadien par l’intermédiaire du fleuve Saint-Laurent (le Hautdu-fleuve et le Bas-du-fleuve), Boucher fait de la direction est-ouest l’axe primordial qui
traverse le monde de la géographie canadienne. L’axe Nord/Sud demeure chez lui un
agencement du premier : le Sud à la fois la rive sud du fleuve (l’Est du pays) et le Haut-dufleuve (l’Ouest), tandis que le Nord renvoie plus précisément à la notion de Pays-d’En-Haut,
qu’il oppose au Bas-du-Fleuve. Nous résumons ici l’article de Léopold Leblanc sur
L’Histoire véritable. . . de Pierre Boucher, paru dans Le Dictionnaire des œuvres littéraires
du Québec (Montréal, Fides, 1978, p. 376-377); voir aussi Ramsay Cook, « Imagining A
North American Garden : Some Parallels & Differences in Canadian & American Culture »,
Canadian Literature, no 103, Winter 1984, p. 10-23.
Voir à ce propos Une frontière dans la tête : culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien,
Montréal, Éditions Liber, 1991, 274 p.
N’a-t-on prétendu plus d’une fois que les rigueurs du climat canadien jouaient un rôle
providentiel dans la lutte contre le mirage américain? Ainsi ces propos d’un ultramontain du
XIXe siècle semonçant ses compatriotes trop portés à dénigrer l’hiver canadien, alors qu’il
fuit lui-même vers le soleil californien! : « A-t-on jamais pensé [. . .] aux avantages
providentiels qui se rattachent particulièrement aux grands froids de cette partie du Canada
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24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
82
et qui sont ceux-ci, l’empêchement d’une immigration étrangère aux instincts absorbants et
envahisseurs; le développement facile de la race canadienne-française et la garde intacte des
principes catholiques. Cela vaut la peine d’y réfléchir et de ne pas déplorer injustement la
sévérité du climat » (C.-M. Panneton, « Le Colorado en 1880 », Revue canadienne, vol XVII,
1881, p. 594). On trouvera la même vision du monde chez le Canadien Lawren Harris, autour
des années vingt : « We in Canada [are] in different circumstances than the people in the
United States. Our population is sparse, the psychic atmosphere comparatively clean,
whereas the States fill up and the massed crowd a heavy psychic blanket over nearly all the
land. We are on the fringe of the great North, and its living whiteness, its loneliness and
replenishment, its resignations and release, its call and answers — its cleansing rhythms. It
seems that the top of the continent will ever shed clarity into the growing race of America,
and we Canadians being closest to this source seem destined to produce an art somewhat
different from our southern fellows an art more spacious, of greater living quiet, perhaps of
more certain conviction of eternal values. We were not placed between the Southern teeming
of men and the ample replenishing of North for nothing » (« Revelation of Art in Canada »,
The Canadian Theosophist, vol. 7, 15 July 1926, p. 85-86). Voir à ce sujet notre ouvrage,
L’Image des États-Unis dans la littérature québécoise, Sherbrooke, Éditions Naaman, 1981,
p. 275-292.
Félix-Antoine Savard, L’Abatis (1943), Montréal, Fides, 1960, p. 16.
Suivant Christian Morissonneau, l’image du Nord « est bien celle qui se substitue comme un
calque à celle de la nature, je veux dire celle de la Femme, tantôt accueillante, tantôt
intouchable, tantôt violée mais toujours l’image de la féminitude. Autrement dit, dans
l’inconscient québécois, le Nord serait-il Femme? » (« Le Nord qui est nature qui est
féminitude », Cahiers de géographie du Québec, vol. XXVI, no 68, septembre 1982, p. 242).
Roger Bastide, Le Sacré sauvage, Paris, Payot, 1975, p. 112.
Voir à ce sujet Jack Warwick, L’Appel du nord dans la littérature canadienne-française
(1968), Montréal, Éditions HMH, traduit de l’anglais par Jean Simard, 1972, 249 p.; Antoine
Sirois, Mythes et symboles dans la littérature québécoise, Montréal, Triptyque, 1992, 154 p.
Voir à ce propos Henry Forbes Angaus (Editor), Canada and Her Great Neighbor.
Sociological Survey of Opinions and Attitudes in Canada Concerning the United States,
New York, Russel & Russel, 1970, 452 p.; Carl Berger, The Sense of Power : Studies in the
Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1970,
280 p.; Alfred-Oliver Hero Jr et Louis Balthazar, Contemporary Québec & United States,
1960-1985, Cambridge (Mass.), Center for International Affairs, Harvard University,
University Press of America, 1988, 532 p.; Herbert Marshall, Frank Allan Southard et
Kenneth Wiffin Tayler, Canadian-American Industry : a Study in International Investment,
New York, Russel & Russel, 1964, 360 p.
Voir notre ouvrage L’Image des États-Unis dans la littérature québécoise (1775-1930),
Sherbrooke, Édition Naaman, 1981, 360 p.; Ronald Sutherland, The New Hero : Essays in
Comparative Quebec Canadian Literature, Toronto, Macmillan of Canada, 1977, 172 p.;
Margaret Atwood, Survival : A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Toronto, Anansi,
1972, 287 p.
La Montagne secrète, Montréal, Beauchemin, 1961, p. 102.
Voir à ce propos Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, New
York, Pantheon Books, 1995, 380 p.; Wilma Garcia, Mothers and Other Myths of the Female
in the Works of Melville, Twain and Hemingway, New York, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.,
1984, 180 p.
À l’instar de maints romans américains, Oh Miami, Miami, Miami donne au mythe de la
Frontière une dimension anthropologique qui surdétermine celle que symbolise dans les
faits (réels ou imaginaires), la géographie nord-américaine elle-même; voir à ce sujet
Richard Slotkin Regeneration Through Violence.The Mythology of the American Frontier,
Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1973, 670 pages ; et aussi du même auteur,
The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890,
Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1986, 636 p.
Pierre-Yves Petillon, La Grande-route. Espace et écriture en Amérique, Paris, Éditions du
Seuil, 1979, p. 124.
Russell Brown, « La Frontière dans la littérature canadienne-anglaise », Une frontière dans
la tête : culture, institutions et imaginaire canadien, p. 151-226.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
Félix-Antoine Savard, L’Abatis, p. 16.
Sur la signification du rituel de la naissance et de la mort-résurrection respectivement
associées à la descente et à la remontée, voir Simone Vierne, Rite, roman, initiation,
Grenoble, les Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1973, 138 p.
Georges Bataille, « La Notion de dépense », La Part maudite, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, coll.
Point, 1967, p. 21-54.
En réalité, la vie naît de la mort. Voilà le sens même du mythe. La symbolique de « la mort à
l’Ouest » est la possibilité de recevoir l’illumination. C’est pourquoi certaines grandes
œuvres littéraires guident-elles leurs personnages vers la mort pour leur faire découvrir la
vie. C’est notamment le cas du récit De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Éveline? (1984) de Gabrielle Roy.
C’est en faisant son voyage depuis Winnipeg jusqu’à Bella Vista (Californie), où elle
retrouve son frère Majorique mort, que l’héroïne sera éblouie par la lumière suprême du
Pacifique. . . La mort du frère aimé, résolument acceptée, crée en quelque sorte en Éveline
la vie! Voir à ce sujet Lucie Guillemette, « L’Espace narratif dans De quoi t’ennuies-tu,
Éveline? : l’avènement d’un dire libérateur », Portes de communications; études discursives
et stylistiques de l’œuvre de Gabrielle Roy (sous la direction de Claude Romney et Estelle
Dansereau), Québec, PUL, 1995, p. 103-117.
Certes, l’œuvre de Savard n’est ni la première, ni la dernière à faire de l’Autochtone la figure
emblématique de notre imaginaire nord-américain. Des multiples versions de la légende de
L’Iroquoise aux romans québécois d’aujourd’hui (André Langevin, L’Élan d’Amérique,
Robert Lalonde, Le Dernier été des Indiens, Pierre Gobeil, Dessins et cartes du territoire,
Louis Hamelin, Cowboy, etc.), en passant par les romans d’YvesThériault (Ashini, La Quête
de l’ourse, Tayaout, etc.), la représentation symbolique de l’Amérindien fait maintes fois
état d’un passage entre deux cultures.
« Avant-Propos » à La Dalle-des-Morts, p. 17. Savard justifie ainsi le titre de sa pièce : La
Dalle-des Morts « est le nom que les Canadiens français avaient donné à un passage ou
couloir extrêmement dangereux situé sur le fleuve Columbia » (Ibid.).
Gilbert Durand, L’Imaginaire : essai sur les sciences et la philosophie de l’image, Paris,
Hatier, coll. « Optiques philosophiques », no 208, 1994, 79 p.
Le Sens commun, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1980, p. couverture (4).
« Situations inter-culturelles ou changements culturels? », L’Individu et ses cultures, p. 10.
C’est le titre que Paul Louis Rossi donne à l’un de ses ouvrages : L’Ouest surnaturel. Les
écrivains du bout des terres vers les îles (Paris, Hatier, 1993, 184 p.). À son tour, l’auteur
cherche en effet à apprécier l’« intelligence de l’Ouest » qui préside à la découverte du
continent américain : « il ne s’agit pas seulement d’une direction géographique », écrit
Rossi, « Quand on l’examine, elle devient imaginaire, car, malgré la prose, l’Ouest est
surnaturel. C’est la contrée des brumes, du jardin des Hespérides, de l’Ultime Thulé
(découverte par Pythéas de Marseille), de l’île des Bienheureux, de l’Avalon de la Terre
promise »; Rossi écrit encore : « Il n’est pas étonnant que des contrées fabuleuses soient
désignées l’Ouest. S’y prête le contour indistinct des terres, ouvertes sur l’Océan, avec les
pluies, les tempêtes, le changement infini du ciel et des nuages. L’extrême Ouest, alors, n’est
pas seulement une terre d’asile, un réceptacle pour les migrations des peuples et des
civilisations. Il apparaît comme un véritable conservatoire des mœurs, des mythes, des races,
des arts et des langages qui se sont réfugiés à l’extrême Occident » (p. 11).
L’un de ces fleuves les plus connus est sans doute le « Léthé ». Considéré dans la mythologie
grecque comme un élément primordial du monde, le Léthé séparait le Tartare des Champs
élysées : « Les âmes des morts buvaient de ses eaux pour oublier les circonstances de leur vie.
De même, les âmes destinées à une nouvelle existence terrestre y buvaient pour perdre tout
souvenir de la mort » (Le Petit Robert 2, p. 1075).
Il s’agit de la fameuse « Rivière de l’Ouest » que le cartographe Guillaume Delisle situait, en
1717, au nord du Nouveau-Mexique et de la Californie. Pierre de La Vérendrye a vainement
recherché cette rivière qui devait le conduire vers la « Mer de l’Ouest ». La découverte des
premiers contreforts des Rocheuses états-uniennes l’obligent, lui et ses fils, à rebrousser
chemin. Sur le sujet, voir Collection de cartes anciennes et modernes pour servir à l’étude de
l’histoire de l’Amérique et du Canada, Québec, Université Laval, Institut d’histoire et de
géographie, 1948, p. 52 et Marcel Trudel, Atlas de la Nouvelle-France / An Atlas of New
France, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1968, p. 126-129.
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47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
84
La nomination du fleuve ou de la « Rivière de Bourbon » sur les cartes des terres arctiques et
de la Baie d’Hudson remonte sans doute au milieu du XVIIe siècle. Guillaume Delisle fait
état d’un tel cours d’eau qui va du midi au nord, sur l’une de ses cartes, vers 1690. Une autre
« carte de la Baie d’Hudson », établie en 1744 par N. Bellin, Ingénieur de la Marine,
mentionne encore l’existence d’une « Rivière de Bourbon ». Il s’agit sans doute aujourd’hui
du fleuve Nelson; voir à ce sujet : Collection de cartes anciennes et modernes pour servir à
l’étude de l’histoire de l’Amérique et du Canada, p. 53 et Marcel Trudel, op. cit., p. 124.
Atala, dans Œuvres romanesques et voyages, texte établi, présenté et annoté par Maurice
Regard, Paris, Gallimard, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade », tome I, 1969, p. 33. Sur le même
sujet : Pierre Glaudes, Atala: le désir cannibale, Paris, PUF, 1994, 128 p. Sans doute
pourrait-on aussi retracer des représentations géographiques similaires à propos d’autres
fleuves; nous pensons tout particulièrement à l’Amazone, le premier du monde par la
superficie de son bassin et par son débit, et le second, après le Nil, pour sa longueur; au
Colorado, fleuve de l’Ouest des États-Unis, qui prend sa source dans les Rocheuses, pour se
jeter dans le golfe de Californie, après une course de 2 250 kilomètres à travers différents
États américains; enfin, au fleuve Mackenzie, qui coule à travers les Territoires du NordOuest canadien, pour finir son cours dans l’Océan Arctique.
Dans les cinq premières éditions d’Atala, la dernière représentation géographique du
Mississippi est celle d’un fleuve qui « descendant du nord au midi, s’ensevelit dans le golfe
du Mexique »; voir Atala, édition critique établie par Armand Weil, Paris, Librairie José
Corti, 1950, p. 27.
Outre Atala de Chateaubriand, d’autres œuvres développent la même finalité mythique;
citons, à titre d’exemple : Henry David Thoreau, Une semaine sur les fleuves Concord et
Merrimac (1849); Jean Cocteau, Le Potomak (1913-1914); Alain Grandbois, Né à Québec
(1933).
Joseph Campbell, « La Descente au paradis : le Livre des morts tibétain », Les Mythes à
travers les âges (1990), traduit de l’américain par Marie Perron, Montréal, Éditions Le Jour,
1993, p. 179.
Les Anciens Canadiens (1863), Montréal, Fides, 1961, p. 10.
Patricia Vervoort
Art and Illusion: Joe Fafard’s Space Wrinkles
Abstract
Joe Fafard’s reputation as a sculptor continues to grow, yet attention is
focused on his ceramic portraits of people whereas his cows have not merited
similar consideration. By using cows as a form, Fafard explores varieties of
spatial representation and challenges viewer’s expectations about looking
and seeing. His contorted cows are responses to theories of perspective in art
history as related by E. H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion and by Clement
Greenberg’s rejection of all spatial illusion in painting. Both Gombrich and
Greenberg addressed their ideas to painters, but Fafard’s cows demonstrate
these ideas in three-dimensions. The resulting spatial illusions straddle the
world of ideas in association with mathematics, physics, science fiction and
art.
Résumé
La renommée de Joe Fafard en tant que sculpteur continue de croître.
Pourtant, le centre d’attention demeure ses portraits de gens en céramique.
Ses portraits de vaches ne se sont cependant pas mérités une attention
similaire. En utilisant les vaches comme mode d’expression, Fafard explore
toute la gamme de la représentation dans l’espace et remet en question les
attentes des spectateurs au sujet du regard et de la perception. Les
contorsions de ses vaches se veulent une réponse aux théories de la
perspective en histoire de l’art tel que les décrit E.H. Gombrich dans son
ouvrage Art and Illusion et par le rejet qu’exprime Clement Greenberg face à
toute illusion spatiale en peinture. Tant Gombrich que Greenberg ont
transmis leurs idées aux peintres, mais les vaches de Fafard démontrent ces
idées dans un univers tridimensionnel. Les illusions spatiales qui en résultent
chevauchent l’univers des idées (les mathématiques, la physique de même que
la science-fiction) et le monde des arts.
Cows may seem like an unlikely topic for a discussion of space and time, but Joe
Fafard’s (b. 1942) cows are not ordinary ones and his cows caught in space
wrinkles are most appropriate. Although Fafard’s reputation as an artist is
growing rapidly, he is generally regarded as a sculptor of portraits. However,
throughout his career, Fafard has maintained two parallel subjects in his art:
people and cows. Critics, curators and art writers consistently explore his
human subjects whereas the cows receive far less attention. In all their shapes
and variations, cows form a large portion of Fafard’s artistic output and, for the
most part, dumbfound Fafard’s critics and attract admirers. He is said to be
“almost obsessively attached” to “the rural image of the cow” (Teitelbaum and
White 1987: 4). However, cows as a subject and form have allowed this
Saskatchewan artist to experiment with ideas about space, its representation
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and its dislocations. As this paper intends to demonstrate, Fafard’s sculptural
depictions of cows in space wrinkles and other eye-catching phenomenal
situations reveal a sophisticated and unique interpretation of the laws of
perspective created as guidelines for artists representing three-dimensional
objects on a two-dimensional surface. The novelty of Fafard’s work is his
application of these ideas to three-dimensional work. These depictions of cows,
manipulated and distorted, delineate an intense exploration of vision and how
we interpret what we see.
Fafard did not arrive at his spatial manipulations through mathematics or
physics, but from various sources in the art world and ideas pertinent to
painting. Three of the sources in art that played a part in providing Fafard with
the basis for his contorted cows were E. H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion,
examples from the history of art, and some of the theories of Clement
Greenberg (1909-1994), the American art critic.
Place plays an important role in Fafard’s art because he depicts what he
knows—from friends and associates to heroes he admires, and the animals.
Fafard, in his practice as an artist, emphasizes that art can be produced
anywhere without requiring an artist to migrate to a large city. This attitude,
along with Fafard’s increasing success, still prompts art critics to mention his
geographical background or his “rural subjects” which often is the only
comment about his work (Mays 1988: C4). Early in his career, Fafard merited
uncomplimentary labels, such as a “talented prairie weirdo” (Jonson 1978:
170). More recently, a critic complained of Fafard’s art: “People are reluctant to
discuss it, they are too busy simply ‘liking’ it.” And, “there is also,” as Chris
Gallagher wrote, “the delight of not needing all the baggage of contemporary
art discourse before getting to the art” (Gallagher 1988: 38). Fafard’s art is
accessible and appeals to viewers from the general public and now to those in the
art world. But whether people like his art or not, there is a dearth of discussion
about Fafard’s cows.
An example of Fafard’s unorthodox treatment of cows is Daisy III (1980) (Figs.
1-2), who is represented in a “space wrinkle,” a massive fold which encloses
and conceals much of her body. When viewed from the front or from the rear,
the clay and glazed cow appears to be an ordinary farm animal. The detail and
the particular facial expression suggest that this is a portrait of a specific cow
and that the entire cow has been fully represented. But, on moving around to the
side, the viewer discovers the depth of Daisy III has been compressed. The
distance between her legs, and indeed her whole body, has been foreshortened
to such a great degree that it evokes a “space-wrinkle.” Fafard treated her body
as if it were hollow like a balloon instead of solid like a cow, an example of “play
on the idea of space and our perception of it” (Fafard and Whitney 1997). From
front and back, there is only the illusion of a whole cow. This unexpected
deception is a prime example of his use of perspective techniques intended for
two-dimensional artists. To most critics, this illustrates Fafard’s humour and
his role as a trickster of illusions (Walsh 1988/89: 21-22). How Fafard achieves
these illusions is the discussion here.
Visual artists throughout the twentieth century have been experimenting with
the concepts of time and space. Many artists have eliminated subject matter
86
Figure 1
Daisy III. 1980. Front view. Clay and glaze. 35.3 x 29.2 x 26.6 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the artist.
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Figure 2
Daisy III. 1980. Side view. Clay and glaze. 35.3 x 29.2 x 26.6 cm.
88
altogether and concentrated on the elements of art, shape, colour and line to
produce non-objective works of art. In fact, in his early career Fafard was a
kinetic sculptor, but his manipulation of cows to explore spatial dislocations
and in particular his wrinkled cows challenge the viewer’s perceptions of mass,
space and time. However, the combination of the varieties of spatial illusions
and cows disconcerts the viewer and critic to the extent that the cows merit little
critical attention. Perhaps, the sophistication of the formal spatial aspects of his
art and the down-to-earth nature of the cow inhibits the viewer.
In order to discuss the spatial concepts employed by Fafard, this paper will look
at the existing critical response to Fafard’s work in order to realize the
confusion that exists between the bovine subject matter and the spatial concerns
of his art work. Secondly, an examination of some individual cows will identify
the varieties of dislocation that Fafard uses. And thirdly, observation of his cow
subjects in relation to the laws of artistic perspective will determine the unique
approach of Fafard’s use of time and space.
From the beginning of his career, Fafard has exhibited both cows and portraits.
However, critics and reviewers dealing with Fafard’s art have traditionally
emphasized his portraits of people. He has depicted ordinary citizens and
celebrities as well as historical characters and contemporary political figures.
He has also portrayed fellow artist friends and artists from the past such as Van
Gogh and Cézanne (Vervoort 1993: 30). In a review of an exhibition in 1973,
Fafard’s intimate portrait sculptures are described: “And, finally three of
Fafard’s bovine friends lie in a corner chewing their clay cuds. . . .” (Heath
1973: 68). For a sculpture exhibit in 1987 of both people and cows, Fafard used
the title Cows and Other Luminaries. And, as usual, critics and reviewers
concentrated on the “other luminaries.” The cows are mentioned in most of
these reviews but given little space or attention. For instance, the cows are
identified as Fafard’s “prairie icons” (Borsa 1985: 32) or “personal totem
figure” or “heraldic emblem” (Walsh 1988/89: 20). Also, “Fafard’s emblem is
the equally humble domestic cow” and “Fafard is considerably more than a
talented cattleman. . . .” (James 1987: 69). Regarding the cows, it has been said
that “the ubiquitous creatures are the emblem of Fafard’s regionalism and
stand-ins for the landscape . . .” (Tousley 1988: 60). These comments indicate
that the subject matter takes precedence in the eyes of the critics and that the
cows show Fafard’s regionalism.
Cows are rural subjects, but certainly not limited to the prairies. In comparison,
Alex Colville in Nova Scotia has painted cows many times, but they are,
according to David Burnett, “among his most contemplative works” and impart
“the sense of unity in the natural world. . . .” (Burnett 1983: 167). Admittedly,
Colville paints and Fafard sculpts, but there is a difference in the way critics
perceive their work. Colville only does cows occasionally whereas Fafard does
them constantly; yet, the subject seems to be “rural” only when it is produced in
Saskatchewan.
Historical Context
A further indication of the difficulty critics have with Fafard’s cows is the
attempt to place them within an historical context. Cows appear in numerous
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historical landscape paintings, but are unusual as subjects for sculpture. The
analogies drawn in the Fafard literature, however, do not provide satisfaction.
For example, “when you think of cows in art it would be unlikely that Paulus
Potter’s Young Bull [1647] would not come to mind.” But Potter’s “animals are
generic” while Fafard’s are “distinct, presenting a personality.” Further
searching for a sculptural analogy, the same writer compared Fafard’s cows to
the Etruscan She-Wolf [c.500 B.C.], a highly stylized animal and certainly not a
cow (Walsh 1988/89: 21). Another writer indicated that “the cows link him to a
history of pastoral landscape painting that is centuries old” (Tousley 1988: 60).
Also, Fafard is concerned with “cattle on the Prairies as an integral part of the
landscape. . . .” (Pluralities 1980: 55). These analogies illustrate the lack of
precedence for the kind of art Fafard produces, and they demonstrate the
difficulties contemporary Canadian critics have in dealing with Fafard’s cows.
Fafard, himself, takes a disdainful attitude towards those who look at art with
“such motivations as discovering the artistic influences” which leads to
“academic sterility” (Mandel 1979: 19). But finding precedents is not the same
as identifying artistic influences, although both are a way of sorting, or
attempting, to position an artist within a larger context.
A few other twentieth century artists have produced works with the cow as a
subject, but these have been treated kindly in the critical literature for the
method of representation rather than for the subject matter; none of these have
been cited in the literature about Fafard. Alex Calder’s whimsical wire Cow
(1929), part of his circus series, was essentially a line drawing in space. Calder,
in fact, did a number of cows, but they are usually discussed as toys (Marter
1991: 83,92; Lipman 1976: 69, 244). Also from early in the century was the
three-panel painting titled Composition (the Cow) (1916-17) which Theo van
Doesburg used in his public lectures to demonstrate how to abstract a subject. In
the left panel was a naturalistic cow; in the centre, a cow distorted; and, the right
hand panel was a painting of shapes no longer recognizable as a cow (Barr
1977: 169). Van Doesburg’s subject and treatment was recycled on a huge scale
by Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, Cow Triptych (Cow Going Abstract) (1974)
(Coward 1981: 68-70). In 1965 and 1966, Andy Warhol produced his Cow
Wallpaper on the suggestion of Ivan Karp, director of the Leo Castelli Gallery,
because “they’re so wonderfully pastoral and such a durable image in the
history of art” (Ratcliff 1983: 54, 89-91). As these examples demonstrate,
Calder, van Doesburg, Lichtenstein and Warhol used the cow to manipulate
space and representation, ideas and techniques providing perhaps a more
suitable comparison with Fafard’s work than the Young Bull or the She-Wolf.
Fafard has made various statements about cows to emphasize that he is not
interested in them as a subject, but only as a form. He has said, “[c]ows are an
animal I know well, but more than that, they’re a shape you can, you know,
study.” Fafard continued:
. . . what I’m trying to do there is just understanding shape and form
and using them as an art form. I can change the spots on a cow, the
colours, and it’s perfectly legal. Sometimes I think I’m using cows
like painters use this rectangular frame. My frames are not square,
they’re just the shape of a cow (Ursell 1975: 34).
90
Fafard has also made other comments about cows to indicate his familiarity
with them as well as knowing some of them individually. “Cows,” Fafard has
said, “have a closer relationship with humans than any other animal” (Henker
1986: 52). Too, he has said:
Generally the cow has been much more useful to use as a motif for
solving sculptural problems. It’s a totally elastic thing that you can
stretch in one direction or the other, and you’ll never find cow critics
complain, either. They’ll never comment. Human beings are not so
elastic: they fight back (Enright 1988: 15).
These comments indicate that Fafard does care about cows and they are
subjects as well as forms. Commenting on his cow subjects, Fafard once stated:
“No one sets out to do thousands of cows” (Henker 1986: 53).
Fafard’s Early Career
After receiving his M.F.A. from Pennsylvania State University in 1968, Fafard
accepted a teaching position at the Regina campus of the University of
Saskatchewan, now the University of Regina, where there was a lively program
in both ceramics and sculpture. When Fafard arrived, he was a kinetic sculptor,
making abstractions which moved with the help of a motor. Later, he
commented on his kinetic works: “Masonite, paint, motorized foam rubber—
that sort of thing. I made flying French Fries, palm trees that waved in
nonexistent breezes, a high chair for adults” (Zwarun 1977: 24). He gave up
kinetic sculpture because “there is nothing more annoying than a work of art
that won’t work. And when you’re dealing with mechanical things, they’re
constantly breaking down” (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 47; Enright 1988:
11).
When Fafard joined the faculty at Regina, sculptor Ric Gomez and ceramicist
Jack Sures were teaching their students to model in clay and to emphasize this
modeling by leaving evidence on the surface (Fenton 1971: 19). Then the
Californians, David Gilhooly and David Zack, an art writer, joined the faculty
in 1969. Gilhooly was already well-known for his glazed clay frogs of
irreverent Funk art subjects. From observing Gilhooly’s art being produced and
particularly inspired by Gilhooly’s attitude that art is fun and that one can create
his own world, Fafard began producing plaster portraits and ceramic cows.
Eventually the portraits, first in plaster and later exclusively in clay, formed the
material for his exhibitions. From the beginning, Fafard modeled cows in clay,
but initially they were his “warm-up” exercises before working on the portraits.
Of his change in direction, from the kinetic to the ceramic, Fafard attributes to
his contact with Gilhooly: “Suddenly I realized it really didn’t matter what you
did as long as you did something that you felt was engaging and you didn’t have
to bother with this very heavy cerebral question about making ‘art’”
(Teitelbaum and White 1987: 47). After portraying his colleagues at the
university and his artist friends as well as his family, Fafard moved on to do
portraits of the people of Pense, the small town between Regina and Moose
Jaw, where he had lived from 1971 to 1984. He then expanded his community to
include prairie historical figures such as Louis Riel and Crowfoot. By 1982, he
was creating portraits of figures from art history such as Cézanne and van Gogh.
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Artists included in Fafard’s repertoire of portraits included those from the
Regina area who were like-minded with Fafard in rejecting the prevailing
interests of the art world in formalism. Importantly, from the time he first
portrayed his university colleagues, Fafard’s art friends included Russ Yuristy,
Vic Cicansky and David Gilhooly who, with Fafard, exhibited together as Six
Regina Artists in 1973, but were dubbed “Regina Funk” (Shuebrook 1973: 3941). This group along with a number of local “folk” artists shared the belief that
art should be personal by reflecting the artist’s immediate environment and that
it should reach out to the audience. In fact, the “fine” artists and the “folk” artists
collaborated on the Grain Bin in 1976 commissioned by The Saskatchewan
Olympics Art Committee as part of Saskatchewan’s display at the Montreal
1976 Olympic Games. The painted wooden “grain bin” contained a diorama of
rural farming in the 1920s and all its activities; the cows were by Fafard (Grain
Bin 1979: 6-7).
The links with California artists were important to the sculptors and ceramic
artists in Regina for the confirmation that clay was a suitable material for fine
art, an attitude that was new; previously clay was considered only as a material
for crafts (Gilhooly 1980: 4-11). In addition, the philosophy of art that
combined Pop art subjects with the implementation of the notion that art should
be fun and communicate with the viewers were crucial to Fafard’s development
as an artist.
Dislocations, Viewpoints and Perspectives
Cows, whether shapes or frames, provide a vehicle for Fafard’s experiments
with ideas about space and its representation. Because these ideas are explored
in the shape of cows, the timeliness and complexity of the images as well as
their aesthetic and conceptual qualities are often overlooked. However, the
spatial contortions are in step with developments in twentieth century art, but
also with ideas found in mathematics and physics, at least in popularized
science-fiction versions. Space is defined as “the intuitive three-dimensional
field of everyday experience” whereas space-time is “time and the threedimensional space regarded as fused in a four-dimensional continuum
containing all events” (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). The notion of time as
the fourth dimension challenges the idea of time as non-spatial whereas
dimension is a measure of spatial extent. Some art theorists early in the century,
for instance, attempted to link Cubist art and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, a
connection denied by Einstein himself (Richardson 1971: 111-2; Henderson
1983: xiii-xix, 353-365). Nevertheless, art texts continue to discuss notions of
space and time as art united with science and particularly with Einstein (Janson
1991: 720). Space, then, and its interpretation occupy an important role in the
literature of art and, as Fafard’s work demonstrates, in the practice of art. His
experiments with the manipulation of space and the resulting contortions may
perhaps be more in tune with science fiction than with theoretical mathematics,
but nevertheless attest to Fafard’s acquaintance with theoretical ideas about
space in art. Fafard’s contorted cows are his personal response to the ideas
about space and time prevalent in the art world, ideas that invite a visual
expression. Cows are not expected to be complicated, so Fafard’s
manipulations are eye-opening and instructive as he teaches the viewer to look
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and then to look again. The cows may strike a note of humour in the viewer’s
response, but they also display a sophisticated approach to spatial problems.
Fafard has used cows in at least six different ways to experiment with spatial
dislocation.
First of all, there are the straightforward portraits of cows. Fafard’s early cows,
modeled in clay and displayed on top of boxes or pedestals, received individual
or generic names, colouring and particular facial expressions. Some of these
cows are standing, for example Daisy I (1980), but many recline as does the
Great White Bull (1970) in order to overcome the technical problem of
supporting a heavy body on thin legs.
Spatial dislocation occurs when these animals turn up in unexpected places. An
example is Pasture (1985). Among Fafard’s best-known works, a group of
seven cows are slightly over full-size, and cast in bronze (Henker 1986: 52).
Reclining and relaxed, each cow is distinguished by a different patina; this was
Fafard’s first major bronze work. The cows that form Pasture are not unusual in
a farmer’s field, but unexpected when found on a small patch of grass at the
Toronto Dominion Centre surrounded by high-rise office buildings. The
placement of Pasture jolts the viewer because the cows are in the “wrong”
place, an urban setting. The ground under the cows, the landscape, is a minimal
patch of grass. Pasture, claims John Bentley Mays, reminds Toronto residents
of the “pastoral history of the site with a playful vengeance” (Mays 1985: D17).
Recently, Pasture became a media event when the cows were moved to
Montreal for a major Fafard exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts,
Joe Fafard: The Bronze Years from November 1996 to February 1997 (Jordan
1996: 16).
Secondly, there are the cows with names that create unexpected associations.
For example, Albert and Victoria (1988), the title conjures up one image from
history, but the sculpture depicts a mother cow and her calf (Walsh 1988/89:
20). Two other bronze cows from 1989 are titled Lascaux and Dubuffet after the
painted cave and the French artist, Jean Dubuffet. That cows are the subject is a
surprise, but not if one is familiar with Fafard’s work. Other depictions of cows
with names that evoke incongruities of time and place are House Bull (1982)
and Pet Cow (1980) (Figs. 3-4) since bulls are not found in houses and cows are
not pets. The names and titles, along with the specificity of facial features and
stances, indicate that these are portraits too.
In addition to exploring contemporary cows, Fafard has experimented with
historical representations of cows, also, as seen in his Assyrian Cows (1987)
(Teitelbaum and White 1987: 48). In Assyrian art, depth was suggested by
overlapping. To represent a row of overlapping animals, a single animal in
profile view was depicted, but the legs, heads and tails were multiplied. The
viewer was expected to determine the number of animals supposedly stretching
into the distance by counting the heads or legs. Here the representation of five
animals is in three-dimensions whereas the Assyrians who excelled at relief
sculpture presented the illusion of three dimensions. Fafard, in Assyrian Cows,
approached the same problem by depicting five animals in relief, each standing
on its own individual base, but positioned to form a staggered line. The cow in
front is seen clearly and each successive one has its head out in front of the
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Figure 3
House Bull. 1982. Back view. Clay and glaze. 43.6 x 77.3 x 22.2 cm.
Pet Cow. 1980. Front view. Clay and glaze. 40.7 x 56.8 x 10.4 cm.
Photo: Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Courtesy of the Artist.
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Figure 4
House Bull. 1982. Side View. Clay and glaze. 43.6 x 77.3 x 22.2 cm.
Pet Cow. 1980. Side View. Clay and glaze. 40.7 x 56.8 x 10.4 cm.
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previous one and the rumps rise successively above the previous cow’s sagging
back. The patina of each cow also distinguishes one from another while the
number of legs and the individual bases confirm the presence of five
overlapping cows. Their overlapping positions allow the historical allusion to
succeed, but also allows the viewer to observe Fafard’s alterations.
A third type of dislocation and manipulation is found in Fafard’s screenprints—
again with the subject of cows. These screenprints date from the 1970s, but
demonstrate again that Fafard’s concerns with the representation of space are
on-going, rather than a new development. In Bird (1977), the viewpoint is
experienced by a bird (and the viewer) flying over a farmer’s field where cows
are grazing (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 26; Moosehead 1987: 28). Seen from
above, the cows acquire unusual shapes, not unlike elongated but irregularlyshaped bowling pins which cast cow-like shadows. The cows are clearly
defined and most are solidly coloured whereas the cow shadows are created by
small patches of parallel lines arranged in facets reminiscent of Cézanne’s
brushwork. As a result, the cows appear to be flat shapes echoing the flatness of
the paper; the viewpoint from above eliminates the legs of the cows while most
of the shadows have legs. Fafard here has transformed something ordinary into
something new and, at the same time, challenges the viewer to look more
closely.
Pursuing the same theme but from a far greater height is Bird’s Eye (1978),
another screenprint. Here, the earth is egg-shaped and its entire surface is
divided into fields and water separated by fences. Populated only by cows, this
earth-egg presents the cows as irregular spotted shapes due to the height from
which they are viewed. Again, they are flat like the paper. DC-Neuf (1978) also
presents the earth as an egg but from a higher vantage point (Teitelbaum and
White 1987: 26). As these prints from the 1970s demonstrate, Fafard is
interested in spatial illusions and has been for some time. By the 1980s, Fafard
was experimenting with similar ideas in three dimensions.
Fafard and Clement Greenberg
Fafard’s acquaintance with Greenberg was only second-hand, but Greenberg’s
influence on Saskatchewan painters was profound; many of the painters, such
as the Regina Five, were connected with the University of Regina. Fafard did
not attend the Emma Lake Workshop conducted by Clement Greenberg in
1962, but he did participate in the 1968 workshop with American sculptor
Donald Judd, also a formalist who created minimalist boxes in series. The
influence of Greenberg was pervasive (Hudson 1970: 45; Fulford 1993: 18-21;
Williamson 1963: 196). Greenberg’s formal interests stressed the flatness of
the canvas surface as he urged painters to eliminate all hints of spatial illusion.
Or as Greenberg wrote: “Modernist painting meets our desire for the literal and
positive by renouncing the illusion of the third dimension” (Greenberg 1961:
139). Greenberg condemned the use of subject matter because it took the
“emphasis away from the medium” (Greenberg 1961: 25). In Saskatchewan,
Greenberg’s influence was strong and he was instrumental in the success of the
Regina Five, a group of painters who embraced the concept of flatness. But to
Fafard, Greenberg’s impact had a reverse effect. Although Greenberg directed
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his comments to painters, Fafard reacted against the dictates of a critic from
elsewhere urging Saskatchewan artists to create like New Yorkers (Heath
1985: 27). As Robert Fulford phrased the issue: “In this controversy Greenberg
would be pictured as a doctrinaire imperialist dictating rigid and formalistic
theories to Canadian artists. . . .” (Fulford 1993: 19). John O’Brian acknowledges
that Greenberg “created a controversy that simmers to this day. . . .” (O’Brian
1989: 35). In addition to conducting the workshop at Emma Lake, Greenberg
was commissioned to write a report of western Canadian art for Canadian Art
magazine. Here, Greenberg praised the “big attack” painters and particularly
“the specialness of art in Regina” by commending the work of Ronald Bloore,
Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Ted Godwin and Douglas Morton; all but
the latter were connected with the University of Regina. Also, in his article
Greenberg remarked on sculpture: “French Canada has a tradition of folk
sculpture, but somehow one doesn’t expect to find much in the way of sculpture
in Canada at large” (Greenberg 1963: 105). Ironically, Fafard is French
Canadian and very much in tune with folk art. But Fafard’s criticism of
Greenberg’s impact in Saskatchewan was not only a general one, but also
affected his workplace at the University of Regina with the painters and gallery
director favouring Greenberg’s views while Fafard and the other
sculptors/ceramists championing the Californian approach. New York and
California then, not Toronto or Montreal, supplied the contradictory
philosophies of art in Regina. Fafard left teaching in 1974 because the school’s
teaching emphasis, in his view, encouraged the students to tune into the newest
art fashions rather than to develop their own interests and skills (Heath 1985:
27). Thus, in the ideological battle about how one should teach art, the
Greenberg faction at Regina won.
Although Fafard disagreed with Greenberg’s ideas and his influence, the issues
must have seethed within Fafard until 1980 when he actually made four
portraits of Greenberg, full-length and head-and-shoulders; from the front,
these give the illusions of depth and three-dimensions, aided by the modelling
and colouring, but from the side view, these are revealed to be flat reliefs, giving
Greenberg a dose of his own philosophy. Clem stands with his hands in his
pockets and appears to be focusing on something in front of him, like a painting.
A smaller full-length figure is the maquette for Clem or Model of Clem with his
back left as unfinished, unpainted clay. Mark Cheetham says Fafard “puns with
the notions of surface and depth by literalizing them. . . .” (Cheetham 1991: 27).
Fafard’s flat Greenbergs have been reproduced in many publications and
clearly demonstrate again Fafard’s use of illusion; from one direction they
appear to be complete, three-dimensional portraits, from another they are
shallow reliefs (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 22-25). Peter White asserts in an
essay in the catalog of Cows and Other Luminaries that Fafard here makes
“flatness read as shallowness or narrowness” (Teitelbaum and White 1987:
24). That Fafard cared little for Greenberg’s ideas is legendary and when asked
by Robert Enright why he did “four pieces about a figure whose aesthetic has
been inimical to your own sense of how art is made?” Fafard’s response was: “I
think sometimes you have to work out your devils, get them out there so that
they’re no longer inside you.” On My Art Critic, the large, flat head of
Greenberg, Fafard said: “It was the first human face on which I used
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foreshortening, telescoping and flatness.” And, also that Greenberg was “an
appropriate person to flatten” (Enright 1988: 11-12). My Art Critic was fully
painted with acrylic paints to give Greenberg a life-like appearance whereas the
other Bust of Clem is monochromatic. The year 1980 was important for Fafard,
for in addition to his Greenberg portraits, he also flattened the Queen (Heath
1990: 26) and produced his wrinkled cows.
Because all of these works were created in a short span of time and the
Greenberg portraits were recognizable as well as able to recall the arguments
generated by Greenberg’s ideas and Fafard’s objections to them, the Greenberg
portraits have become “pivotal” in Fafard’s art (Teitelbaum and White 1987:
26). However, Fafard’s ideas about flattening figures and cows developed after
he read E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of
Pictorial Representation in 1980 as he prepared to teach at the University of
California at Davis for a semester. This campus was noted as the academic
home of California Funk art with artists such as Robert Arneson and William
Wiley on the faculty; David Gilhooly and Vic Cicansky were graduates of
Davis. Fafard remarked to Peter White that “art” to Gombrich meant painting
(Teitelbaum and White 1987: 28). Gombrich’s chapter on the “Ambiguities of
the Third Dimension” deals with the power of suggestion and explores the
“reading of images.” He noted “it is always hard to distinguish what is given to
us from what we supplement in the process of projection which is triggered off
by recognition” (Gombrich 1960: 242). From here, Gombrich focuses on
perspective and its tricks in the text and the illustrations, diagrams and art, but as
with most works on perspective, the emphasis is on two-dimensional art which
gives the illusion of three dimensions.
There are many types of perspective, but Gombrich emphasizes that developed
during the Italian Renaissance and which assumes a stationary viewer with one
eye. Most viewers of course have two eyes which perceive two slightly
different view points simultaneously and these are incorporated by the mind
into a single image. Further, the picture plane is assumed to be vertical, straight
in front of the viewer, but representations on the picture plane are actually
positioned perpendicular to the line of vision. Perspective drawing aims to
represent things as they are arranged in space, i.e., depth, and as if seen from a
single point of view. To draw an object in perspective requires the application
of geometry and mathematical measurement which in itself alters the object
being depicted by re-forming it, by distorting it for the sake of the internal
consistency of the picture. As viewers, however, we have been trained not to
notice these distortions and to read them as accurate portrayals of objects in a
“real” depicted space (Gombrich 1960: 250-58).
It is instructive to notice some of the examples used by Gombrich and to
discover that many of these challenge the prevalent Euclidean geometry. One
of these is Hogarth’s 1754 engraving called False Perspective which was the
frontispiece for a book about perspective. Hogarth’s engraving ridiculed those
who did not follow the rules by reversing the positions of the sheep and trees,
with the largest in the background and the smallest in the foreground. A
woodcut by M. C. Escher, Autre Monde (1947), appears to apply the laws of
recession, but the image is impossible. These and other examples in
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Gombrich’s text illustrate the “ambiguity of all images.” Gombrich also
confirmed Fafard’s view about subject matter when he stated: “Surely it is
artificial . . . to separate what we call ‘form’ from what we call ‘content’”
(Gombrich 1960: 99). Further, Gombrich reminds the reader that perspective
“rests on a simple and incontrovertible fact of experience, the fact that we
cannot look round a corner” (Gombrich 1960: 250). In two-dimensional art this
statement is true, but Gombrich does not deal with sculpture. Fafard takes these
ambiguities and the rules of perspective and applies them to his sculptures and
takes delight in the fact that, in his sculpture, one can indeed look around
corners. For example, Daisy III is “normal” from the frontal view, but the side
view partially consumed by a space wrinkle takes us around the corner to an
ambiguity of time and space.
Cows in Space Wrinkles
Most relevant in this context are the cows in space wrinkles, such as Daisy III,
which manipulate and distort the physical appearance of the cow. Returning to
Daisy III (1980) who is modeled in clay and glazed, there are also distortions or
alterations due to the medium. To support the weight of the cow’s body on four
thin legs is possible in nature, but not in clay. Fafard has adjusted Daisy’s
proportions, particularly the thickness of the legs, to enable them to support her
cumbersome bulk. From a frontal view, Daisy appears to be an entire cow with
all of her large bumpy body intact. The realism of detail from the tufts of hair on
her forehead to the emphatic eyebrows suggest a complete and intact cow. As
with My Art Critic, a slight shift in stance on the viewer’s part reveals that from
another viewpoint, Daisy has been compressed, the length between her legs
shortened considerably. She looks like she was squeezed between two hands,
one on her head and the other on her rump. Her body is all there, but the
proportions have been changed. The compression is due to the application of
foreshortening. This is a technique used traditionally by painters, to represent a
three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface, particularly when an
object is viewed from an angle. This was the device used by Paolo Uccello for
the horses and dead soldiers in his Rout of San Romano (c.1455). The
foreshortening suggests the entire horse or human figure is present, whereas in
actuality, the torsos have been compressed. This technique is well-known in
drawing and painting, but new to sculpture. We assume that Daisy III is whole
and complete, but as soon as we move and discover the illusion, we become
conscious of the tricks Gombrich described and that our sight is supplemented
by our recognition, our minds. Fafard’s applications of foreshortening and
other perspective devices to cows created a whole new phase of work.
Two other cows, created at different dates, but photographed together, are Pet
Cow (1980) and House Bull (1982) (Teitelbaum and White 1987: 28-29) (Figs.
3-4). Made of clay and glazed, they recline and face one another. The reclining
pose is often used by Fafard and offers one solution to the problem of
supporting the enormous bulk of the body on spindly legs. Frontally and from
the rear, the two appear to be complete, three-dimensional portraits of
particular bovines. But when the viewer shifts position to look between the
animals, the peculiar foreshortening and flattening effect is visible, suggesting
that the bodies, but not the heads, experienced the effects of a rolling pin. The
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ability of the viewer to change position and, therefore, change perspectives is
fully exploited by Fafard.
Taking this idea to another level, and even more contortions, is the Cow in
Space Wrinkle (1982) (Figs. 5-7). Again, the front and rear views appear
“normal” and we expect to see an entire animal whereas the side view displays
the head and front legs as expected, but the entire body has been collapsed and
eliminated. This changing of viewpoints as the observer moves around the
image is a three-dimensional exploration of the same illusions that perspective
teaches painters. But perspective rules instruct the painter on how to conceal
what has been eliminated while Fafard presents these literal interpretations for
eyes to see. The cow’s body is lost in a “space wrinkle,” a term belonging to
science fiction along with hyperspace. A wrinkle is a small furrow, a folding or
puckering of a normally smooth surface. Also, a wrinkle is defined as an
“ingenious new trick or innovation.” Combining several viewpoints in a single
cow as Fafard does compresses the time factor needed to view each one as well
as the actual space consumed by the cow portrait. Time is also involved as the
viewer moves around the sculpture. In the paintings of Cézanne or Picasso, the
combination of several viewpoints in a single work was startling at first, but we
have become accustomed to it. However, seeing these techniques in sculptures
of cows is new.
Fafard’s spatial manipulations are all the more challenging when sometimes a
cow sculpture presents an entire animal and other times, the cows are wrinkled
or “incomplete.” By exhibiting both types simultaneously, Fafard challenges
the viewer’s expectations. As Gombrich relays the history of theories about
vision, he concludes “it is our mind that weaves these sensations into
perceptions” which are “grounded on experience, on knowledge” (Gombrich
1960: 297). We are used to size distinctions and the fact that objects far away are
small, but we are not used to the elimination, the wrinkles, or the visibility of the
visual trick.
Contemporary Sculptors, Visual Perception and Fafard
Contemporaries of Fafard in the Canadian art world are also interested in the
issue of space, its representation and challenging expectations. In the work of
two fellow sculptors, Don Proch (b. 1944) and Michael Snow (b. 1929), their
interests obviously parallel those of Fafard, but the bases of their experiments
arise from different premises. For example, Proch’s three-dimensional
fiberglass sculptures of heads, masks and figures provide surfaces for drawings
of the prairie landscape executed in graphite and silverpoint. Drawing is a twodimensional technique, but in Proch’s work, the three-dimensional surfaces
require the spectator to move around each of his masks. The landscape is
fragmented and the masks themselves; for example, Manitoba Mining Mask,
1976, resembles an altered human head merging with a mining mask plus
smoke stack. The delicate drawings on the surface and their suggestion of the
endless prairie contrast with the startling shapes and the surreal implications of
their mask-head-surfaces. In Proch’s work, the traditional distinctions between
the two- and three-dimensional blur (Vervoort 1991: 134). In fact, Proch has
said, “I consider my pieces three dimensional drawings” (Kroker and Hughes
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Figure 5
Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Front view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm.
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Figure 6
Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Rear view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm.
102
Figure 7
Cow in Space Wrinkle. 1982. Side view. Clay and glaze. 37.1 x 23.4 x 30.6 cm.
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1986: 239). Both Fafard and Proch attended the University of Manitoba in the
early 1960s; Fafard earned his B.F.A. degree in 1966. The two sculptors have
also participated in the same exhibitions, such as Western Untitled in 1976
(Heath 1970). The landscape is dominant in Proch’s work whereas in Fafard’s
view the cow is “some aspect of the landscape” (Visions Guide 1983: 30).
While both come from Prairie backgrounds and received a similar training,
Fafard and Proch deal with problems of visual perception by employing
different materials and techniques as well as with different subject matter.
Michael Snow’s Walking Woman series, created between 1961 and 1967,
included painted and collaged versions as well as free-standing sculptural
examples. Characteristic of the execution of all the Walking Woman in the
series was her “flatness,” a quality that belied her striding pose. As Snow wrote
in 1967: “All the work till recently used the same contour of a walking figure as
a constant” (Snow 1994: 17). Snow, as a painter, found the cut-out to be an
answer to the problem of the “figure/ground relationship and the avoidance of
illusionistic spatial recession.” Or as Louise Dompierre has said of the Walking
Woman, it “acted simultaneously as subject and form which, in turn, was used,
among other things, to explore various possibilities of spatial relationships.”
And, “the W.W. cut-out was figure/form/content” (Dompierre 1983: 36-37). In
Snow’s sculptural versions, the identical image found in the paintings and
paper cut-outs, is immediately visible. For Example, Project (1961) displays
the Walking Woman silhouetted on a series of stepped boxes attached to the
wall. The format allows for depth, but the silhouette, now sectioned, is
presented on four different levels, but the silhouette is still flat and the pose is
still striding (Michael Snow Project 1994: 134). Also from 1961 are Rolled
Woman I and Rolled Woman II which wrap the flat cut-out silhouettes around
cardboard tubes. In Rolled Woman I, two tubes placed horizontally within the
deep frame allow the mid-section of the canvas cut-out to remain recognizable
whereas in Rolled Woman II, the single vertical tube is wrapped more tightly
and the paper cut-out woman is only recognizable in the context of the series. In
all of these examples, the “constant” of the essentially two-dimensional cut-out
is the same; she might be presented in different forms and materials, but she is
always flat. Even in the stainless-steel extended cut-outs that Snow made for
Expo ’67, such as Stretched Figure (1967), the ends of the works are the
familiar silhouette of the Walking Woman. They may have depth, but the
drawn-out aspect makes them unrecognizable as human figures when seen
from the side. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s Walking Woman (1961) constructs
the familiar and recognizable silhouette with irregularly shaped blocks of wood
so that the surfaces are uneven, but which overall is the most three-dimensional
depiction of the series (Dompierre 1983: 148-149). Even in the cut-paper
invitations for the opening of an exhibit at The Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, Snow
folded and ironed (“foldages”) each invitation to create individual small-scale
works of art, but whether folded or unfolded, they were still the familiar cut-out
Walking Woman. Whether working in miniature or with large scale casts,
Snow’s interest in the figure, the silhouette, and the framing or non-framing of
the image emphasizes the singularity of that image and the multiplicity of
approaches to materials and surfaces.
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Nowhere in the Walking Woman series, however, does Snow collapse the
volume of the figure as Fafard does with his cows. Snow’s women from
beginning to end in his series never take on the characteristics of a figure-in-theround whereas Fafard’s cows are usually three-dimensional and only in some
cases is the volume partially collapsed. The position of the viewer before the
Walking Woman is usually vertical and face to face with the Woman usually
represented as five feet tall (Snow 1994: 17). The small scale of many of
Fafard’s cows and their display on pedestals or the life-size examples placed on
the floor or ground, e.g., The Pasture, positions the viewer to look down on the
sculptures. In addition, Snow’s exploration of a single image in as many
variations as possible is not the same as Fafard’s cows which vary in
appearance from work to work with each cow or bull’s expression having the
individuality of a portrait. Snow and Fafard treated their subjects as both
subject and form. Nevertheless, the premises which prompted each artist to
dwell on a single subject, their individual examples and particularly the
materials have resulted in entirely different conclusions. And finally, there is no
evidence of Fafard being aware of Snow’s art. Snow was included in an
exhibition at Regina’s Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery in 1967, but Fafard did
not arrive to teach at the University of Regina until the next year. The idea of
working in series or repeating the same subject in numerous variations,
however, has been a characteristic of Western art since the time of the
Impressionists.
Fafard in the 1990s
More recently, Fafard’s experiments lead in another direction, but one still
connected with issues of space. Berthe (1990) is a cow constructed of sheets of
wax and cast in bronze. The assemblage of the sheets remains visible in the
finished product and the inability of the sheets to fully define the cow is
exploited. From a three-quarter view, Berthe appears complete, but from a
closer view the gaps between the sheets are visible and reveal Berthe as hollow.
In addition, a piece of the head and ear are eliminated although, from most
angles, these omissions are not visible. As Terrence Heath observes: “. . . from
many angles these sculptures are ‘abstract’; like the best art of all cultures, they
are balanced on that fine line between representation, pure form and concept”
(Heath 1990: 25-26). Berthe’s appearance results in a different experience of
space because of the different medium, the slab technique.
Lately, Fafard’s art has turned in another direction, but he is still manipulating
space and illusion. His latest works are three-dimensional outlines cut from
stainless steel sheets. The cows, bulls and horses, however, are larger in scale
than his earlier clay cows, but the new depictions are basically all space. Only
the contours remain to define the shape of the animals; they have height and
width, but no depth. Interior lines to represent manes, eyes or tails are kept to a
minimum; the crisp lines are sharp and clear because they are laser-cut.
(Kellogg 1994: D15). Fafard’s galleries have photographed these in the
landscape so that fields, horizon line and sky become part of the animals as, for
example, Gordon and Jill (1993) are recognizable as cattle but presented in
their natural milieu for the Susan Whitney Gallery advertisement (Susan
Whitney 1993: 12). As Gordon and Jill reveals, these recent works are more
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space than line, they are both pictorial and sculptural. These three-dimensional
lines form the shapes of cattle and depend on the viewer’s mind to fill in what
the artist has eliminated. Rounded lines predominate. Their spatial presence
does not stop at the physical boundaries indicated by the contour lines, but
extends to encompass the setting. These new linear cattle have the potential to
blend with their surroundings whether indoors or out. They are space and air.
Some of Fafard’s recent exhibitions have featured only his animals, a situation
which has forced reviewers to pay some attention to the cows. Even so, mention
of his human figures is inevitable as a review of Fete Champetre: Recent
Patinated Bronze Sculpture, an exhibit of 13 bronze works, demonstrates as
Fafard’s representations of Diefenbaker, Queen Elizabeth and Greenberg are
recalled (Heath 1990: 25-26). Another exhibit, Wild Things: Animals in
Contemporary Art was successful according to a reviewer because of the
“integrity” of individual works, that “animals have been such a compelling
subject in the history of Western art” and because many of the animals
exhibited “show off animals that have become artists’ trademark” like “Joe
Fafard’s broad-beamed cows. . . .” A photograph of Alexander is “among the
interesting works on display” (Gilmor 1991: C34). Unlike portraits of people
where the reviewer can remark on the likeness achieved and the expression of
personality, the representation of animals still leaves critics almost speechless.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s publicity for Joe Fafard: The Bronze
Years assured visitors they would not be stampeded by the cattle by Joe Fafard
“the figurative artist.”
As Nancy Tousley observed, “what Fafard means to tell us with his spatial
illusions and distorted proportions is that there is no one way of looking at
anything” (Tousley 1988: 60). And Fafard himself has said that “a fresh and
ordered work of art” succeeds when it can “re-create itself in the soul of the
viewer” (Mandel 1979: 19). These achievements by Fafard are in accord with
the philosopher Peter Ouspensky’s ideas about the role of the artist:
The artist must be a clairvoyant; he must see that which others do not
see; he must be a magician; must possess the power to make others see
that which they do not themselves see, but which he does see
(Henderson 1983: 251).
Fafard’s cows in all their various appearances whether looked at from an
unexpected angle, location, or “around a corner” with unexpected wrinkles and
flattening or the latest line reliefs are a successful means of manipulating the
viewer who after viewing a few Fafard cows can no longer rely any longer on
the preconceived expectations set up by a single viewpoint. The complexity of
Fafard’s cows and their spatial contortions are in step with twentieth century
art’s interest in space. Fafard’s cows entice viewers to walk around the
sculptures, to examine them from various angles, and, at the same time, to
become conscious of the process of viewing. To be aware of the perspective
systems used for the representations of these cows in three dimensions also
delights the viewer. Imaginative, thought-provoking and humorous, Fafard’s
cows teach us about looking and then looking again.
106
Acknowledgment
The author is indebted to two anonymous referees for their insightful comments on an earlier
version of this paper. Special thanks are due to R. Ferguson for reviewing the manuscript. A
shorter version of this paper was presented to the Interdisciplinary Conference on Time and
Space at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland, May 9-13,
1990.
References
Barr, A. H., Jr. 1977. Painting and Sculpture in The Museum of Modern Art, 1929-1967. New
York: Museum of Modern Art.
Borsa, J. 1985. “Joe Fafard,” Vanguard, XIV (February 1985), 32.
Burnett, D. 1983. Colville. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario / McClelland and Stewart.
Cheetham, M. with L. Hutcheon. 1991. Remembering Postmodernism: Trends in Recent
Canadian Art . Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Cowart, J. 1981. Roy Lichtenstein 1970-1980. New York: Hudson Hills Press and Saint Louis
Museum of Art.
Dompierre, L. 1983. Walking Woman Works: Michael Snow 1961-1967. Kingston: Agnes
Etherington Art Centre.
Enright, R. 1988. “Working in the Flatland: An Interview with Joe Fafard,” Border Crossings, 7: 1
(January ), 10-20.
Fenton, T. 1971. “1950 to the Present,” in Saskatchewan: Art and Artists. Regina: Norman
Mackenzie Art Gallery/Regina Public Library.
Fulford, R. 1993. “The Greenberg Effect,” Canadian Art, 10 (Summer ), 18-21.
Fry, P. 1980. “Joe Fafard,” in Pluralities. Ottawa: National Gallery of Art.
Gallagher, C. 1988. “Joe Fafard,” Vanguard, 17: 38-39.
Gilhooly, D. 1980. “Introduction” in The Continental Clay Connection. (Regina: Norman
Mackenzie Art Gallery), 4-11.
Gilmor, A. 1991. “Animal Imagery Leaps out in Gallery’s Wild Things,” Winnipeg Free Press,
December 14, C34.
Gombrich, E. H. 1960. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation,
The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1956 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
Bollingen Series. 1960), 240.
Greenberg, C. 1961. Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Boston: Beacon Press), 139.
Greenberg, C. 1963. “Clement Greenberg’s View of Art on the Prairies,” Canadian Art, 20: 2
(March/April), 90-107.
Heath, T. 1990. “The Accessible Innovator,” Border Crossings, 9 (July ), 25-26.
Heath, T. 1985. “The Figure of Fafard,” Brick (Fall 1985), 27.
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Heath, T. 1970. Western Untitled. Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute.
Henderson, L. D. 1983. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art
(Princeton: Princeton University Press), esp. xiii-xix, 353-365.
Henker, B. 1986. “How Now, Bronze Cow?” Alberta Report, 13 (February 24,), 52.
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Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 45-46.
James, G. 1987. “The Gifted Hands of a Prairie Populist,” Maclean’s, 100 (November 16), 69-70.
Janson, H. W. 1991. History of Art, 4th ed., rev. by A. F. Janson. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall .
Jonson, A. 1978. “The Down-to-Earth Art of Joe Fafard,” Reader’s Digest, 112 (May 1), 169-174.
Jordan, B. A. 1996. “Fast Forward,” Canadian Art, 13: 4 (Winter), 16.
Kellogg, A. 1994. “Extraordinary Art from an Ordinary Joe,” The Winnipeg Free Press, June 12,
D15.
Kroker A. and Hughes, K. J. 1986. “Technology and Emancipatory Art: The Manitoba Vision,”
Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, X: 1-2 (1986), 221-247.
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Art, 1976.
Mandel, E. 1979. “A Comprehensible World: The Works of Cicansky, Thauberger, Yuristy and
Fafard,” artscanada, 36, (October/November), 19.
Marter, J. M. 1991. Alexander Calder (New York: Cambridge University Press), 83, 92.
Mays, J. B. 1988. “A Full Dance Card for Art,” The Globe and Mail, September 10, C4.
Mays, J. B. 1985. “Things are Looking up for Public Art,” The Globe and Mail, November 23,
D17.
The Michael Snow Project: Visual Art 1951-1993. 1994. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario / Power
Plant.
Moosehead. 1987. Moosehead Press Ten Years: 1977-1987. Winnipeg: Moosehead Press.
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O’Brian, J., ed. 1989. The Flat Side of the Landscape: The Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops.
Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery.
Ratcliff, C. 1983. Andy Warhol. New York: Abbeville Press.
Richardson, J. A. 1971. Modern Art and Scientific Thought (Urbana: University of Illinois Press),
111-2.
Shuebrook, R. 1973. “Regina Funk,” in Art and Artists, 8 (August), 39-41.
Snow, M. 1994. The Collected Writings of Michael Snow. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University
Press.
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Teitelbaum, M. and White, P. 1987. Joe Fafard: Cows and Other Luminaries 1977-1987.
Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery and Regina: Dunlop Art Gallery.
Tousley, N. 1988. “Community Spirit,” Canadian Art, 5 (Spring 1988), 56-61.
Ursell, G. 1975. “Joe Fafard,” Emerging Arts West, 1 (October ), 30-35.
Vervoort, P. 1991. “Masking and Mapping the Prairie Landscape: Fragments in 2-D and 3,”
British Journal of Canadian Studies, 6: 1, 129-140.
Vervoort, P. 1993. “Re-Constructing Van Gogh: Painting as Sculptures,” in The Low Countries
and Beyond, ed. R. S. Kirsner. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 15-33.
Visions: Artists and the Creative Process: Postsecondary Guide. 1983. Toronto: Ontario
Educational Communications Authority.
Walsh, M. 1988/89. “The Prairie Trickstering of Joe Fafard,” Artpost, 31: 21-22.
Williamson, M. 1963. “South of the Borduas-Down Tenth Street Way,” Letter to the editor.
Canadian Art, 20: 3 (May/June), 196.
Zwarun, S. 1977. “That artist fella: Welcome to the Neighborhood, Joe Fafard,” Maclean’s, 90
(July 25), 23-25.
108
Beverley Curran
Mitoko Hirabayashi
Translation: Making Space for a New Narrative in
Le désert mauve
Abstract
Nicole Brossard’s novel, Le désert mauve, is a dialogue between two versions
of a story. In the imaginative space between the intentions of the writer and
the understanding of the reader, the process of translation functions as a
narrative in which the relationship between reality and fiction, between the
reader and the writer, is always questioned. Constrained by the text which
precedes her reading, yet intimately involved with the text she imagines, the
translator translates herself from reader to writer to slant “la réalité du côté
de la lumière.”
Résumé
Le roman intitulé Le désert mauve de Nicole Brossard est un dialogue entre
deux versions d’une même histoire. Dans un espace imaginaire situé entre les
intentions de l’auteur et la compréhension du lecteur, le processus de
traduction prend la forme d’une narration où le lien entre la réalité et la
fiction, entre le lecteur et l’auteur, est toujours mis en doute. Contrainte par le
texte qui précède sa lecture tout en participant intimement au texte qu’elle
imagine, la traductrice passe du rôle de lectrice à celui d’auteure pour faire
pencher « la réalité du côté de la lumière ».
Le désert mauve has been in print for a decade, and Nicole Brossard, in a recent
interview, confirmed her continuing fascination with translation, particularly
as an “act of passage”:
an act of passage, well, of course, from one language to another, but
also, for me, it functions the same way as passing from reality to
fiction, or from fiction to reality. So it’s the transformation of a reality,
of a world into another one with slight alteration.1
Brossard uses the indefinite article to refer to reality, indicating there are
multiple versions of this “familiar idea which appears obvious,” 2 and
suggesting different versions of reality for women and for men. Her character,
Mélanie, the narrator of Laure Angstelle’s Le désert mauve, reflects, “[l]a
réalité avait un sens, mais lequel?” (28). Brossard raises many such troubling
questions in her writing. She asks questions because she writes not about what
she knows, but is enticed by the horizon, and what she can only approach in her
writing. For her, a book:
IJCS / RIÉC
should make you ask questions. I write to explore, to understand more
and to discover. And I want the reader to do the same—to stop, to
question, to explore with me while reading the text. If my writing is
full of rupture, it is . . . my way of creating new spaces for new meaning
which would not appear if I wrote in a linear way.3
Translation is a narrative which adds a new dimension to Brossard’s writing by
always questioning the relationship between reality and fiction, between the
reader and the writer. Translation is a form of writing which lets a woman
explore “who she is”4; Brossard provides a model for the translation, like
Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, the English translator of Le désert mauve,
each of whom asserts, “I am already a translation by being bilingue, I am
already a translation by being a lesbian feminist, I am already a translation by
being a woman.”5 The process of translation engages the woman as both a
reader and a writer, negotiating meaning in an imaginative space which is
nevertheless constrained by the original text which precedes her reading.
Again, questions make translation an open space of ontological inquiry:
La question qui se pose en traduction est celle du choix. Quel
signifiant privilégier, élire pour animer en surface les multiples
signifiés qui s’agitent invisibles et efficaces dans le volume de la
conscience? (JI 23)
Brossard constructed her novel, Le désert mauve, by becoming her own reader
and asking questions, imagining dialogues between the characters she had
already created:
I wrote the first book . . . but then after I wrote that first part, I
personally wanted to know more about the characters. I didn’t know
anything about them so I was curious to find out about the place where
they lived; about their childhood; to imagine the dialogues they would
have together . . . so that is why the second part exists because of my
natural curiosity to find out about the characters I had given existence.
(Interview)
With “that obsession with understanding the act of writing” (Interview) which
is an ubiquitous concern in her novels, Brossard interrupts her own writing
process in order to read and to imagine what has been left for “the page ahead.”6
This “interactive discourse”7, the strategy for developing Le désert mauve, is
illustrated in the text by the dialogue between the two versions of a story, and
between two writers, one of whom is an active reader, a translator. Brossard’s
novel is a structural triptych, consisting of Laure Angstelle’s novel, Le désert
mauve, and a translation of Angstelle’s book, Mauve, l’horizon, by Maude
Laures. In the space between the two sites of writing, the translator imagines the
possibilities of the text she has read, “re-imagining the characters’ lives, the
objects, the dialogue” (Interview). Between the versions of the desert story, she
creates a fluid dimension of desire, a “space to swim with the words”
(Interview).
That fluid space spills over the ostensible borders between the texts, and
multiple levels of narration flow together. The universe of the “narratrice dont
le nom, Mélanie” (56) is differently configured, with a different narrative voice
in the imagination of Maude Laures, in dialogues between characters, between
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Making Space for a New Narrative
translator and author, and in the translation. The production Mauve, l’horizon
adds another level of narration in the imagination of a new reader. This
narrative spiral is another distinct version of the intertextual narrative described
by Louise H. Forsyth in her preface to Picture Theory:
Dans l’univers de la narratrice principale circulent, à plusieurs
niveaux textuels, de nombreuses écrivaines et narratrices qui se
rassemblent, se ressemblent et se répètent. C’est ainsi qu’on fait
émerger une communauté et une culture . . . Le réseau mobile
d’écrivaines, de narratrices et de lectrices . . . est le noyau d’une
communauté interprétive par laquelle Brossard compte transformer le
paysage ontologique de l’humanité . . . (18)
In Brossard’s fiction, she imagines women, as writers, readers, translators and
storytellers, speaking to each other openly.
Within Angstelle’s text, Mélanie’s first writing takes place in the desert, in her
mother’s car, using a page from the small notebook kept in the glove
compartment for recording oil changes and other car maintenance. From that
moment of writing, Mélanie is in search of a reader. She tries to draw her mother
into a different configuration of intimacy, to talk to her through her writing:
Je harcelais ma mère pour qu’elle lise le peu que j’avais écrit. Mes
fautes! Je voulais qu’elle corrige tout ça. Je laissais traîner le cahier sur
le téléviseur ou sur le plancher, bien en vue. (27)
In “flaunting” her writing and juxtaposing her text against the television,
Mélanie places her writing, her tentative words and her anxious excitement
about them and how they might be read, next to television, “the Book of
Patriarchy” (Interview). To Mélanie’s disappointment, the television remains
on, and the stories her mother tells to her lover, Lorna, are “quelques histoires
qu’elle avait lues dans le Time ou le Convention Globe. À la fin du récit,
quelqu’un mourait, s’en allait ou dévoilait un secret” (27): the familiar linear
texts with their predictable narrative of closure. Without a reader, Mélanie is a
writing subject who cannot find her partner in an intimate dialogue: “Je ne peux
tutoyer personne” (32/51). She is “a subject in process, moving, changing, a
being in pursuit of” (AL 133).
At another level of the narrative is the translator, Maude Laures, located within
the text through her reading, and the text located within her through the writing
of her translation. She is aware of the risk of translating the mauve desert of her
reading into the mauve horizon of her own writing, “peur panique de se
substituer à l’auteure de ce livre” (57), but “[e]n ce début de décembre, son désir
est grand, résulté de l’approche et de la possibilité croisées de quelques
transformations” (58).
Le pourrait-elle sans confondre l’horizon et le désert, ces espaces
venus, par effraction, se greffer sur son monde urbain et sur les figures
qui, en elle, ne toléraient pas de désastre? (58)
Maude Laures is drawn into the pages of “ce livre écrit par une femme dont elle
ne sait rien sinon la preuve présumée d’une existence recluse dans le temps et
l’espace franchi d’un seul livre” (55). From her first readings of “ce livre
insolite trouvé dans une librairie de livres usagés” (121), she boldly confronts
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“the issue of control. Who owns the meaning of the black marks on the page, the
writer or the reader?”8 and “decides that this book will belong to her”;
and that she can do everything because she has fallen in love with the
book, and therefore she’s taken possession of the book, the author, the
characters, the desert. (Interview)
In her intimate exploration of the text in terms of her desire, in her “intention de
faire passer” (61), Maude Laures negotiates the “aller-retour” (61) between
fiction and reality, between the tangible “innocent” novel of Laure Angstelle
and her own translation, located in the virtual reality of her imagination.
Although Maude Laures can read of Mélanie, and only imagine the author of
“l’univers de la narratrice dont le nom, Mélanie,” (58) she is as attracted to the
“auther” as she is to the characters. Indeed, Maude Laures, in her
deconstruction of the novel in the process of preparing her translation, includes
Laure Angstelle among the characters. Imagining Laure Angstelle becomes a
“pre-text” ritual to begin the daily act of writing, translating the text:
La nuit, Maude Laures rêvait de son livre et le jour, avant même de
s’adonner aux principes de l’audace et de la prudence elle pensait à
Laure Angstelle. Cela la rassurait de savoir qu’elle était libre de tout
(imaginer) à son sujet. (61)
Brossard’s desire in writing Le désert mauve included the intention “to translate
myself from French to French” (Interview); in the text, the process of
translation is taking place within one language, between language and body,
and in the writing of a woman’s tongue. In “Reading Nicole Brossard,” Susan
Knutson describes the writer’s use of the figure of translation
not so much as an exploration of the physical frontiers of languages or
cultures—although these are still present as fictions, as metaphors, as
incitations—but rather as the drive to reach the internal horizons of
meaning and the consciousness or construction of reality. (12)
Sherry Simon points out that “the installation of the figure of the translator
within the text suggests images of cultural space which are complex and
multiple”9 without elaborating on the configuration of that space. Pamela
Banting is more specific about the implications of translation as a way of
“rewriting within literary systems”:
Women’s language is a simultaneous translation between language
and body . . . Furthermore, the (m)other tongue is not a language that
can be translated out of or into . . . it is a language which emerges only
in a complex and multivalent act and can only be comprehended in
two or more languages at once.10
And in more than one genre, according to Brossard, who feels that “women’s
subjectivity needs all the genres at the same time. The way we re-route words to
our own experience opens up entire zones of unknown and unspoken
dimensions of reality” (SD 64). It is with this intention that Maude Laures sets
her reading beside Laure Angstelle’s writing:
Le temps était venu du corps à corps avec le livre . . . D’une langue à
l’autre, il y aurait du sens, . . . contour et rencontre du moi . . . Maude
112
Laures savait que le temps était maintenant venu de se glisser
anonyme et entière entre les pages. (177)
As Maude Laures plunges, engrossed, into the book of Laure Angstelle, she
feels “the sensational effects of reading as a feeling we cannot express unless
we underline” (AL 157). In a desire to do more than just read the words, she
marks the pages, tattooing them with her own inks, breaking the book’s
bindings and turning it into a collection of pages held together by elastic bands:
Toutes les pages étaient annotées, ici le bleu polysémie, le vert piste
sonore, le rouge à vérifier, le noir incompréhensible, le jaune familier,
le rose quel genre?, le mauve quel temps? Dans les marges, des
attentions qui pouvaient passer pour des remarques à la mine. Parfois
un dessin pour faciliter la représentation.
au bas de la page éliminer tous les comme si possible (169)
The techniques of the translator uncover and employ signifiers, such as
“ellipses, footnotes [and] orthographical conventions,” which
occupy a textual space of loss or oversight. Apparently escaping the
laws of representation, they are overlooked by interpretative
procedures. Often thought to be matters of style rather than substance,
perfunctory rather than perfomative, these signifiers occupy a textual
space that overlaps a cultural space, a margin of difference or a
vanishing point of meaning, that is psychosexually coded
“feminine.”11
Maude Laures’ attention to the margins is meticulous, and draws her reader’s
eye to what is overlooked or ignored in the act of reading. The chapters of Laure
Angstelle’s novel are marked by the predictable headings “chapitre un,”
“chapitre deux” through to “chapitre huit.” This is a structural convention we
take for granted in reading a novel, and a reader will barely glance at the
divisional marker before reading. But Maude Laures adjusts the orthography,
translating “chapitre” to “chaptitre,” drawing our eye to an unlikely site of
surprise.
Maude Laures also translates the representations of numbers in the chapter
headings and within the text from words to figures. The translator’s use of
mathematical figures on the pages of the translator’s text tangles her identity
with Angela Parkins, the geometrist. The languages of the translator and the
geometrist are both “capable de représentation et ayant le sens du territoire, un
grand territoire qui recouvrait plusieurs états” (99). From another perspective,
these figures are part of “l’homme long,” and their appearance upon the pages
of the translation, especially in the final chapter, heighten the subliminal
menace of that character, just as the translation of that character from “l’homme
long” to “l’hom’oblong” increases the threat of his more substantial presence.
The figures also draw Mélanie differently; her “quinze ans” becomes “15 ans,”
linking her in a “figurative” association with Angela Parkins and “l’homme
long,” and also with the road and the map of her restlessness. In Laure
Angstelle’s novel, Mélanie drives to Albuquerque to meet her cousin, “the only
girl or woman that she thought she could be in touch with easily” (Interview),
driven by the attraction for another woman which she had felt in the presence of
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Angela Parkins. She passes the junction of “10” and “25,” the signs of the two
roads presented graphically in Angstelle’s text. This junction is “real,” and
could be found on a map of the southwestern States or encountered while
driving from Tucson to Albuquerque. However Maude Laures changes the
coordinates of this junction, replacing “25” with “15,” unsettling “certitude”
and “reality” by translating the road into a time warp, where Mélanie’s “15”
years is the site of the story.
Maude Laures’ footnote reminds her to attempt to “éliminer tous les comme si
possible” in her translation, but here, she introduces one instead. Whereas
Laure Angstelle’s text reads, “La route était un décalage horaire perdu dans
l’air tremblant de l’horizon” (32), Maude Laures writes “La route était comme
un décalage horaire imperceptible dans l’air tremblant” (201), creating the
simile and removing the horizon, suggesting that this is a moment where the
subjectivity of the reader/translator did not meet that of the author, resulting in a
distancing. It is not the only place where Maude Laures “leaves out” the horizon
in Laure Angstelle’s text. In her consideration of all the dimensions of the
novel, such as the desert, dawn, fear and reality, she does not include the
horizon, although she situates it beyond the text, in the title of her translation,
Mauve l’horizon.
But the similes Maude Laures does eliminate are those which make
associations with women’s bodies. Mélanie writes of the surprise of finding her
mother and Lorna making love: “Un soir, je surpris dans l’obscurité de leur
chambre ma mère, épaules et nuque tendues comme une existence vers la nudité
de Lorna” (18) [italics added]. The translation of this passage reads, “Lorsque
je la voyais si près de Lorna et qu’entre elles il y avait juste assez de distance
pour que j’imagine en leur corps une excitation, les images défilaient en moi,
nuque, nudité, épaules heureuses” (188). Her decision favours the erotic
association of the bodies over the cerebral association of “existence” and the
nude body of a woman. As Pamela Banting explains in her discussion of
Daphne Marlatt’s use of the simile:
In the simile, it is forms which are analysed and compared. The
traditional use of the simile reinforces metaphysics. In this formal
analysis there is no room for erotic attachments. . . . Erotic attraction is
not always or even necessarily based on similarity: erotics is based
upon the play of sameness and difference. Rather than producing
analogy, this other kind of simile is based upon . . . the process of
attraction between two bodies.12
That attraction also takes place between writing and speaking. In the text are
conversations rendered as sound, where the meaning of the spoken word does
not matter. “Sound teases out the sense: the ear leads the mind in new
directions.”13 There is the memory of Mélanie’s first meeting with Lorna, her
mother’s lover:
La première fois que j’ai vu Lorna, je l’ai trouvée belle et j’ai prononcé
le mot « salope ». J’avais cinq ans. Au souper, ma mère lui souriait.
Elles se regardaient et quand elles parlaient leurs voix étaient pleines
d’intonations. J’observais obstinément leurs bouches. Lorsqu’elles
prononçaient des mots qui commençaient par m, leurs lèvres
114
disparaissaient un instant puis gonflées se réanimaient avec une
incroyable rapidité. Lorna dit qu’elle aimait le moly et la mousse de
saumon. (12)
The topic of food, the repetition of the sound “m” and the minute focus on the
way the lips form that sound attract the reader to the mouths of Lorna and
Mélanie’s mother. This “eroticization of the oral cavity” (TTF 35), the
attraction between the sounds, focusses the reader on lips and mouths, their
sounds and textures, and interrupts the text and the reader’s concentration,
setting both adrift. “Oralization reorders textual spatiality, subverting the
distance and separation between object and subject, word and thing, on which
the symbolic is premised” (TTF 35), leaning into the text until it seems to lose
its balance.
At her first meeting with Angela Parkins, listening to her conversation in the
Bar, Mélanie hears words she does not understand about things she does not
know, but the voice and the beauty of Angela Parkins resonate within her, her
body and the sounds of words linked in an erotic association:
Un soir, je pus enfin voir cette Angela Parkins dont ma mère parlait
souvent . . . Ce soir-là, je m’installai au bar, espérant surprendre une
conversation qui puisse dénouer le mystère que ma mère avait créé
autour d’Angela Parkins. Mais on parla en détail de structure et de
perspective avec des mots dont la plupart m’étaient inconnus. Puis
Angela Parkins se tourna vers ma mère et lui fit un brin de jasette en
employant cette fois-ci des mots simple qui résonnèrent en moi,
savoureux et colorés comme une chose intime. (28)
This conversation, this meeting, is curtailed abruptly in Laure Angstelle’s
novel, with a laconic/lacunal suggestiveness: “Angela Parkins quitta le Bar
avant onze heures et je me retirai à peu près à la même heure” (28). The
translator pries open a gap and extends the text, changing the rhythm of the
story and offering Mélanie and Angela an opening: “Angela Parkins se retira
avant 11 heures. Je la suivis jusqu’au stationnement. J’avais 15 ans et je voulais
que tout mon corps soit nécessaire” (198).
Fifteen-year-old Mélanie, in her mother’s Meteor, “les yeux fous d’arrogance”
(12), drives through the night to the dawn, her face “comme une image qui suit
son cours entre la voix narratrice et le personnage” (117). She drives to the
desert “car très jeune je voulais savoir pourquoi dans les livres on oublie de
mentionner le désert” (13), or, as Maude Laures translates, “car très jeune je
voulais tout connaître de la beauté, de la lumière, éloigner la peur et la mort”
(183). In either reading, Mélanie senses the presence of absence. “Nous
sommes le désert et l’évidence au coucher des ombres” (49), says the narrator,
and the translator echoes her words, but even more strongly, “[n]ous sommes le
désert et l’évidence” (219), both asserting their visibility, their presence by
writing, by translating to “make sense slip and move in ways hitherto unheard
of in language’s imaginary” (AL 141).
Willingly seduced by the text, Maude Laures enters Laure Angstelle’s novel,
“se glisser anonyme et entière entre les pages,” and in her borrowed vehicle, her
intention is to engage in a dialogue “[u]n dialogue pour que soit rectifiée sa
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IJCS / RIÉC
méfiance à l’égard de tout personnage, sa fascination de l’aube et surtout pour
nettoyer la peur de sa composition affective” (59):
Oui, un dialogue. Obliger Mélanie à la conversation . . . Oui, un
dialogue somptueux . . . Un dialogue qui lui permettrait, Mélanie
emportée par les mots, de voyager à ses côtés dans la Meteor, d’ouvrir
la boîte à gants, de toucher le revolver, de feuilleter le carnet
d’entretien. (60)
Maude Laures creates her own space for conversation, imagining dialogues
between the characters, such as that between Angela Parkins and Mélanie in the
parking lot. But she does not imagine such a conversation with “l’homme
long,” keeping only blurred and overexposed photographs of him—he remains
faceless—in a file. “I have no words for him and that’s why I had to go through
the image” (Interview). “L’homme long” recites poetry in the original Sanskrit,
and thumbs through porno, as fascinating and threatening as television. Until
the final chapter of Laure Angstelle’s story, he is isolated, in short chapters
which continue to shrink, and in his hotel room. Nevertheless, “l’homme long”
is given precedence in each chapter by appearing first, and his motel room,
when he parts the curtain, has a view of the pool—unlike the room the translator
enters and occupies. Her window “donne sur un espace en terre battue où une
adolescente, appuyée sur un baril rouillé, fume un petit cigare” (70). “L’homme
long” is responsible for murdering Angela Parkins. Or is he? The translator
wants to know why the author allows the reality of “l’homme long” to
manipulate her own fiction away from her. Given the possibility of closeness
between Mélanie and Angela Parkins, why does the author select closure, using
lesbian panic14 as the motivation of the male assassin’s hatred and madness?
In the conversation between writer and translator, made possible imagining “la
scène en écartant le rideau entre l’auteure et la traductrice” (140), the two
women meet in the translator’s imagination, “à comprendre comment la mort
transite entre la fiction et la réalité. La langue parlée est celle de l’auteure”
(140). It is not a conversation that the translator has eagerly anticipated; she had
delayed it with annotations and possible word choices:
Dans la marge, il n’y avait plus d’espace et Maude Laures se mit à
cocher d’autres mots qui pourraient dans sa langue relancer le sens et
lui éviter d’affronter la fin brutale d’Angela Parkins. (175)
The translator begins her conversation tentatively, with deference for
chronological precedence: “J’ai craint un instant que vous ne veniez pas au
rendez-vous. . . . Je n’ai aucun droit. Vous m’êtes antérieure” (140). She is there
solely to discuss the death of Angela Parkins. Maude Laures does not want to
talk about Angela Parkins from her perspective as a reader—she is too
involved. She wishes instead to “abolish the distance” between fiction and
reality by imagining she is talking as one of Laure Angstelle’s own characters,
for “in the translator’s imagination, the author is the same level, in the same
deep dimension of the characters” (Interview), marking her movement with
italics, and a more intimate term of address:
— . . . J’aimerais vous parler exactement comme j’imagine qu’Angela
Parkins le ferait si elle pouvait sortir de son personnage, si elle en était
la présence ultime.
116
—Je vous écoute.
—Pourquoi m’as-tu mise à mort? (141)
With this question, the author is confronted with her responsibility: why did she
let “l’homme long” kill Angela Parkins, and deny the possibility of an
unfolding relationship between her two very passionate subjects? In this
question one might detect “a particular tone of superiority which characterizes
the backshadowing observer, who passes judgment on those who failed to take
responsible action.”15 But this same tone is also evident in the reply of the
author who, aware of the shifting borders between reality and fiction, answers:
— . . . jure-moi que tu n’as rien vu venir. Jure-le-moi.
—Vu venir quoi? L’amour, la mort? Vu venir qui? Mélanie ou
l’assassin? (141)
The confusion is evident: choices are unclear and difficult to make for writers,
translators and characters because there are so many versions of reality: “La
réalité avait un sens, mais lequel” (28)? The contours of the dialogue shift to
include not just the personal universe of the writer with characters, readers and
writer imagined together, but the reality in which all women live, enveloped in a
patriarchal society full of violence: “L’intolérance. La folie. La violence”
(141), a shared awareness that “man will kill because he cannot support lesbian
love . . . cannot accept the fact that women can be subject” (Interview). Angela
Parkins’ death then, within the text, remains a fictional death resulting from “a
situation of symbolic violence [against] women who seem to be existing on
their own, not in a relationship with a man” (Interview).
With a lacerating directness, the author admonishes her character, challenges
her reader:
Tu es morte parce que tu as oublié de regarder autour de toi. Tu t’es
trop vite affranchie et, parce que tu t’es crue libre, tu n’as plus voulu
regarder autour de toi. Tu as oublié la réalité.” (141-2)
There are at least two stories unfolding at once, simultaneously. There is the
story of women like Lorna and Mélanie’s mother, whose love has clearly
entered the dimension of daily life: “Nous n’avons d’autre repère que nous”
(135), who are the subjects of their own story. But there is another story, which
like an unmarked envelope slipped unobtrusively under a motel room door,
intrudes and alters what reader and writer want to come next. But both versions
of reality exist. In the reader’s imagination, Angela Parkins may well ask why
the author could not constrain the story:
—Tu aurais pu m’aider, me faire signe.
—Il est vrai que je t’ai crue à l’écart du danger et des aboiements. Je
t’ai imaginée passionnée et capable en cela d’éloigner le mauvais
sort. Je t’ai crue plus forte que la réalité.
—Mais imaginant la scène, tu aurais pu en changer le cours. Tu
aurais pu faire ricocher la balle ou me blesser légèrement. (142)
To believe that foreknowledge will protect one like a talisman, or that the
alteration of a plot can protect a character also assumes that any decision is
conclusive and without contingency. The author is sympathetic to her
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IJCS / RIÉC
character, had imagined her strong and passionate, yet concedes the insidious
power of the patriarchy. “La peur est une réalité qui encombre la fiction car sans
elle nous jonglerions avec nos vies bien au-delà de la leçon” (162). From her
perspective, Angela Parkins’ death appeared inevitable. Even if “l’homme
long” had missed:
— . . . si cet homme t’avait seulement blessée, tu te serais retournée
contre lui avec une telle fureur que c’est toi qui l’aurais mis à mort. De
toute manière, ta vie aurait été gâchée. Légitime défense ou non. Cet
homme, ne l’oublie pas, avait bonne réputation. (142)
The translator’s imagined Angela Parkins insists that the context could have
been undermined: “imaginant la scène, tu aurais pu en changer le cours,” but
the reader and the writer have different things at stake. Maude Laures seeks
alteration. She knows that “[a]ucun livre ne peut s’écrire sans enjeu. Enjeu de
vie, enjeu de mort, je ne sais encore. Mais aucun livre ne s’écrit sans enjeu,
brutal et immédiat,” but “[c]omment pourrais-je déserter Mélanie?” (154).
This moment of confrontation or imagined dialogue draws the reader into the
text, into a narrative moment both independent and communal, which offers
“alternatives: with each present another possible present”:
[W]e do not see contradictory actualities, but one possibility
actualized, and at the same moment, another that could have been but
was not. (NAF 118)
There are then at least two versions of Angela Parkins’ death, depending on the
oscillation of “un fil de fer invisible qui tranche entre la réalité et la fiction”
(142). In one, the killer of Angela Parkins is fictional, as in the dialogue, Angela
Parkins maintains “cet homme n’existe pas. Tu n’étais pas obligée de faire
exister cet homme” (142). In another, the author’s insistence that “cet homme
existe” and that he has a life she neither created nor controls:
— Je ne suis pas responsable de la réalité . . . nous avons fait longue
route mais la réalité nous rattrape tôt ou tard. (142)
However, Maude Laures is no longer interested in the writer’s explanations, or
in talking “exactly the way . . . Angela Parkins would” and emerges from the
italics. She prefers her own version of the story and defiantly declares to the
author whose work she has chosen to translate: “Je peux reprocher ce qui existe
dans votre livre . . . De vous lire me donne tous les droits” (142), privileging her
own reading of the book over the author’s, and contradicting her initial position
of having “no right” because of the author and the text’s precedence. It is not
surprising that the author would be sceptical, even fearful of the appetite of this
reader who wishes to “take over” her book and translate it: “Comment croire un
instant que les paysages qui sont en vous n’effaceront pas les miens?” (143). If
the dialogue has emphasized the distance and difference between the author’s
writing and the translator’s reading, Maude Laures’ answer shows her
attraction, attachment even, to the text, “Parce que les paysages vrais
assouplissent en nous la langue, débordent le cadre de nos pensées. Se déposent
en nous” (143).
And so Maude Laures writes, and in writing, slows time. In the final chapter,
when she had danced in the arms of Angela Parkins, Mélanie had run out of
118
time. “Le temps me manque pour comprendre. Il n’y a plus de temps” (50).
Maude Laures translates “Encore un temps” (202), and lets the dance continue
for at least another breath. Just as in writing “we are necessarily slowed down
by the act of forming letters or striking the keys on a keyboard” (AL 150), time
is translated into space, and in that space Maude Laures leans into the text to
slant “la réalité du côté de la lumière” (14/155). Revising, repeating and
reshaping the story, she bends the lines of her borrowed text into her own life,
diving into the story as if into a pool and surfacing with her own version:
“j’appuyais sur le pan fragile de mes pensées pour qu’elles soient penchant de
l’instant, pour que ça compte vraiment la réalité” (184).
Sometimes she makes mistakes. In her translation, Maude Laures confuses her
own imagined version of the text with the one written by Laure Angstelle and
translates accordingly. In fact, she translates the way we all do most of the time:
we keep translating what other people are telling us, even in our own
language, . . . even for the most simple things we are translating all the
time, and this is why we don’t agree very easily . . . because we are
making mistakes in our translation, because we translate with only
what our eyes have seen . . . or our knowledge . . . our sense, our
emotion. (Interview)
As readers participating in conversations with writers, translating
their texts to create our own versions, captivated by the process of
living, we have to keep asking ourselves, “Reality has a meaning, but
which one?”16 and learn to listen for the possibility of an unexpected,
even impossible, answer.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
The interview, which focussed on Brossard’s interest in translation and our interest in Le
désert mauve, took place on April 23, 1996, in Montreal, and was conducted in English.
Hereafter referred to as “Interview.”
One of Brossard’s descriptions of reality in the English edition of The Aerial Letter, trans.
Marlene Wildeman (Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1988), 149. This text hereafter referred
to as AL.
From Janice Williamson’s interview with Nicole Brossard in Sounding Differences:
Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1993), 69. Hereafter referred to as SD.
Compare Brossard’s remarks on the limitations of the journal: “Le journal ne me suffit pas.
Ne me convient pas. C’est une forme d’écriture qui exige trop de moi et pas assez de ce que je
suis.” From Journal Intime (Montréal: Les Herbes Rouges, 1984), 74. Hereafter referred to
as JI.
In Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation, eds. David Homel and Sherry
Simon (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1988), 49.
“. . . reading us into the page ahead” appears on the page following the last paginated page
(152) of Daphne Marlatt’s Ana Historic (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1988).
Alice Parker uses this term in her article, “The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard” in
Québec Studies 10 (1990), 107-119.
From Barbara Godard’s “Becoming My Hero, Becoming Myself: Notes Towards a Feminist
Theory of Reading” in Language in Her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian
Women Writing in English, eds. Libby Scheier et al (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990),
115.
From Sherry Simon’s “The Language of Cultural Difference” in Rethinking Translation:
Discourse Subjectivity Ideology, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London:Routledge, 1992), 173.
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IJCS / RIÉC
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Pamela Banting, “S(m)other Tongue?: Feminism, Academic Discourse, Translation” in
Tessera (Spring 1989), 85.
See Introduction, “Writing and Subjectivity” in Shari Benstock, Textualizing the Feminine:
on the Limits of Genre (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), xvii. Hereafter
referred to as TTF.
From “The Reorganization of the Body: Daphne Marlatt’s “musing with the mothertongue”
in ReImaging Women: Representations of Women in Culture, eds. Shirley Neuman and
Glennis Stephenson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 220.
From Barbara Godard’s commentary on her translation of a poem by Lola Lemire Tostevin
in “Vers-ions con-verse: A Sequence of Translation” in Tessera (Spring 1989), 20.
Patricia Juliana Smith defines “lesbian panic” in terms of narrative as “the disruptive action
or reaction that occurs when a character—or conceivably, an author—is unable or unwilling
to confront or reveal her own lesbian desire.” Laure Angstelle’s Le désert mauve is overtly
lesbian, yet her narrative seems to favour the mad male over the lesbian in love. L’homme
long’s “lesbian panic” is of course not the panic of a woman resisting her own lesbian
desire—though he may be resisting his own homosexuality— but his rage at the possibility
of lesbian love.
In Gary Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994), 118. “Backshadowing” is a term used by Gary Morson to describe
“foreshadowing after the fact. The past is viewed as having contained signs pointing to what
happened later, to events known to the backshadowing observer” (234).
Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood’s version of Mélanie’s question, “La réalité avait un sens
mais lequel?” in her translation of Brossard’s novel, Mauve Desert (Toronto: Coach House
Press, 1990), 25.
Works Cited
Banting, Pamela. “The Reorganization of the Body: Daphne Marlatt’s ‘musing with the
mothertongue’” in ReImaging Women: Representations of Women in Culture. Eds. Shirley
Neuman and Glennis Stephenson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. 217-232.
———. “S(m)other Tongue?: Feminism, Academic Discourse, Translation” in Tessera, Spring,
1989: 81-91.
Benstock, Shari. Textualizing the Feminine: On the Limits of Genre. Norman and London:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Brossard, Nicole. The Aerial Letter. trans. Marlene Wildeman. Toronto: The Women’s Press,
1988.
———. Le désert mauve. Montréal: l’Hexagone, 1987.
———. Journal Intime. Montréal: Les Herbes Rouges, 1984.
———. Mauve Desert. trans. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood. Toronto: Coach House Press,
1990.
Forsyth, Louise H. “Préface” to Nicole Brossard, Picture Theory. Montréal: l’Hexagone, 1989. 726.
Godard, Barbara. “Becoming My Hero, Becoming Myself: Notes Towards a Feminist Theory of
Reading” in Language in her Eye: Views on Writing and Gender by Canadian Women
Writing in English. Eds. Libby Scheier et al. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990. 112-122.
———, Susan Knutson, Kathy Mezei, Daphne Marlatt, and Gail Scott. “Vers-ions con-verse: A
Sequence of Translation” in Tessera, Spring, 1989: 16-23.
Homel, David, and Sherry Simon, eds. Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation.
Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1988.
Knutson, Susan. “Reading Nicole Brossard” in Ellipse 53,1995:8-29.
Marlatt, Daphne. Ana Historic. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1988.
Morson, Gary. Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1994.
Parker, Alice. “The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard,” in Québec Studies 10, 1990: 107-119.
Simon, Sherry. “The Language of Cultural Difference” in Rethinking Translation: Discourse
Subjectivity Ideology. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 1992. 159-176.
Smith, Patricia Juliana. “And I Wondered If She Might Kiss Me: Lesbian Panic As Narrative
Strategy in British Women’s Fictions” in Modern Fiction Studies 41, Fall/Winter, 1995:
567-607.
Williamson, Janice. Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women
Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.
120
S. Ramaswamy
Time, Space and Place in Two
Canadian Poems: An Indian View
Abstract
The purpose of the present article is to explicate two Canadian poems—Bliss
Carman’s Lord of my Heart’s Elation and Margaret Atwood’s You Want To
Go Back—from the perspective of the Indian philosophical concepts of Time
and Space. However it does not imply any “influence” of Indian thought on
these poets but the intention is to show how the poems make a great deal of
sense to an Indian sensibility. While the poem of Carman explores the idea
primarily of inner space (hridayakasha), the poem of Margaret Atwood
explores Time as well as Space in an intensely metaphysical context from an
“Indian” point of view.
Résumé
L’article tente d’expliquer deux poèmes canadiens (« Lord of my Heart’s
Elation » de Bliss Carman et « You Want To Go Back » de Margaret Atwood)
selon une perspective fondée sur les concepts philosophiques indiens du
temps et de l’espace. Cependant, ce résumé ne sous-entend pas une
quelconque « influence » de la pensée indienne sur ces poètes mais vise
plutôt à démontrer comment les poèmes en question prennent toute leur
signification dans le contexte de la sensibilité indienne. Le poème de Carman
a comme thème principal l’espace intérieur (hridayakasha), tandis que le
poème de Margaret Atwood étudie le temps de même que l’espace dans un
contexte intensément métaphysique et selon une perspective purement «
indienne ».
Kalosmi Lokakshaya krithpravruddaha1
I am come as Time.
Disashcha Akasashcha aupadhika bheda
Space that is ordinarily spoken as
Desa and Akasha are only due to upadhi.2
Mayakalpitha desa kala kalana vaichitriya chitrikrutam
Space and Time are but the concoctions of Maya.3
IJCS / RIÉC
But now
That the forests are cut down, the rivers charted,
Where can you turn, where can you travel? Unless
Through the desperate wilderness behind your eyes
So full of falls and glooms and desolations,
Disasters I have glimpsed but few would dream of
You seek new Easts!4
Douglas Le Pan
Coureurs de bois
I
Yes, the Canadian poets have come far from going “round the mulberry bush”5
and “painting the native maple.”6 They have sought the “new Easts”—and the
air is no longer “heavy with Canadian topics”7 alone. They have survived all
this and have transcended into “Eastern” perceptions of space and time. As
Margaret Atwood has said:
History
is over, we take place
in a season, an individual
space . . .8
Space and time—more precisely, spacio-temporal transcendence—have
always occupied a central consciousness in poets. Bliss Carman suddenly asks:
Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grass in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?9
Carman belonged to that group of remarkable poets which included the Ontario
poets Archibald Lampman, Wilfred Campbell and Duncan Campbell Scott. As
A.J.M. Smith has pointed out: “These men were all classically educated”.10 In
fact, the liberal classical education extended to include an Eastern classical
language like Sanskrit. Talking about Crémazie, “the father of FrenchCanadian poetry,”11 Smith says: “He was a man of wide culture . . . He was well
read in English and French, and like some later poets he studied Sanskrit.”12
Margaret Atwood is not only a central figure in Canadian literature but “a
popular Canadian icon”.13 Some of her poems reveal a remarkable grasp of
Indian philosophical perceptions of space-time and empirical reality. This is
certainly not to indicate or imply any Indian or Sanskrit “influences” in the
poems of Carman and Atwood, but merely to make a cursory comment on how
two poems strike an Indian reader. However, a theoretical foundation is
necessary to discuss the concepts of time and space briefly from a comparative
perspective to establish the difference between “Western” and “Indian”
metaphysical thinking.
Time and change in Henri Bergson, serial time in Dunne, time in Existentialism
according to Heidegger, “unreality of time in McTaggart and Bradley, time and
Zeno’s paradoxes are well-known as documents dealing with the concept of
time in Western thinking. Time and the theory of relativity in the Western
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Time, Space and Place in Two Canadian Poems
context is not quite acceptable in the Indian metaphysical context. As D.S.
Subbaramaiya, a profound scholar in both physics and metaphysics observes:
Time is conceived of as extending from infinite past to infinite future.
There is also the feeling of the lapse of time given expression to as “the
flow of time,” etc. This concept of time, too, is fairly complex. Here
also, the use of numbers on the part of the scientist is of no avail as far
as the question of what constitutes time is concerned. Again, it is not
decided as to whether time is the totality of instants or a continuum.
The concept of the flow of time is not rendered clearer. The
involvement of the notion of change in the passage of time does not
make it any the clearer, the two concepts being reciprocally
dependent. The idea that the notion of events involving the question of
“where” and “when” together is to be regarded as fundamental in the
spirit of the Theory of Relativity which speaks of the space-time
manifold, instead of treating space and time as distinct manifolds,
adds little towards the clarification of the situation. The notions of
“time-dilatation,” “relativity of simultaneity,” the measured “timeinterval” being dependent on the motion of the observer, etc., raise the
question as to whether there is anything like an absolute or universal
time at all. The Quantum theory, with its Uncertainty Principle
pertaining to energy and time makes it impossible to talk of the precise
value of the energy of a system at a definite instant. The principle of
continuous increase of entropy brought in to account for
“irreversibility” in nature raises the question as to whether time as
such, without relation to bodies and their motions, has any meaning at
all.14
Archie J. Bahm in his book, Metaphysics, discussing the concepts of time and
space says:
The problem of time is difficult to deal with, partly because it is really
several problems. Some that will be considered here include; events
and duration; how long is the present? simultaneity; levels of time;
does the past exist? can there be eternity without time?
instantaneity.15
...
Space exists. Existence is spatial. What is space? Answers range all the
way from “nothing” (“nonbeing,” Parmenides) to “everything”, or at
least “everything physical” (Descartes, “matter” = “extension”).16
The Indian view of time and space is presented here for comparison to, or rather
contrast with, the Western view. In Indian thinking, time is denoted by various
experiences like Idanim “now,” Tadanim “then,” Kshipra “soon,” Cira “later,”
Vilanba “delay,” Yugapat “simultaneous,” Purva, Agre, Pura “earlier,
anterior,” Pashchat “later, posterior,” Yuva “young,” Vriddha “old,” Kshana
“instant,” Bhuta, Vartamana, Bhavishyat “past, present, future,” Chalana
“motion,” Parinama “process of transformation,” etc.
The concept of space takes into account various experiences such as Iha “here,”
Amutra “there,” Samipe “near,” Doore “farther,” Vyavadhana “separation,”
Parimana “size”, Dik “direction,” such as East, West, North, South, Desa
“space,” Pradesa “place,” etc.
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The Indian concepts of space, time and place are so different from the Western
way of thinking that it may be appropriate to quote T.S. Eliot on this matter,
even at the risk of sounding chauvinistic:
Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lenman and a
year in the mazes of Patanjali’s metaphysics under the guidance of
James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification. A good
half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were
after—and their subtleties make most of the great European
philosophers look like schoolboys—lay in trying to erase from my
mind all the categories and kinds of distinction common to European
philosophy from the time of the Greeks. My previous and concomitant
study of European philosophy was hardly better than obstacle. And I
came to the conclusion—seeing also that the “influence” of Brahmin
and Buddhist thought upon Europe, as in Schopenhauer, Hartmann
and Deussen had largely been through romantic misunderstanding
that my only hope of really penetrating to the heart of that mystery
would lie in forgetting how to think and feel as an American or
European, which for practical as well as sentimental reasons, I did not
wish to do.17
However, we should bear in mind that unlike the Canadian poets, Bliss Carman
and Margaret Atwood, Eliot came under the direct influence of Hindu thought
and Sanskrit. Consequently, his notions of space, time and place show a clear
knowledge of Indian philosophical thought. Significantly, Eliot’s own doctoral
dissertation was on F.H. Bradley. Bradley is the one Western philosopher who
closely approaches Shankaracharya in his thinking. Again, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the American transcendentalist, reveals a knowledge of the
Upanishads, Bhagavadgita and Vishnupurana in poems like Brahma. Archie J.
Bahm, talking about the comparative perspective of Western and Indian
philosophical thought says:
Plato, who influenced the Christian doctrine of time, postulated an
eternal realm of pure and perfect ideas or forms that served as patterns
used by the creator (demiurgos) in making men and things in the
world. “Time is the moving image of eternity.” Particular things
behave temporally and imperfectly because the eternal forms are only
imperfectly embodied in them.
The Neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus conceived ultimate reality as
The One, utterly unrelated to the temporal universe that emanates
from it. Levels of being emanating from The One degenerate from a
highest level of being without parts, spatial or temporal, through the
physical world’s levels of increasing plurality of both spatial and
temporal parts, toward a beingless void. Events, the shorter the less
real, nevertheless do not lack reality, as with Shankara, but exist as
less real than the nontemporal and as dependently real.18
While there are many schools of Indian philosophical thought, our focus here
primarily centres on Advaita thought as propounded by Adi Shankara.
However, Archie J. Bahm make some noteworthy comments regarding the
Sankhya-Yoga system of Indian philosophy:
Sankhya-Yoga philosophers divide ultimate reality into two
completely different kinds of beings: First, purusha, pure timeless
124
spirits; and, second, prakriti, evolving nature, which like Plotinus
creation devolves from quiescent duration through several stages of
increasing activity and differentiation, both spatial and temporal. The
minutest flick of action embodies prakriti in its most degenerate form.
Accidental encounters between spaceless and timeless spirits and
prakriti both lure it from quiescence into activity and create in the
spirits a reflected illusion of existing actively and temporally. Yogic
liberation of spirits from nature restores them to their nontemporal
purity and returns nature to its quiescent state. Such quiescence is
perfect, hence without events, except that the tendency toward action
is perpetually present and is kept in check only by maintaining
equalized tensions between the gunas, or forces existing as tendencies
to act.
The temporary coincidence of timeless spirits and evolving prakriti
(which enjoys an illusion of being conscious in the presence of spirits)
in no way influences the nature of either. Neither depends on the other
for its nature, although prakriti cannot activate its temporal processes,
and thus events, except in the presence of spirits.19
The notion of place, which generally includes the idea of the atmosphere
associated with an area or city, in Indian thought goes further to imply a state of
mind. Take the two examples of Montreal, Canada and Banaras (Kasi),
India. Hugh MacLennan in his novel The Watch That Ends the Night, wrote so
perceptively about Montreal that the city became one of the main characters in
the novel, along with other human characters:
It is a curious city, Montreal, and in this story I keep returning to the
fact that it is. Strangers never understand its inner nature, and
immigrant families, even from other parts of Canada, can live here
two generations without coming to know it in their bones. I am
absolutely certain that Montreal is the subtlest and most intricate city
in North America. With her history she could not have been otherwise
and survived, for here the French, the Scotch and the English, over two
centuries have been divided on issues which ruin nations and
civilizations, yet have contrived to live in outward harmony. This is no
accident they understand certain rules in their bones.20
In the Indian context, a city like Banaras (Kasi) becomes a symbol of spiritual
life. Kasi is perceived not just as a city but as a space in the heart of man—every
man. That is why it is quite common to talk about antara-kasi, “the inner
Banaras.” In fact, there is a Sanskrit saying: “Kashi Kshetram Shariram
tribuvana janani vyapini Jnana Ganga” (My body, the holy site, is BanarasSpreading within me as knowledge, the Ganges, Mother of the three worlds).
This concept of place emerges very clearly in the famous novel of Raja Rao,
The Serpent and the Rope. Even Eliot says “the river is within us.” Raja Rao
says: “Banaras is everywhere where you are, says an old Vedantic text and all
waters of the Ganges.”21 Again he points out “Ganges is every so knowing, so
wise. If wisdom become water the Ganges would be that water, flowing down
to the seven seas.”22
In his writing, Paris and Banaras become one as the rivers Ganga and Rhone
attain a spiritual sangam—“Paris is a sort of Banaras turned outward and where
but in Banaras would Baudelaire be more real, more understandable, more
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IJCS / RIÉC
perfect, and in every dimension.” That explains why in Vedantic thought the
world as a “place” is unreal like a city seen in a mirror. The world is within, and
only Mayasakthi, the power of illusion, projects it outside. The great Shankara
in his famous hymn “Dakshinamurti Stotram” points out:
Vishvam darpanadrishyamananagari tulyam nijantargatam
Pashyannatmani mayaya bahirivodbhutam yatha-nidraya24
These Sanskrit lines sound just as beautiful and meaningful in French:
Telle une ville dans un miroir
l’univers est contenu en Lui
mais comme produit par mirage
comme en songe
et cependant existent en vérité dans le Soi.25
An understanding of “place” in these terms is what makes T.S. Eliot say:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.26
Again we find:
In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.27
It is in this context of impermanence that Indian thought of the world as
“illusion” is to be understood. The world has only a physical, phenomenal,
empirical reality but lacks the quality of “Ultimate Reality.” The former in
Sanskrit is known as Vyavaharika Satta as opposed to Paramarthika Satta.
This introduction, giving a comparative, theoretical background for a
discussion, to the concepts of space, time and place should suffice. Now we
shall turn to the two Canadian poems chosen for comment.
II
First, Bliss Carman’s poem:
Lord Of My Heart’s Elation
Lord of my heart’s elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!
Bear up, bear out, bear onward
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own,
As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.
126
I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command,
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind’s strong hand,
A fleet and shadowy column
Of dust or mountain rain,
To walk the earth a moment
And be dissolved again.
Be thou my exaltation
Or fortitude of mien,
Lord of the world’s elation,
Thou breath of things unseen!28
The “Lord” of the heart’s “elation” is a “Spirit” and it is a spirit of “things
unseen,” and the poet wants this “Spirit” to be his “aspiration.” However, this
elation bestowing “Spirit” is both “consuming” and “serene.” For an Indian
reader familiar with Hindu philosophical-Vedantic-tradition, the first stanza’s
“invocation” immediately strikes a familiar chord. The “spirit of things
unseen” reminds one of the concept of “Nirguna Brahman.” It is not only
without attributes—“nirguna”—but it is trans-sexual, i.e., neither masculine,
feminine or neutral. This IT is THAT—indicated by the word “TAT” in
Sanskrit. Being a “spirit of things unseen,” it, too, is unseen and unseeable
because this “Spirit” is the transcendental “Ultimate Reality” which cannot be
comprehended by the senses. It is worthy of “aspiration” because it transcends
both space and time. The transcendental “Ultimate Reality” is known as
“Brahman” in Vedanta, the same Emerson evokes in his poem Brahma. In the
present context the second stanza of the poem is relevant:
Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.29
The spacio-temporal level has to be transcended in order to comprehend the
“subtle ways.” The world of relativity which admits of “far and near,” what is
“forgot,” what is happening and what is yet to come, is only a result of
“thinking.” The mind is circumscribed by the space-time limitation—
Desakalapariccheda which it has taken for granted—Avicharitasamsiddha.
The transcending of apparent opposites like far and near, then and now, helps in
understanding the true nature of Brahman who is beyond space, and time. As
Archie J. Bahm sums up:
In Hindu metaphysics, Shankara’s Nirguna Brahman, the only
ultimate reality, is timeless being. All events are illusory (maya),
because they appear to have a being and nature different from Nirguna
Brahman, but reality is nondual (advaita), so apparent events have no
reality apart from timeless Brahman. Strictly speaking, we cannot
attribute duration or even timelessness to Brahman either, since it is
entirely without attributes (nirguna). But it always is, not in the sense
of “always” as “at all times” but in the sense that it is whether anything
else is or not.30
...
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IJCS / RIÉC
Shankara, Advaita Vedantist, held that Brahman is the only reality,
that Brahman is nonspatial, that spatiality is a false appearance.
“Space implies coexistence of a plurality of objects”. But Brahman, or
reality, is one and indivisible. Therefore space is unreal.31
Naturally, the “elation” of the title of the poem Lord of my Heart’s Elation is not
mere mundane joy or worldly “happiness” but an elevation, an “exaltation,” as
conveyed in the last stanza of the poem. It is “serene” because it is pure and
uncontaminated by human limitations—quite beyond the pale of words and
meanings “Vagartha.” It exists beyond even the reach of the mind—“Yato
Vacho nivartante aprapya manasa saha” as the Sanskrit spiritual saying goes.
Indeed, this is the “message”—the “vision” of the poem explored in the next
four stanzas and brought to fruition in the final sixth stanza. However, the
“aspiration” is not only “severe” but also “consuming.” Unless the spiritual
aspiration becomes a consuming, all absorbing, obsessive passion, it is not
worthy of being an “aspiration” or a goal “guri” in Sanskrit. This goal or “guri”
is what gives meaning to life without which being would descend into an
atheistic, existential “hell.” The “elation” referred to by the poet is
“Ananda”—the supreme Bliss (which Bliss Carman is experiencing if the pun
may be pardoned!) which is paradoxically both “consuming and serene” at the
same time. The second and the third stanzas contain some quintessential words:
up, out, outward, mortal, soul, and self-hood, merge, that and be. The “Lord” of
the “Heart’s elation” is reached, attained through “sinking” the narrow
personal ego “forever” and “merging” it into “oblivion” so that “self-hood” is
achieved. It is not so much a conscious achievement as an awareness of
consciousness, of the ever-present Self. In terms of the vocabulary of the poem,
“this mortal soul” which is the individual identity must transcend the limited
ego-sense or egoity and become “that.” “That,” known as “Tat” in Sanskrit, is
what everyone really is: one of the “Mahavakyas”—TAT TVAM ASI (Thom
art That). It is this “That” which bids them “be.” Being is the reality; becoming
is a process which culminates in the ultimate knowledge of Being. The
individual “foamheads” which are the individual souls “loosened and blown
along the sea” must realise that the foam and the waves are but the sea and
therefore “must sink and merge forever” in the universal, one and only Self with
an “S” capital. The fourth and the fifth stanzas peruse and pursue the same idea
through a different imagery. Notice the words “uplift,” “climb,” “one,”
“column,” “dust,” “mountain rain,” ending in “disolve again.” Whether it is
through the element of water and the sea, through the “shadowy column,” “the
wind’s strong hand” or “walking the earth,”—man must “uplift” himself “at thy
command”—i.e., the “Lord of the Heart’s” command and “merge for
ever”—“be one with my frail fellows” for only one spirit courses through the
various bodies given different names and forms, and through this universal
humanism attain salvation. This, in terms of the poem is to “climb in wonder.”
The sixth and final stanza neatly ties together all these thoughts by repeating
and slightly altering the quintessential words used in the first stanza. The
“Lord” of the individual “heart’s elation” has become “the world’s elation” and
the “aspiration” has turned into “exaltation.” The “Spirit of things unseen” has
become the very “breath of things unseen” and this “Spirit,” this “breath,” is not
only “my” elation and “my exaltation” but the “I” has become “thou,”—“Be
thou my exaltation”—an “Advaita Siddhi”—the achievement of non-dual
128
experience. This poem basically explores the inner, interior space called
“Hridayakasa,” resulting in the transcendence of the ordinary, physical,
phenomenal, empirical, outer, outward “space.” The inner, interior space is the
“space” where Brahman resides, the cave in the heart where the mind goes
during deep sleep and resurfaces on awaking. As Ramana Maharshi points out,
“Brahman alone shines as ‘I,’ ‘I,’ in the heart it is the form of the Self.”32
Margaret Atwood, in her poem You Want To Go Back, explores the true nature
of man through the concepts of time and space.
You Want To Go Back
You want to go back
to where the sky was inside us
animals ran through us, our hands
blessed and killed according to our
wisdom, death
made real blood come out
But face it, we have been
improved, our heads float
several inches above our necks
moored to us by
rubber tubes and filled with
clever bubbles,
our bodies
are populated with billions
of soft pink numbers
multiplying and analyzing
themselves, perfecting
their own demands, no trouble to anyone.
I love you by
sections and when you work.
Do you want to be illiterate?
This is the way it is, get used to it.33
The first two lines,
You want to go back
to where the sky was inside us
is an opening gambit to explore the process of the evolution of
man—biological, mental and spiritual. While “back” indicates time past,
“inside” indicates “space.” From the point of view of Indian philosophical
thinking, Darwinian evolution is a false concept. The evolution is not so much
from monkey to man, through the notorious “missing link,” but the evolution of
man into a superman by the exercising his intelligence and his essential
spiritual nature. Margaret Atwood takes into consideration, quite significantly,
both the body and the mind in her poem. Paradoxical as it may seem, if we “go
back” far enough, we end up in the future. As Eliot has realized “Time present
and time past” are both present in “time future” and “time future” is contained in
“time past.” That is why he says:
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IJCS / RIÉC
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.34
When the linear concept of time yields to the cyclical or circular, then the
wisdom of “in my end is my beginning” and “in my beginning is my end” makes
sense.
[H]uman kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.35
...
I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing;
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.
And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.36
Atwood wants “you to go back.” Not just to the immediate past but to a time
“where the sky was inside us”. Notice the space-time continuum which is a
prelude to spacio-temporal transcendence. Change the “where” into “when”
and you have the answer. When exactly was the sky inside us? The
answer—always. Where was the sky inside us? Always, because the sky, the
air, fire, water and earth were always inside us and will always be. It is
significant that the “Four Quartets” of Eliot have as their “source” the four
elements of earth, water, fire and air. The elements are only empirically seen as
being outside us but what is outside is exactly what is inside and thus man is but
a conglomeration of elements and his body and his mind are what give a false
motion about “inside” and “outside” — as well as “then” and “now.” In the final
analysis, space and time are only creations and projections of the
mind—“Maya kalpita desa kala kalana vaichitrya Chitrikritam,” as the great
Adi Sankara has said. This is not to imply that Atwood has heard of Sankara or
has knowledge of Hindu philosophy. As has already been said at the beginning
of this essay, this is how her poem makes sense and comes alive to an Indian
reader. This is just one Indian response as there can be several. “The sky was
inside us” is a familiar thought to an Indian — not only that “The sky is inside
us” and “always” will be. “Sky,” “Ether,” “Space”—indeed, the entire interstellar space is “inside us” in microcosm, symbolic of the “macrocosm” which
is usually assumed to be outside. The idea of “hridayakasa” (already referred to
earlier)—the space within the heart—indeed in the cave or cavern of the
heart—“hridayakuhara” is the in dwelling space of the infinite, eternal, allpervading—That. The self in deep sleep sushupti, without consciouness of
body or mind, is pure Consciouness—unfettered by the impediments of the
knowledge of space, time and place. In another poem The Woman Who Could
Not Live With Her Faulty Heart, Margaret Atwood says:
and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
130
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.37
Indeed, the “third” eye which is always open is the sakshi, the “observer.” In the
words of another Canadian poet P.K. Page, we read:
Who am I
or who am I become that walking here
I am observer . . . 38
To “go back” to that state is the goal of life, and to remain there is the
achievement. When Atwood talks about “animals ran through us” and “our
hands,” “killed according to our wisdom,” she is contemplating man’s
evolution through time, for she moves quickly from the animal existence to
man’s body-mind Consciousness.
our bodies
are populated with billions
of soft pink numbers
But notice that Margaret Atwood in a typical ironic tone says:
But face it, we have been
improved, our heads float
several inches above our necks.
As she has said in another poem:
The word is an O,
outcry of the useless head,
pure space, empty and drastic.39
Then comes “the overwhelming question”: “Do you want to be illiterate? If all
the manifestations of the “literate mind” and all its mischievous machinations
are interested in “perfecting their own demands” then, what is the use of “our
heads” floating “several inches above our necks”? The “head” should merge in
the spiritual “heart-space” and that is why
You want to go back
to where the sky was inside us.
The Indian view of matter and mind differs from that of a philosopher like
Descartes, considered “father of modern philosophy.” According to his “Je
pense, donc je suis”—Cogito Ergo Sum, since thinking is a part of mind’s
activity and Descartes discusses matter and mind in relation to space. Archie J.
Bahm says:
A space, or intrinsic place, does not differ in actuality from the body
that occupies it . . . In reality the extension in length, breadth, and depth
that constitutes the space is absolutely the same as that which
constitutes the body. Matter and space are identical, and there is no
empty space. But Descartes also held that matter is not all that exists,
for spirit, mind, or consciousness also exists and it is not spatial.40
This experimental “explication de texte” of two poems—one traditional and
the other modern has been attempted only to indicate how many of the
Canadian poets have passed through this cage of “survival” and how “new
Easts” have surfaced in their poems. It may be appropriate to conclude by
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IJCS / RIÉC
quoting a few lines from a Canadian “pilgrim” in India thou she is not
essentially, primarily a poet:
Salutation to Him
The great-souled One,
Who has no name nor form.
He who resides in all
Who is Lord of all
The Self of all beings.41
References
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132
The Bhagavadgita. Chapter IX, verse 32.
Padarthatattvanirnaya by Sri Anandanubhava
Sri Shankaracharya. Dakshinamurti Stotram. verse 2.
Douglas Le Pan “Coureurs de bois” quoted in Canadian Literature in the 70’s. Edited by
Paul Denham and Mary Jane Edwards. Holt, Rinehert and Winston of Canada Ltd., Toronto,
1980, pp.13.
F.R. Scott “The Canadian Authors Meet” in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English
and French. Chosen and with an introduction by A.J.M. Smith, Toronto, Oxford University
Press, 1960, pp.188.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Margaret Atwood “Book of Ancestors” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., pp.101102.
Bliss Carman “Low Tide on Grand Pre” in The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.85.
A.J.M. Smith. Introduction to The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.xxxiv.
Ibid., pp.xxxi.
Ibid.
Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., pp.117.
D.S. Subbaramaiya. Sri Dakshinamurti Stotram. Commentary. Sringeri, 1988, p.325.
Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics – An Introduction. First published by Harper and Row,
Publishers, Inc., as Baners and Noble Books Edition EH 338 in 1974. Second printing 1986,
p.44.
Ibid., p.62.
T.S. Eliot. After Strange Gods. London: Faber & Faber, 1933, pp.40-41.
Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., pp.58-59.
Ibid., pp.59-60.
Hugh MacLennan. The Watch that Ends the Night. Macmillan of Canada, Toronto, 1958,
p.255.
Raja Rao. The Serpent and the Rope. John Murray, London, 1960, p.388.
Ibid., p.43.
Ibid., p.54.
Sri Shankaracharya. Dakshinamurti Stotram. Stanza 1.
Raja Rao. Le Serpent et La Corde. Traduit de l’anglais par Georges Fradier. Calmann-Levy
Éditeurs. 3, rue Auber, Paris. c1959.
T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays. 1909-1950. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New
York, 1952, p.145.
Ibid., p.123.
“Lord of my Heart’s Elation” by Bliss Carman in The Oxford Book, op. cit., pp.90-91.
Emerson’s Brahma. Stanza 2.
Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., p.58.
Ibid., p.71.
Ramana Maharshi. Ramana Gita. Verse 17. Translation by A.R. Natarajan. Published by
Affiliated East-West Press Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad. Second
Edition, 1995, p.145.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
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40.
41.
“You Want To Go Back” by Margaret Atwood. in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit.,
p.99.
T.S. Eliot. The Complete Poems and Plays, op. cit., p.144
Ibid., p.118.
Ibid., pp.133-134.
Margaret Atwood. “The Women Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart” in Canadian
Literature in the 70’s, op. cit., p.105.
P.K. Page. Arras in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, op. cit., p.353.
Margaret Atwood. “Song of the Hen’s Head” in Canadian Literature in the 70’s, op. cit.,
p.102.
Archie J. Bahm. Metaphysics, op. cit., p.70.
Elyse Aylen. The Night of the Lord. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1967, p.55.
133
Valerie Legge
Heralds of Empire: Liminal Heroes and Visionary
Fugitives
Abstract
Drawing on the work of Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, this paper
examines how the growing diversity of Canada’s population during the early
decades of the twentieth century was reflected in the popular literature of the
period. While Bakhtin’s writings originated during a period of political
upheaval, Agnes C. Laut’s popular novels and histories emerged from a
period of social revolution. Like Canada itself, the popular novel was in a
process of becoming; country and genre both possessed what Bakhtin, in
reference to the novel, described as “plastic possibilities.” Laut used the
popular novel to document Canada’s different social languages, its “other”
words and histories, and to convey an enthusiasm often absent from historical
discourse. In Heralds of Empire (1902), while viewing the heroics of history
from a contemporary perspective, Laut deliberately engaged in a process of
revisionism by casting history and literature in a different light. In doing so,
Laut effectively turned time, space and figures inside out so we are made to
see their “unrealized surplus value” for a contemporary Canadian society. In
early exploration narratives and historical documents she discovered a
dynamic past filled with diverse types of men and women who helped fashion
the newly emerging nation to the North. Liminal men and chameleon women
negotiated the contending forces associated with class, race and gender as
they moved from one cultural zone to another. Heralds of Empire suggests
that nations are created by dreamers who possess the courage to take great
risks and by visionary fugitives who break free from bound spaces. At a time
when Canada seemed poised on the brink of a new era, Laut returned to the
past, to threshold moments in Canadian history to investigate some of our
most persistent national narratives.
Résumé
En se basant sur les travaux du théoricien russe Mikhail Bakhtin, l’auteur de
l’article examine comment la littérature populaire des premières décennies
du 20e siècle traduit la diversité croissante de la population canadienne au
cours de la même époque. L’œuvre de Bakhtin a été écrite en période de
bouleversement politique, tandis que les romans et les histoires populaires
d’Agnes C. Laut proviennent d’un épisode de révolution sociale. Tout comme
le Canada même, le roman populaire était en devenir : le pays et le genre
littéraire possédaient tous deux ce que Bakhtin (en faisant référence au
roman) décrivait comme des « possibilités plastiques ». Laut s’est servie du
roman populaire pour documenter les différents discours sociaux du Canada,
ses autres mots et anecdotes, ainsi que pour traduire un enthousiasme souvent
absent du discours historique. Dans Heralds of Empire (1902), bien que les
héros de l’histoire soient perçus d’un angle contemporain, Laut engage
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délibérément un processus de révisionnisme en jetant un regard différent sur
l’histoire et la littérature. Ce faisant, Laut parvient efficacement à inverser la
perspective du temps, de l’espace et des gens pour amener les lecteurs à voir
le « potentiel inutilisé » de la société canadienne contemporaine. Dans les
premiers récits d’exploration et documents historiques, l’auteure a découvert
un passé dynamique rempli de divers types d’hommes et de femmes qui ont
aidé à façonner la nouvelle nation émergente du Nord. Des hommes
liminaires et des femmes caméléons ont négocié les forces contraires de
nature hiérarchique, raciale et sexuelle en transition d’une zone culturelle à
une autre. Heralds of Empire suggère que les nations sont engendrées par des
rêveurs qui possèdent le courage de courir des risques importants et par des
fugitifs visionnaires qui transcendent les contraintes d’espace. À une période
où le Canada semblait immobile, à l’aube d’une ère nouvelle, Laut est
retournée dans le passé, à des moments-charnières de l’histoire du Canada,
pour étudier certains des récits nationaux les plus durables.
Fugitive Forces
[D]ecentering will occur only when a national culture loses
its sealed-off and self-sufficient character, when it becomes
conscious of itself as only one among other cultures and
languages. (Dialogic 370)
Writing during the first quarter of the twentieth century, one of the most
turbulent periods in Eastern Europe’s history, Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin
turned to historical periods and figures usually ignored by his contemporaries
in order to understand the relationship between language and culture. In his
study of the “opposition and struggle at the heart of existence, a ceaseless battle
between centrifugal forces that seek to keep things apart, and centripetal forces
that strive to make things cohere,”1 Bakhtin suggests that human language best
provides the most complete and complex reflection of this struggle, and that the
literary genre which best transcribes it is the novel. There language is presented
“as a living mix of varied and opposing voices.”2
Heralds of Empire (1902) is one of several popular turn-of-the-century works
by Agnes C. Laut, a remarkably productive author of fiction, historical,
periodical and travel literature. Based on extensive travels by boat and train
throughout Canada from British Columbia in the West to the remote coasts of
Labrador and isolated bays of Newfoundland in the East, her works celebrate
the unruly beauty, the lure of the North, and the nobility of ordinary people
living in extraordinary times. And the first decades of the twentieth century
were extraordinary. As Robert E. Spiller points out in The Cycle of American
Literature (1955), the “era of revolutions was over, and one of vigorous and
competitive living had set in. The spirit of nationalism was everywhere
providing motivation for building new empires abroad and making new social
patterns at home” (107). This spirit of nationalism and emerging sense of
newness is reflected in many of the titles of Laut’s works: Canada, the Empire
of the North (1909), “New Nation to the North” (1908), The New Dawn (1913),
“Firebrand of Nations” (1914), “Rediscovering America” (1914), and “New
Spirit Among Women Who Work” (1915).
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Liminal Heroes and Visionary Fugitives
One of the changes characterizing this era was rapid population growth which
exposed more people in Canada to a wider variety of cultures than ever before.
The country’s growing diversity is reflected in the popular literature of the
period. Laut’s contemporaries included Winnifred Reeve3 (Onoto Watanna)
and Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far), whose works reflected their Eurasian culture;
Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa) and Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake),
whose writings and public performances drew attention to the plight of
Aboriginal people; Elizabeth Frame and Alice Fletcher, who translated and
transcribed Aboriginal place names and songs; and Jessie Sime and Anastasia
English, who emphasized in very different ways the relationship between
labour and class. Even a cursory glance at popular literature of the period
reveals an awareness as well as an anxiety regarding the changes in national
demographics. In two collections of essays, The Canadian Commonwealth
(1915) and Canada at the Crossroads (1921), Laut examines the impact that a
more heterogeneous population was beginning to have on what previously had
been a predominantly white, English-speaking country.
Technological advances, especially in communications, also contributed to a
heightened awareness of ethnic, cultural and regional diversity in Canada.
Travel magazines flourished as more and more Canadians explored once
remote regions of their own country, while others ventured further afield to the
United States, Mexico, Europe, Asia and South America. These rapid increases
in population and advances in technology combined together to create a climate
ripe for the growth of pluralism. Writers and travellers like Laut, who from the
beginning of her literary career had her finger on the pulse of the country, grew
steadily aware of the wide variety of swirling perspectives, philosophies, points
of view, codes of ethics and aesthetic sensibilities. They began to recognize that
the beliefs and customs of people from different backgrounds had a certain
legitimacy or grounding. This recognition is evident, for example, in the
photography of Edith Watson as she travelled throughout the country capturing
images of ordinary working people.4 “Infected”5 by so many cultural changes
and technological innovations, new literary genres began to emerge, among
them photographic journalism, and western and urban novels. Laut’s work
incorporates illustrations and photographs by well-known artists such as
Frederic Remington, Verne Morton, I. W. Taber and H. Armstrong Roberts.
From the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Laut’s popular novels
seem very contemporary in their themes and concerns. Freebooters of the
Wilderness (1910), her American-style western, provides a critique of the
American concept of democracy and describes an emerging militant, antigovernment discourse, while The New Dawn (1913), her urban novel, can be
read as a Foucaultian study of power and knowledge. These works suggest
Laut’s awareness that popular literature could provide important information
about who we were, where we had come from, and what national direction we
might pursue. Like the country itself, the popular novel was in a process of
“becoming”;6 country and genre both possessed what Bakhtin, in reference to
the novel, described as “plastic possibilities” (3). Laut uses the popular novel to
document Canada’s different social languages, its “other” words and histories,
and to convey an enthusiasm often absent from historical discourse. As
contemporary Canadian writer Carol Shields contends in “Thinking Back
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through Our Mothers,” the “popular tradition must be taken into consideration,
since it echoes and even interrogates the established tradition, taking liberties,
offering modes of behaviours, and gesturing crudely, covertly, often
unconsciously towards that alternate sphere” (13).
In Heralds of Empire, an interrogative text emphasizing spectacle, unruliness,
liminality and the liberating spirit of carnival, Laut seems most akin to Bakhtin,
who insists in all his writings that art is oriented toward communication, not
estrangement. While Bakhtin’s writings originated during a period of political
upheaval, Laut’s emerged from a period of social revolution. In Heralds of
Empire, a pretext to Pathfinders of the West (1904), the distance between
Radisson’s seventeenth-century world and the world of Laut and her readers is
demolished; the past is contemporized, “brought low, represented on a plane
equal with contemporary life, in an everyday environment” (Dialogic 21). Like
Bakhtin, Laut observes that we often fail to pay attention to what we hear or see
in real life, to the events that occur in the moment, and encourages us to focus
more on the rich texture of “prosaic life” that conditions and touches everything
around us. And in that prosaic life of the present are roots extending back to the
past and growing into the future.7
The world of the fur-trade is made familiar to early twentieth-century readers,
and figures valorized by history as refractory colonial agents are made to
appear both extraordinary and common through laughter and popular speech.
In her imaginative reconstruction of the past, Laut effectively turns time, space
and figures inside out to reveal their “unrealized surplus value” for a
contemporary Canadian society (Dialogic 35). For example, Laut perceived
the beginnings of twentieth-century free trade among nations in the much
earlier reciprocal relations between Europeans and Aboriginal people. At a
time when many Canadians were stridently opposed to what they saw as the
growing “Americanization” of their country, Laut believed Canada needed to
widen its horizons, increase its commerce and traffic with other countries, and
become more international in its policies.8
Heteroglossia9 is evident in the use of extraliterary genres of everyday life:
popular ballads, songs, letters, nursery rhymes, jokes, journals, maxims and
aphorisms. In the spirit of the so-called “Vaudeville School” of writing, Laut’s
fiction, with its “picaresque speech of the Far West and High North,” its
“picaresque characters” and its “‘wild and woolly’ life . . . full of moral (or
immoral) colour of speech and action,”10 appeals to popular taste. When
different languages (social languages, national languages, literary languages,
everyday languages, etc.) come in contact, interact and engage in dialogue,
each is changed and enriched by the presence of the other. Speech then
becomes the locus of vitality, the site of individual and social creativity
(Morson 22). Poised on the brink of a new era, Canadians, Laut believed,
needed to remember the imagination and energy of their predecessors.
In her popular works, while viewing the heroics of history from a contemporary
perspective, Laut deliberately engages in a process of revisionism by casting
history and literature in a different light. In Pathfinders of the West, she warns
her North American audience that her rereading of Canadian history will “upset
the apple cart of established opinions” and challenge “notions imbibed at
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school, and repeated in all histories of the West.” While acknowledging the
importance of Canada and its history as “shared territory,” she reminds her
audience that the significance of shared stories changes as the social and
cultural experience of the speaker changes, and that the meaning of history
shifts with context.11 Though the past or a particular myth may serve as the
subject of a given text, it can only ever be viewed from a contemporary stance.
In Heralds of Empire, Laut’s own contemporary reality provides the point of
view, the value orientation of the novel. A Canadian woman who frequently
characterized herself as a “free trader” reads the foundational fault-lines of her
country’s past through an idiosyncratic turn-of-the-century lens.
Writing at a time when the novel was superseding poetry and drama as the most
popular literary form, Laut saw the popular novel as an alternative site where
different discourses, different social and cultural groups (what Bakhtin calls
“different-speech-ness”) could clash, collude and co-exist. In Heralds of
Empire, New England and Canada’s northern regions function as the primary
contestatory ground or what Bakhtin calls “chronotope” (a term referring to the
complete interdependence of narrative space and time) for these interactions;
unlike New England, with its imposed script of Puritanism, or Quebec, with its
French convents or English garrisons, the North becomes “the place where the
knots of narrative are tied and untied” (Dialogic 250), where official and nonofficial (fugitive) forces compete without eliminating one another.
The main actors in Laut’s high dramas (presented in low or popular forms) are
“liminal heroes,”12—militant men like Pierre Esprit Radisson and Sieur des
Groseilliers, and chameleon women like Hortense Hillary, who chafe against
the conventions of time and space. In their quests for freedom, they often resort
to antics, anarchy and disruption. Characterized by independent, risk-taking
dispositions, and an intense yearning for freedom, they view the North as a
dialogic site of resistance, agency and vision, a place where new standards
emerge from old ways, where energy and change are essential for survival. But
it is also a place of “high carnival” (Heralds 95). Using the romance with its
pattern of separation, exploration and return, Laut brings together a mix of
extravagant figures for whom the North becomes an alien, alternate sphere, a
borderland where social, cultural and racial boundaries dissolve and disappear.
These liminal heroes, caught in forces and influences swirling around them,
explore different ways of being in the world while resisting conventions that
time and space would impose on them.
Radisson best represents these “betwixt-and-between” figures (problematic
figures like Louis Riel, Tom Thomson, and Almighty Voice) who exist in the
“wild zone” of Canadian history.13 Perhaps because Radisson perplexed
historians and was grossly misrepresented by “cheap pamphleteers” (Heralds
2) and respectable writers alike, Laut endeavors to present him in a different
light without ever settling conflicting points of views. To some degree, in this
fusion of fact and fiction, comedy and romance, she succeeds in capturing the
exhilarating spirit of the times in which Radisson lived, as well as the unsettling
terrain of his exploration narratives which often “played fast and loose with
truth” (Heralds 1).
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Written in “a milk-and-water age”14 of women writers and staid, domestic
fictions, Heralds of Empire is a vigorous, nomadic narrative dedicated to the
spirit of new world nobility possessed by Canada’s “visionary fugitives”
(Freebooters 67). Laut breaks free of the closed and finalized spaces common
in so many early Canadian novels: Frances Brooke’s garrisons, John
Richardson’s dark fortresses, Catherine Beckwith Hart’s convents, Rosanna
Leprohon’s manor houses, William Kirby’s secret chambers, Gilbert Parker’s
prison houses, Sara Jeannette Duncan’s colonial communities. Turning instead
to the shifting spaces found in captivity narratives, historical documents and
exploration journals—all of which function as subtexts and pretexts in her
works—Laut imagines boundless, horizonless Northern worlds where people
from very different backgrounds come in contact, mingle and initiate new
social configurations.
Though writing when women’s lives were still largely restricted by notions of
propriety and idealization, Laut chose to recreate in her fictions an earlier
historical time when men and women from different social and cultural
backgrounds collaborated as associates, subordinates and superiors. And so her
female characters play complex roles, for they both resist and affirm the social
and literary conventions of woman as “standard-bearer” or “moral compass”
(Lords 104). While recording women’s intimate, often exuberant responses to a
“harsh and lovely land”15 and their encounters and connections with people
from different cultures, Laut suggests that during the early years of exploration,
European approaches to the land variously included acceptance and
accommodation as well as conquest and colonization. Ever mindful that
Canada was explored by fugitive men and gypsy women who viewed the North
as a place of vision, performance and masquerade,16 Laut hopes their legacies
will enable contemporary Canadians to create a “new nation to the north.”17
Contact Zones
[T]he entire world and everything in it is offered to us
without any distance at all, in a zone of crude contact.
(Dialogic 26)
In Heralds of Empire, a mock heroic romance rich in comic figures and
dramatic episodes, Laut familiarizes well-known historical figures like
Radisson and Groseilliers through laughter, sudden reversals, parody and
popular speech; and she uses motifs of subterfuge and masquerade to contribute
to the development and the eventual tapering (for it cannot be called resolution)
of the narrative. The central frame for the narrative is Radisson’s covert 1682
fur trading voyage to Fort Nelson—or Fort Bourbon as the French called it; as
Ramsay reminds us, “You must not forget that we were French on that trip”
(97).18 Speaking different national languages, characters from diverse social
and cultural backgrounds come together during their strange journeys to form
strange alliances and forge new contracts: Ramsay Stanhope, a young
Englishman whose father was a royalist; Eli Kirke, a Puritan New Englander
and Ramsay’s uncle; Hortense Hillary, abducted from the French court and
raised by her abductor/guardian M. Picot; Jack Battle, a runaway sailor lad
from Barbados; Ben Gillan, son of a New England sea captain; Rebecca
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Stocking, daughter of a Puritan New Englander; and Mizza, the Aboriginal girl
encountered during a covert fur trading expedition to Hudson Bay. Some of
these characters share common histories—familial, cultural, national—but
they do not all possess the same “field of vision”; those that do, however,
engage with and enrich one another, hence changing and being changed by the
worlds they pass through.
The primary narrator is Ramsay, relative of Radisson’s English-born and
England-bound wife, Mary Kirke. Orphaned by the untimely death of his
father, a Royalist sympathizer, Ramsay was sent to Boston to be placed in the
care of his stern Puritan uncle, Eli Kirke. When young Hortense and her uncle
are charged with witchcraft by overly zealous Puritans fearful of M. Picot’s
scientific practices, Ramsay helps them escape from a Boston prison. Later
when Ramsay accompanies Groseilliers and Radisson to Fort Nelson/Fort
Bourbon to trade illegally in furs, he again meets up with Hortense, now
actively involved in her uncle’s illegal fur-trading activities.
A distrust of closed, oppressive systems is established in the opening scene as
Ramsay, a spoiled and somewhat cynical lad in his teens, arrives in New
England to live with relatives. Surveying his new surroundings, he recalls the
absurd circumstances of his father’s death:
My father—peace to his soul!—had been of those who thronged
London’s streets with wine tubs to drink the restored king’s health on
bended knee; but he, poor gentleman, departed this life before his
monarch could restore wasted patrimony.
On the night my father died he had spoken remorsefully of the past to
the lord bishop at his bedside.
“Tush, man, have a heart,” cries his lordship. “Thou’lt see pasch and
yule yet forty year, Stanhope. Tush, man, ’tis thy liver, or a touch of the
gout. Take here a smack of port. Sleep sound, man, sleep sound.”
And my father slept so sound he never wakened more. (7)
Though neither the health nor the patrimony of Ramsay’s father is ever
restored, his irreverent offspring survives these shifts in fortune and learns that
humour can make the most unfortunate situations more bearable. The tyranny
and the stupidity of leaders—kings, priests, elected officials, etc.—is a
common motif in many of Laut’s works. In Heralds of Empire, it is Ramsay
who exposes the absurdity of all pretenders, especially that of Eli Kirke, who
tries to regulate his nephew’s irreverent tongue by constructing a penalty box to
receive fines for each blasphemous utterance. The austerity of Eli’s creed,
transplanted in a foreign soil though not so very different from the tyranny of a
savage monarchy which forced him to abandon Europe, is ridiculed during
Ramsay’s exaggerated account of the spectacle that resulted from a verbal
transgression. Shocked by Ramsay’s outburst of profanity (“a forcible word
[he] had oft heard used by gentlemen of the cloth”), the serving maid collapses
in the pantry while the nurse, Old Tibbie, “yelped out with laughter, and then
nigh choked” (14). Ramsay’s lack of reverence for “Holy Writ” is reinforced
when Tibbie openly appropriates and misquotes sacred texts, in effect using the
Bible against Eli in order to contest his rigid, Puritanical teachings.
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Having witnessed the chaotic nature of the world in the religious and political
upheavals and personal shifts of fortune in England, it is little wonder that
Ramsay, amused by his excessively staid New England relatives and their
surroundings, quickly learns to juggle his uncle’s authoritative discourse
(“Holy Writ”) with his own youthful hilarity (unholy laughter). Eli’s response
to profanity and chaos (and perhaps also to a threatening, alien environment) is
a determination to make things cohere. Despite Eli’s attempts to impose order
and discipline, Ramsay has come to expect unruliness and surprise around any
corner. He concludes, “There comes a time when every life must choose
whether to laugh or weep over trivial pains, and when a cut may be broken on
the foil of that glancing mirth which the good Creator gave mankind to keep our
race from going mad” (12).
Laughter, at himself and others, liberates Ramsay, as it does Radisson, from the
constraints of age, class, race and religion that institutions would have him
respect. Bakhtin writes, “[l]aughter purifies from dogmatism, from the
intolerant and the petrified; it liberates from fanaticism and pedantry, from fear
and intimidation, from didacticism, naiveté and illusion, from the single
meaning, the single level, from sentimentality” (Rabelais 123). Initially an
absence of laughter creates what appears to be an irreconcilable gap between
the uncle and his new ward; Ramsay is convinced that “With [Eli], goodness
meant gloom. If the sweet joy of living ever sang to him in his youth, he shut his
ears to the sound as to siren temptings, and sternly set himself to the fierce
delight of being miserable” (8). Laut challenges the conventional notion that
age, experience and education automatically result in wisdom: “children oft get
closer to the essences of truth than older folk grown foolish with too much
learning” (75). When these two opposing and equally strong-willed forces
come together in New England, each enacts subtle changes in the other. One
moment of what Bakhtin calls “interanimation”19 occurs when a squadron
storms into Eli’s house to arrest a political fugitive from England. With no
concern for his own safety, Ramsay helps the fugitive escape, a selfless act that
briefly bridges the ideological gap between the close-minded uncle and his
disrespectful, sceptical relative.
The main characters’ refusal to maintain fixed positions regarding gender,
class, race or nationality is indicated in an opening scene when as children and
all from very different backgrounds, the characters come together, clash, fall
out and regroup. When Ben asserts his social superiority over the others by
drawing attention to Jack and Hortense as social outcasts, Ramsay retaliates by
nearly drowning him: “From that day Hortense was Jack’s slave, Jack was
[Ramsay’s], and Ben was a pampered hero because he never told and took the
punishment like a man. But there was never a word more slurring Hortense’s
unknown origin and Jack’s strange wrist marks” (Heralds 19).
Religious fanaticism with its “tyrants of souls” is one of the main centripetal
forces that liminal characters mock and resist. When Jack Battle, in jest, reenacts “the awful mockery of the axeman’s block” as he and Ramsay conspire
to free Hortense from prison, Ramsay remembers the horror he felt when, as a
young child in Europe, he witnessed a public execution. Now these same
oppressive tyrannies have taken root in New England where “[p]rayers were
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uttered that were fitter for hearing in hell than in Heaven. Good men could
deceive themselves into crime cloaking spiritual malice, sect jealousy, race
hatred with an unctuous text. . . . Here . . . was tyranny masking in the guise of
religion” (54).
But disguise also functions in the text to enable precarious people to escape
imprisonment and persecution. Unlike Eli and Rebecca whose masks are
transparent, Radisson and Hortense are more sophisticated “stud[ies] in
masks” (85); enigmatic and contradictory, they, as well as minor characters
associated with them, use masks to move away from destructive tyrannies.
Hortense, disguised as a page-boy, conceals her gender while her black servant
paints her face “white as paste;” she conceals her race in order to escape from a
fearful and intolerant community that would hang them for their difference
(64). In the North, both Radisson and Hortense at different times disguise
themselves as Indians. Both are at ease in the Northern wilderness where
deeds—not gender, race, creed or convention are the only proofs of the inner
man or woman.
Rebecca and Hortense provide two opposing female responses to a world still
without clearly demarcated borders. While Hortense roves and explores other
ways of being in the world, Rebecca remains bound and unenlightened. Her
field of vision does not extend beyond the teachings of the church or the
medieval superstitions of the Puritan community. When Jack Battle, her
childhood friend, decides to marry the young Aboriginal woman whom he
rescued during a massacre and who in turn rescued him, Rebecca refuses to
sanction miscegenation. Puzzled by Rebecca’s sanctimonious response to a
marriage contracted “according to the custom of the country,” Jack asks
Ramsay if he thinks the union is proper. Ramsay replies in the affirmative and
Jack concludes that “you’ve been to the wilderness—you understand! Other
folks don’t! That is the way it happens out there!” (329).
While Rebecca hides her true feelings behind pious psalms and a prim exterior,
Hortense openly showers her affection on all around her, regardless of sex, race
or social standing; and she displays her awareness of a large, public world of
literature, science, politics and art. When Ramsay courts her with “wanton
songs,” she counters them with “naughty music” of her own as she modifies the
popular lyrics of imprisoned poet George Wither’s “The Lover’s Resolution.”
Rebecca remains bound by social, cultural and religious convention, while
Hortense journeys to a world which gives her the chance to discover her own
strengths. Hortense also discovers that the North, unlike Old England or New
England, allows women the space and freedom to grow. Protesting the roles
that women are expected to play in conventional society, Hortense asks, “Must
a woman ever be a cat’s-paw to man’s ambitions?” She realizes that while
society restricts women’s choices to marriage and the convent, the wilderness
offers much more. “Oh, the wilderness is different. In the wild land, each is for
its own! Oh, I love it! It is hard, but it’s free and it’s pure and it’s true and it’s
strong!” (275-76).
Cultures as well as individuals come in contact in this novel. An excerpt from a
brief authorial comment introducing part II of the narrative prepares the reader
for one particular cultural shift:
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Each life is a shut-in valley . . . but Manitou . . . knows there is more
than one valley, which had been a maxim . . . long before one Danish
gentleman assured another there were more things in heaven and earth
than philosophy dreamed. (72)
The allusion to Manitou who “knows there is more than one valley,” indicates
the limitations of a European field of vision (indicated by the allusion to
Shakespeare’s Hamlet) when it encounters the Aboriginal world. As Radisson
and his men leave New England and Quebec far behind, they seem to step
outside an historical frame to enter a more mythical world. In the North, the
natural world eclipses the so-called civilized world of religious bigotry and
political corruption. For Hortense and Radisson, Canada’s North is a place of
high carnival, a place where men and women, English and French, European
and Aboriginal, infidel and Christian, are free to pit themselves against the
harsh natural elements and to outwit the duplicitous politics of the English,
French and New Englander alike. Each believes that the ultimate reward is not
material wealth alone but the struggle, the becoming.
But the North does more than create a new race; it infuses spirit and creativity
into those who are open to diversity, those who respect and appreciate different
cultural values. As Radisson heads into the interior to search for the tribes with
whom he has come to trade, his men are captivated by the sheer beauty of the
land: “We were intoxicated with the wine of the rugged, new, free life . . . blood
atingle to the laughing rhythm of the river—what wonder that youth leaped to a
fresh life from the mummified existence of little, old peoples in little, old
lands?” (102).
The North has a similar effect on Hortense, who quickly becomes a “wilderness
woman,” despite her uncle’s plan to turn her into a lady and restore her to court
life. When Ramsay meets her in the wilderness, where in disguise she
mysteriously saves his life, he is struck by the dramatic transformation that has
taken place:
Pausing, she turned with the frank, fearless look of the wilderness
woman. She was no longer the elusive Hortense of secluded life. A
change had come—the change of the hothouse plant set out to the
buffetings of the four winds of heaven to perish from weakness or
gather strength from hardship. Your woman of older lands must hood
fair eyes, perforce, lest evil masking under other eyes give wrong
intent to candour; but in the wilderness each life stands stripped of
pretence, honestly good or evil, bare at what it is; and purity clear as
the noonday sun needs no trick of custom to make it plainer. (267)
This shift of scene and subsequent change of character enables Hortense to see
the pretence, intolerance and hypocrisy so often lurking under the masks of
civilized society.
Though not bound by gender or social station like Hortense, Radisson too
recognizes the restraints imposed by a more structured society. Returning to a
life of court intrigue and political posturing in Europe, he realizes that “[a]
man’s a man by the measure of his stature in the wilderness. Here, ’tis by the
measure of his clothes” (303-304). Having survived the hazards of wilderness
life in North America, the “heroic” adventurer faces serious injury while
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walking down England’s Fleet Street when “some French kitchen wench
[threw] her breakfast slops to mid-road from the dwelling overhead.” The
humour of the situation does not escape the great explorer: “‘Egad’s life,’ he
cried, ‘’Tis the narrowest escape I’ve ever had’” (301).
Presenting an account of their covert Northern expeditions from the limited and
sometimes faulty perspective of Ramsay, an unimportant figure who
supposedly accompanied the expedition, Laut effectively decenters the
historical narrative. At the same time, as if reluctant to relinquish complete
control for the story to Ramsay or Radisson, she includes footnotes, a site of
authorial surplus value which gives the novel a dialogic quality. At odd
moments when Ramsay’s version of events becomes muddled, when it swerves
too far away from Radisson’s own written account (a subtext in Laut’s narrative
and a historical document which is itself problematic for many scholars), or
when Ramsay’s reading of Radisson differs from Laut’s reception, the
interplay among authors-narrators becomes both comic and complex, raising
as it does intriguing questions.
Did Radisson “author” his own text and, if so, why did he choose to record it in
an alien language? Is Ramsay, the “posited author,” based on a “real” historical
figure or is he a complete fabrication? How much faith should we put in the
“real author” of Heralds of Empire, an author who not only takes Radisson’s
words out of context but then casts them in a strange idiom? How manipulative,
how accurate are historical documents? If Laut wrote this book to counteract
many of the misconceptions surrounding Radisson and to set the historical
record straight, then ironically this play of narrative voices fails to contribute to
the “finalizability” of the script: we are no wiser at the end “[h]ow much of good
was in [Radisson’s] ill, how much ill in his good” (1). All that can be said is that
Ramsay/Laut/Radisson have presented a rollicking good tale about an unruly,
renegade figure whose exploits contributed to the fashioning of one of our
earliest national narratives.
Throughout her writing career, Laut frequently expressed her distrust of rigidly
enforced boundaries, whether they were social, political or generic. Her main
intent in Heralds of Empire is to show that democratic nations come into
existence because fugitives like Ramsay, Radisson and Hortense ignore
boundaries, resist centripetal forces, and embody “the spirit of that wild,
tempestuous world where the storm never sleeps” (80-81). Laut, like her
characters, believed that the North fosters hybridity, creates new types of men
and women. As Ramsay concludes when he first arrives in the hinterland, “That
was my first experience of the fusion which the New World makes of Old
World divisions. We thought we had taken possession of the land. No, no, ’twas
the land had taken possession of us, as the New World ever does, fusing ancient
hates and rearing a new race. . .” (100-101). This notion that Northern and
frontier spaces foster a fuller and more tolerant human response is repeated at
the end of most of Laut’s fictions.
Follow the River
This is a country of metamorphosis, where we have
translated ourselves. . . .We put on new clothes here. . . . The
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roughness and brutality of the land created irony about our
worth. (Ondaatje xiii-xiv)
Three hundred years after Radisson’s explorations and nearly a century after
Laut wrote her fictions and histories about nations and northern spaces, the real
and the mythical North continues to haunt the Canadian consciousness. In The
Canadian Commonwealth, Laut says that tracing the awakening of national
consciousness is “like following a river back from the ocean to its mountain
springs. From the silt borne down on the flood-tide you can guess the fertiled
plains watered . . . [the] regions of eternal snow and glacial torrent warring
turbulently . . . [and] the eternal striving, the forward rush and the throwback”
(1). Rejecting the “formal, conventional, and statistical outlines of Canadian
history” that she and most Canadians had been taught, Laut set out to explore
the twists and turns, the turbulent moments in her country’s struggle for
nationhood. In early exploration narratives and historical documents, she
discovered a dynamic past filled with diverse types of men and women who
helped fashion this newly emerging nation to the North, men and women who
confronted the conflicting forces of race, religion, region and gender. Some of
these forces clung tenuously to illusory positions of status, privilege and
monopoly, while the more creative, through their encounters with “other
consciousnesses” and their travels to other places, resisted elitist and
exclusionary notions.
For the men and women who explored and colonized Canada, North was more
than a direction: it was a place where pretence was stripped away, where
newcomers were redefined not in terms of class, race or gender but by their
merits, persistence and inventiveness. In Heralds of Empire, Agnes C. Laut
suggests that nations are created by dreamers who possess the courage to take
great risks and by visionary fugitives who break free from bound spaces.
Nearly a century after the publication of Laut’s popular fictions, Canada is still,
as Michael Ondaatje observes, “in the process of documenting and inventing
itself” (xiii). In the introduction to From Ink Lake (1990), Ondaatje writes, “the
landscape the early explorers of Canada found was surreal and brutal. . . .
Th[eir] drama of entrance into a new land is central in our writing, as is the
desire to get out of a social structure” (xv). It is this high carnival of entrances
and exits that exists at the heart of Laut’s Northern fictions. At a time when
Canada seemed poised on the brink of a new era, Laut returned to the past, to
threshold moments in Canadian history to investigate some of our most
persistent national narratives. As Bakhtin observes, the novel was “powerfully
affected by a very specific rupture in the history of European civilization: its
emergence from a socially isolated and culturally deaf semipatriarchal society,
and its entrance into international and interlingual contacts and relationships”
(Dialogic 11). Liminal men and chameleon women negotiated the contending
forces associated with class, race and gender as they moved from one cultural
zone to another during similar moments of historical ruptures: the exploration
and colonization of America, the penetration of an Aboriginal way of life, the
dreaming of holy cities and Northern nations. In the process, they discovered
that “here” was an appropriate site for “becoming.”
146
Notes
1.
See Michael Holquist, ed. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, Trans.
Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981) xviii and
272-73.
2.
Bakhtin quoted in Holquist xxviii.
3.
See Amy Ling, “Winnifred Eaton: Ethnic Chameleon and Popular Success,” MELUS 2 (Fall
1984): 5-15 and Annette White-Parks, Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton: A Literary
Biography (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995). Unlike her sister, Edith Eaton, who
did write about the Chinese in Canada, Reeve pretended that her heritage was Japanese,
which was more acceptable at the time.
4.
See Rooney’s Working Light.
5.
This is a term Bakhtin uses to talk about the impurity of words, languages, genres and literary
conventions. For example, Heralds of Empire is a comic-romance, an historical novel, a
picaresque novel and a type of travelogue.
6.
See Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel.” He writes, “The study of the novel as a genre is distinguished
by peculiar difficulties. This is due to the unique nature of the object itself: the novel is the
sole genre that continues to develop, that is as yet uncompleted. The forces that define it as a
genre are at work before our very eyes: the birth and development of the novel as a genre
takes place in the full light of historical day. The generic skeleton of the novel is still far from
hardened, and we cannot foresee all its plastic possibilities” (3).
7.
Bakhtin explains the relationship between literary scholarship and the history of culture in
“Response to a Question from the Novy Mir Editorial Staff,” in Speech Genres and Other
Late Essays, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1986) 2-9. He writes, “artwork extends its roots into the distant past. Great literary works are
prepared for by centuries, and . . . Trying to understand and explain a work solely in terms of
its epoch alone, solely in terms of the conditions of the most immediate time, will never
enable us to penetrate its semantic depths. . . . Works break through the boundaries of their
own time” (4).
8.
In Canada: The Empire of the North, Laut writes, “a nation can live only as it trades what it
draws from the soil” (vii). And in The Canadian Commonwealth, where Laut discusses
reciprocity and “americanization,” she writes, “I was a free trader and had been trained to
love and revere [Sir Wilfred] Laurier from childhood” (90).
9.
Holquist describes heteroglossia as “the base condition governing the operation of meaning
in any utterance. At any given time, in any given place, there will be a set of conditions—
social, historical, meteorological, physiological—that will insure that a word uttered in that
place and at that time will have a meaning different than it would have under any other
conditions” (428).
10. J. D. Logan and Donald G. French, eds. Highways of Canadian Literature: A Synoptic
Introduction to the Literary History of Canada (English) from 1760 to 1924 (Toronto:
McClelland & Stewart, 1924) 273.
11. Nearly a century after Laut participated in the construction and the deconstruction of some of
these “shared stories” that are, as Robert Kroetsch tells us, “basic to nationhood,” the novel
and the nation continue to explore other ways of being. In “Disunity as Unity: A Canadian
Strategy” in The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New (Toronto: Oxford
University Press, 1989) 21-33, Kroetsch suggests that “Canadians cannot agree on what
their meta-narrative is . . . in some perverse way, this very falling-apart of our story is what
holds our story together.” This decentering or lack of unity, suggests Kroetsch, is exactly
“what gives new energy to countries like Canada” (22). In a similar fashion, this is what
Bakhtin believes breathes life into the novel.
12. See Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). Morson and Emerson suggest that Bakhtin
defines his favourite heroes as “always liminal, always on a boundary” (51). See also Victor
Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969) and
Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (New York: Cornell
University Press, 1974). Turner borrows the term liminality from Arnold van Gennep’s
concept of rites of passage or transition rites, those observances that accompany every
147
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13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
change of state or social position. Sexlessness, classlessness and anonymity are highly
characteristic of the liminal or threshold figure.
Anthropologists Shirley Ardener and Edwin Ardener refer to the “wild zone” as that
“continuous periphery of culture’s clearing” where disruptive forces exist.
This phrase is used by Laut in Freebooters of the Wilderness (Toronto: Musson, 1910) 382.
See Tom Marshall, Harsh and Lovely Land: The Major Canadian Poets & the Making of a
Canadian Tradition (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1979).
In The New Dawn (1913) the fugitive feminine is Madeline Connor, an artist who is
described as “a mountain flower.” She is compared to an Alpine meadow “fresh and brilliant
and unfrosted after a snow.” Mrs. Louie Ward, who represents the world of wealth and
materialism, is, in contrast, compared to “an orchid”, “a hot-house plant, over-atmosphered,
[which has] taken generations of culture to bring her out, proud and gorgeous and splendid”
(299). In Canadian history, there are many stories about women forced to masquerade as
men in order to enter wilderness communities. In 1738, twenty year old Esther Brandeau,
disguised as a young boy, arrived in Quebec on a ship from France. See B.G. Sacks, History
of the Jews in Canada, trans. Ralph Novak (Montreal: Harvester House, 1965). And in the
Hudson’s Bay papers there is a story about Isabel Gunn (known also as Mary Fubbister, John
Fubbister and Isabella Gun), a young woman from Scotland who masqueraded as a man in
order to seek employment with the company while she searched for her runaway lover. Her
true identity was revealed when she went into labour and gave birth. See “Isabel Gunn,”
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, ed. Frances G. Halpenny (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1983) Vol. V (1801-20), 394 and A Harvest Yet to Reap: A History of Prairie
Women, eds. Linda Rasmussen, Lorna Rasmussen, Candace Savage and Anne Wheeler
(Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1976), 12. John Richardson in Wacousta (1832) and Gilbert
Parker in Seats of the Mighty (1896) are just two nineteenth-century writers who use
masquerading women in their fictions.
Laut, “New Nation to the North,” Review of Reviews 37 (May 1908): 557-60.
See Arthur T. Adams, ed., The Explorations of Pierre Esprit Radisson (Minneapolis: Ross &
Haines, 1961), 161-205 and Grace Lee Nute, Caesars of the Wilderness (New York: D.
Appleton-Century Company, 1943). Laut’s narrative contains many of the situations and
happenings described by Radisson in his “Fifth Voyage” to the North in the years 1682 and
1683. In 1682, La Chesnaye organized the Compagnie du Nord to push the English out of
Hudson Bay. That same year the first ship sailed from Quebec for the Nelson River in the
North. Commanded by Radisson, who had rejoined his countrymen, this voyage was
successful. In the Bay, Radisson and his men captured a Hudson’s Bay Company ship and a
New Englander interloper and seized their furs.
See Bakhtin, “From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse” 69. This term refers to a moment
of mutual illumination, what Holquist describes as the “major relativizing force in deprivileging languages. When cultures are closed and deaf to one another, each considers
itself absolute; when one language sees itself in the light of another [and when one character
sees himself in the light of another], “novelness” has arrived” (430).
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150
Review Essay
Essai critique
Jocelyn Létourneau
Le temps du lieu raconté.
Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes
relatives à l’histoire du Québec*
Les chronologies ne sont pas neutres1. Il existe ainsi, dans la culture historique
des Québécois francophones, un certain nombre de dates consacrées. Celles-ci
constituent autant de repères qui permettent à des locuteurs-participants d’une
communauté de communication de se situer par rapport à la temporalité
narrative de leur groupe présumé ou recherché d’appartenance. Elles leur
servent aussi à se reconnaître comme ayant évolué au même rythme, comme
ayant connu le même destin et comme ayant partagé le même espace
d’expériences tout en cheminant vers le même horizon d’attente. Ces dates sont
pleines de sens. Elles sont des déclencheurs narratifs, on ne les efface ni ne les
remplace sans provoquer des déchaînements de passions. Ces dates sont des
balises grâce auxquelles les groupes se situent par rapport à Eux-mêmes dans
leur trajectoire historique et se positionnent aussi par rapport aux Autres dans la
trajectoire historique universelle. Ces dates sont en fait des catégories
fondatrices sur lesquelles les groupes élèvent leur représentation identitaire et
bâtissent leur genèse. Mil-sept-cent-cinquante-neuf, 1763, 1791, 1837-1838,
1840, 1867, 1960, 1982, voilà autant de bornes qui scandent, dans l’histoire et la
mémoire collectives des Franco-Québécois, les péripéties d’un peuple
apparemment soumis à l’exil dans son propre espace originel puis arraché à sa
destinée et conscrit pour le bénéfice des intérêts d’un État assimilateur; un
peuple redevenu, avec la Révolution tranquille, commandeur de sa propre
histoire avant d’être à nouveau, par l’épisode du rapatriement de la constitution,
contraint de se ranger, inéluctablement victime des manipulations de l’Autre2.
De telles périodisations — positives ou négatives, offensives ou défensives,
universalistes ou localistes, c’est finalement selon la conscience historique que
les groupes développent d’eux-mêmes ou selon celle qu’on leur prête et qu’ils
assimilent — se rencontrent chez les Américains et les Français, chez les
Allemands et les Canadiens, bref partout. La raison est bien simple à
comprendre. Coloniser le passé par le temps d’une narration importe autant que
se nommer et s’instituer physiquement dans un territoire3. C’est injecter du
sens là où il n’y aurait qu’un flux intarissable de moments et de passages
consécutifs sans continuités et sans ruptures, sans dedans ni dehors et sans
frontières, donc sans conséquences et sans permanence. C’est contribuer à
conceptualiser une réalité qui autrement s’appellerait Absence ou Personne,
Licence ou Zone Franche, Timeless ou Nowhere, donc s’apparenterait à du
Néant.
IJCS / RIÉC
Le lieu a besoin d’un temps pour prendre une consistance linéaire et s’endurcir
sur le mode d’une histoire sensée, causative, transmissible et compréhensible.
Il lui faut, par l’intermédiaire de « chronologues » patentés, créer sa
temporalité. Or, puisqu’elle n’est pas naturelle, c’est-à-dire qu’elle appartient à
l’histoire qui est faite du passé plutôt qu’au passé lui-même, cette temporalité
ne va de soi. Elle est aussi délicate à fixer que le lieu est ardu à circonscrire4.
I
Dans son Histoire du Canada depuis sa découverte jusqu’à nos jours5,
François-Xavier Garneau proposait déjà, aussi tôt que le milieu du XIXe siècle,
une première périodisation établissant une succession conséquentielle des
événements porteurs de la destinée canadienne-française. Cette périodisation
était structurée autour d’un moment dramatique de rupture, celui de la
Conquête anglaise. Avec Garneau, les ferments d’une chronologie nationale
étaient posés. La société était nationalisée, c’est-à-dire qu’elle était réputée
fonctionner à l’heure de la nation en déficit d’accomplissement. Cette date
butoir allait être inlassablement reprise par les successeurs du célèbre auteur,
nonobstant leurs partis pris idéologiques. Il faut comprendre que, à l’époque,
l’objet des historiens était, plus que n’importe quoi d’autre, l’étude de la
politique nationale, et, par ce biais, l’étude de la construction et de la dissolution
des nations. Mais, dans le cas qui nous occupe, il y avait plus : la Conquête était
présentée comme un épisode de basculement, comme une bifurcation
fondamentale, comme une reprogrammation du devenir de tout un peuple dont
l’histoire devait être grande — et l’avait été jusque-là! — elle aussi. La
Conquête ne marquait pas la disparition d’une nation, elle signifiait sa mise en
tutelle. Elle inaugurait une lutte d’émancipation qui passait d’abord par la
survivance. Surtout, cette lutte appelait une solidarité de la part des héritiers. La
prise en charge de cet héritage allait se manifester, toujours selon le récit de la
« nation en quête d’avenir », de manière légaliste par le biais d’une lutte
parlementaire acharnée (confirmée et accentuée par l’Acte constitutionnel de
1791) et de façon dramatique aussi par l’insurrection armée de 1837-1838.
En fait, la nation se construisait en même temps que sa temporalité et ce, dans
une véritable dialectique tautologique : ni l’une ni l’autre n’existait en soi, mais
l’une par rapport à l’autre, l’une grâce à l’autre. Dans la mesure où l’histoire —
celle de Groulx6, celle des Frères des Écoles chrétiennes, celle des Clercs de
Saint-Viateur et de combien d’autres7 — s’en tenait à cette temporalité de la
nation, et puisqu’elle l’imposait comme seule temporalité référentielle, il n’y
avait, sur le plan des mégareprésentations tout au moins, qu’un temps vraiment
critique, qu’un temps résolument significatif, celui vers lequel tout
convergeait, l’alpha et l’omega de la socialité, et c’était celui de la nation8. Le
découpage temporel choisi semblait essentiellement technique, voire objectif :
il marquait, disait-on, les tribulations politiques du groupe. En réalité, la
temporalité retenue, celle d’un monde réifié — le monde de la nation
unanimiste et monovalente qui se meut comme une entité univoque dans le
théâtre de l’histoire —, synthétisait un ensemble de temporalités concrètes qui
renvoyaient à autant de mondes vécus constituant l’interface parfois
complémentaire, parfois contradictoire, du premier. Mais de ces mondes vécus
et de leurs espaces-temps labiles il n’était peu ou pas question. Le contexte
154
Essai sur quelques chronologies récentes relatives
à l’histoire du Québec
signifiant dans lequel se déroulait l’histoire n’était autre que celui de la nation
se déployant dans l’espace-temps de sa na(rra)tion. La force tranquille de la vie
quotidienne, désespérante voire insoutenable aux idéologues par sa sagesse,
était engloutie dans le grand récit galvanisant du peuple à la recherche des
conditions de sa survivance9.
Ce n’est qu’avec les années 1960 que d’autres repères et découpages temporels
furent proposés, sans toutefois que la temporalité nationale — une chronologie
de malheurs et de vicissitudes — ne perde son statut hégémonique de cadre
focal unificateur et synthétique du groupe. Inspirés par les problématiques des
Labrousse et des Braudel, qui insistaient sur les rythmes lents de l’évolution
humaine, Fernand Ouellet10 et Jean Hamelin11, de manière à la fois
complémentaire et différente, « découvrirent » d’autres durées et contextes
historiques par lesquels il était possible de cerner les dynamismes centraux de
l’évolution du Canada français. Selon leur perspective, la Conquête, épisode
politique incontournable sur le plan politique — et, ajouterions-nous
maintenant, ineffaçable sur le plan mémoriel — ne coïncidait pas avec le
moment initial, sorte de « Temps 1 » de la périphérisation d’un espace et d’une
société. Pour un Ouellet, par exemple, le siècle de l’après Conquête se situait
dans la continuité de l’avant. Cette interprétation, remettant en cause la
primauté d’une chronologie essentiellement politique centrée sur un
événement fondateur, n’était pas sans provoquer ces gens qui, comme les
Brunet, Séguin, Frégault et leurs épigones, estimaient que la Conquête restait le
fait marquant d’une époque, sinon d’une destinée12. Déboulonner 1759, voire
même seulement relativiser cette date, était un acte politique avant d’être une
opération scientifique. C’est en effet par rapport à ce moment inaugural que
s’enchaînait une suite événementielle faite d’Empêchement, de Déchéance et
de Minorisation. Un parcours fort différent de celui qui marquait l’histoire de
l’Autre — une histoire de Progrès, d’Avancement et de Succès — et dont les
Creighton, les Lower et les McInnis se faisaient les chantres13. C’est ainsi que
soixante-quinze ans après la Confédération, deux anciennes races et deux
anciennes religions se rencontraient pour vivre, côte à côte, chacune sa
légende14.
Le statut de la Conquête dans l’évolution historique du Canada français n’allait
pas mourir au chapitre. Cette question prit en effet la forme d’un débat
envenimé auquel participèrent, dans les années 1970, Gilles Paquet et JeanPierre Wallot, mais pour la reformuler. Capitalisant sur leurs recherches
antérieures, ceux-ci en vinrent à proposer, au début des années 1980, un cadre
chronologique original, explicitement conceptualisé, pour aborder
« l’expérience socio-économique du Québec »15. Ce cadre chronologique
reposait sur l’identification des procès historiques, contingents et institués,
ayant caractérisé le développement de la province. Ce cadre n’était pas établi en
fonction des démarcations politiques habituelles, niveau superficiel de
l’histoire, mais à la suite du repérage des « périodes de discontinuités » ayant
marqué le substrat matériel de la socio-économie québécoise et définirent ses
« tonus » successifs. Selon Paquet et Wallot, plutôt que de s’en tenir à ces
moments présumés importants qu’étaient 1760, 1763, 1840 ou 1867, il était
préférable, pour saisir les forces motrices animant le mouvement de l’histoire,
d’identifier les « régimes de fonctionnement » ayant scandé l’évolution du
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Québec. Ces régimes étaient les suivants : économie-comptoir, socioéconomie duale, capitalisme commercial, capitalisme industriel et socioéconomie d’information. Ces régimes étaient séparés par quatre discontinuités
ainsi jalonnées : tournant du XVIIIe siècle, tournant du XIXe siècle et troisième
tiers du XIXe siècle, troisième tiers du XXe siècle. Suivant le contexte temporel
préconisé par les deux auteurs, les événements politiques comme tels étaient
réinsérés dans des trames structurelles d’évolution, y compris les grands procès
d’institution des sociétés, qui étaient largement conditionnants des
phénomènes de surface. Certes, il ne s’agissait pas de nier la factualité de la
capitulation de Montréal, du Traité de Paris, de l’Acte d’Union où de l’entrée en
vigueur de l’AANB. Mais il ne fallait pas non plus ériger ces événements en
bornes monumentales ni leur attribuer le statut de grand code explicatif d’ou
sortait l’histoire pour y revenir. On saisit bien l’importance de la démarche de
Paquet et Wallot. Leur périodisation autorisait une nouvelle narration du passé.
Celle-ci pouvait se faire selon une intrigue différente, à partir de nœuds
articulants ou désarticulants inaccoutumés. Surtout, cette périodisation n’était
pas fixée à l’axiomatique nationaliste. Le Québec fonctionnait désormais à
l’heure américaine et occidentale16.
II
Jusqu’à un certain point, si l’on s’en tient aux temporalités synthétiques du
moins17, la collectivité québécoise hésite toujours, en cette fin de siècle, entre
deux chronologies qui contribuent à la mettre en scène sous des jours et des états
différents.
La première chronologie, résolument politique, insiste sur le caractère troublé
d’une histoire à quatre temps : le Régime français, le Régime anglais, la
Confédération, la Révolution tranquille et ses suites. Cette chronologie
ponctue la narration de la majorité des ouvrages offerts en pâture au public
averti et aux élèves18. Elle constitue également l’un des principes cardinaux
utilisés par les spécialistes pour établir leurs classements bibliographiques19. Il
est vrai que l’on a proposé, depuis quelques temps, une variante à cette
périodisation, soit celle de découper l’époque contemporaine (de 1867 à nos
jours) en deux tranches de longueur à peu près égales : de la Confédération à la
Crise de 1929, des années trente à aujourd’hui20. Cette périodisation a
certainement eu pour conséquence de relativiser, au moins dans les milieux
savants, cette idée selon laquelle tout (re)commençait au Québec avec la
Révolution tranquille21. La question de l’accession du Québec à la modernité
est d’ailleurs au centre des préoccupations des historiens actuels, que ce soit
directement ou par la bande22, et elle commande largement les découpages
chronologiques auxquels ils ont recours pour établir les temporalités les plus
pertinentes touchant à l’évolution de la « province ». Si l’année 1930 semble
être celle qui obtient l’adhésion du plus grand nombre23, 186724, 1895-190025,
l’entre-deux guerres26 et 193927, pour ne nommer que celles-là, constituent
d’autres alternatives pour faire débuter la modernité québécoise28. Certains
vont jusqu’à réenvisager toute l’histoire du XIXe siècle sous le prisme de la
diversité et du progrès, protocatégories d’une problématique implicite de
modernisation29. En fait, l’on est à se demander si le couple tradition-
156
modernité constitue un angle d’approche fécond pour saisir les dynamismes de
changement dans l’histoire du Québec30.
La seconde chronologie, élaborée à partir de la prise en compte de facteurs
économiques et sociaux structurants, met en lumière la parenté d’évolution de
l’espace québécois avec d’autres socio-économies du même genre — ce qui
n’exclut pas que la socio-économie québécoise possède des traits distinctifs —
et inscrit sa destinée dans un temps universel, tout au moins occidental,
principalement atlantique et nord-américain. L’effort le plus manifeste
d’ériger cette chronologie en nouvelle temporalité opérationnelle a certes été
celui de John Dickinson et de Brian Young31. Dans un article incisif32, ceux-ci
ont plaidé pour l’utilisation d’une périodisation ramenant l’évolution
historique du Québec dans le sillage des grandes mutations qui ont scandé le
développement du capitalisme et de l’industrialisation en Occident. Selon leur
perspective, il y aurait lieu de comprendre l’histoire du Québec à partir des
transformations survenues sur le plan des systèmes de production et d’échange
plutôt qu’à partir de la « chronologie tyrannique » de 1663, 1760, 1791, 1840 et
1867. Dans ce contexte, six périodes — possédant chacune une certaine unité et
cohérence du point de vue des relations économiques et sociales qui s’y
déroulent — seraient identifiables. Ces périodes sont les suivantes : l’époque
des systèmes socio-économiques indigènes (avant 1650), l’époque préindustrielle (1650-1810), la transition vers le capitalisme industriel (18101880), l’époque du capitalisme industriel (1880-1930), la modernisation
(1930-1960) et le Québec contemporain (de 1960 à nos jours). En usant de ce
découpage, la Confédération — pour prendre cet exemple — trouverait son
sens historique dans les grands procès d’institutionnalisation propres à
l’industrialisation et à la formation des États au XIXe siècle plutôt qu’elle ne
s’expliquerait comme la conséquence d’une volonté d’embrigadement d’un
peuple par un autre et ce, sous l’empire d’un fédéralisme assimilateur.
S’enracinant dans un très grand nombre de travaux qui ont eu pour effet de
remettre en cause la vision canonique d’un Québec « attardé » par rapport à un
continent « avancé », et donc de reprendre la narration de l’histoire de la
province à l’aune d’une problématique « optimiste » plutôt que
« pessimiste »33, cette périodisation n’a pas été sans provoquer des réactions.
Dans le compte rendu qu’il a commis de l’ouvrage de Young et Dickinson34,
J.I. Little conteste ainsi le découpage chronologique retenu. Si l’historien a peu
à dire sur la logique matérialiste plutôt que « politique » sous-tendant la
démarche des auteurs, il ne partage pas le choix technique des dates. Selon le
professeur de l’université Simon Fraser, Young et Dickinson « mettent l’accent
sur chaque période dans son ensemble et non sur les dates charnières ». Luimême aurait défini d’autres jalons chronologiques. Au fond, il ne s’agit ici que
d’une objection mineure, infiniment discutable. En fait, le commentaire le plus
virulent contre cette périodisation révisionniste — et contre le contexte
interprétatif dans lequel elle s’insère — est certainement venu de Ronald
Rudin. Dans un texte d’abord publié en anglais dans la Canadian Historical
Review35, et repris plus tard en français dans le Bulletin d’histoire politique36,
Rudin a dénoncé le côté excessif des « révisionnistes » qui cherchent à
normaliser le parcours historique de la collectivité québécoise. Selon Rudin,
l’insistance exagérément portée aux facteurs structurels a entraîné l’abandon
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presque complet des facteurs culturels comme source d’explication du passé
québécois. La périodisation retenue, essentiellement centrée sur l’idée de
« normalité d’une société évoluant au même rythme que les autres », a entraîné
une sous-estimation des conflits ethniques, de la ruralité, de l’influence
déterminante de l’Église et de l’anti-étatisme dans l’histoire du Québec. Aux
dires de Rudin, 1960 a vraiment constitué un moment de rupture avec un passé
qui, tout en étant marqué par certaines caractéristiques « universelles », était
néanmoins singulier à bien des égards37. Inutile d’ajouter que le débat ouvert
par le professeur de l’Université de Concordia a entraîné son lot de répliques et
qu’il est loin d’être terminé38.
En certaines occasions, il arrive que d’autres chronologies — et donc que
d’autres ensembles, structures et régimes de faits — soient proposées pour
situer et ponctuer l’évolution historique du Québec. Dans son ouvrage de
synthèse intitulé Visions nationales. Une histoire du Québec39, Susan Mann
Trofimenkoff a ainsi eu recours à une périodisation sourde, sorte de
chronologie effacée qui agit comme support empirique plutôt que comme
marqueur téléologique. Dans son récit présenté comme une histoire sociale et
intellectuelle du Québec, le temps signifiant est celui qui balise l’action
d’acteurs construisant ce qu’il conviendrait d’appeler des espaces de
communication, d’interlocution publique et de pensée. Pour prendre un
exemple parmi tant d’autres, 1952, qui marque le début de la télévision au
Canada, apparaît comme le moment inaugural d’un mouvement de
restructuration majeur du champ culturel québécois. Dans ce nouvel espace
civique, où les idées échappent au contrôle des pouvoirs précédents, les visions
du monde changent. Ce faisant, de nouvelles représentations naissent qui
informent l’action des acteurs; cette dialectique entre l’action, la représentation
et la conscience s’effectue dans une inflation constante de signes, de références
et d’horizons qui élargissent et complexifient singulièrement l’expérience
historique des sujets. Pour l’auteure, la périodisation la plus intéressante serait
probablement celle qui coïnciderait avec les phases d’extension ou de repli, en
tout cas de redéfinition du groupe par lui-même ou par ses grands paroliers, ce
qui est une façon d’admettre et de reconnaître que les idées mènent le monde
tout autant que les actions le façonnent!
Cette prémisse semble également inspirer Yvan Lamonde dans sa tentative de
« chrono-logiser » l’histoire du Québec en s’attachant à repérer les trames
constitutives de l’expression publique des citoyens du Québec et ce, pour la
période biséculaire de 1760 à 196040. Selon Lamonde, ces trames se résument
aux courants suivants : le nationalisme et ses corollaires (colonialisme,
impérialisme, régionalisme, souverainisme); le libéralisme et la démocratie; le
catholicisme et l’ultramontainisme; le laïcisme; le continentalisme ou
l’attraction états-unienne; la pensée sociale et économique; la modernité.
Quant à la « chrono-logique » de cette histoire socio-culturelle du Québec, elle
s’organise autour de six périodes : 1760-1815, 1815-1840, 1840-1880, 18801929, 1929-1945, 1945-1960. Il serait trop long de décliner les justifications
apportées par l’auteur pour fonder cette temporalité, hachurée, de l’évolution
historique du Québec sur le plan des courants d’idées et des pratiques
culturelles qui s’y sont succédés. Suffit-il de rappeler qu’elle reprend en partie
seulement la trame politique établie par les tenants de l’axiomatique
158
nationaliste et moins encore les discontinuités socio- économiques identifiées
par les partisans de l’approche institutionnaliste ou systémiste41. Serait-ce qu’à
chaque problématique il est une temporalité appropriée et pertinente? Sans
aucun doute.
Cette position se vérifie certainement lorsqu’on s’arrête aux repères temporels
utilisés par le Collectif Clio pour découper, en périodes signifiantes, l’histoire
des femmes au Québec42. D’une part, les dates marquantes de cette histoire ne
coïncident pas avec la temporalité nationale hégémonique qui est, comme on le
sait, une temporalité masculine43. D’autre part, les durées dans lesquelles les
femmes inscrivent leurs pratiques, leurs représentations et, probablement
aussi, leur conscience historique, sont spécifiques à leur condition sociale et
culturelle, de même qu’à leur imaginaire. La traite des fourrures, les guerres, la
responsabilité ministérielle, la construction des chemins de fer, voilà autant
d’épisodes qui ne sont pas signifiants du point de vue de l’histoire des femmes.
Cette histoire se dessine selon un temps différent : ses jalons sont déterminés
par les changements survenus dans les façons de naître, de grandir,
d’accoucher, de travailler, bref par l’ensemble des questions qui sont au cœur
de la mémoire et de l’engagement des femmes plutôt qu’au centre de l’action
des hommes44. Ce sont ces problématiques qui permettent de comprendre la
condition historique des femmes. Même la Révolution tranquille, ce moment
réputé de grand basculement et de recommencement, n’est pas retenue comme
repère chronologique dans l’histoire des femmes. Aux dires des membres du
Collectif Clio, « 1960 n’est pas, pour les femmes, une date vraiment importante
car comme bien d’autres groupes, la “Révolution tranquille”, elles l’avaient
commencée bien avant qu’on en parle. De plus, elles découvriront plus tard
que, malgré son idéologie égalitariste, la dite Révolution tranquille aura mis en
place des institutions créant un nouveau double standard, une nouvelle place,
différente mais inférieure, pour les femmes45. »
III
Quelles que soient les tentatives mises de l’avant pour développer de nouvelles
périodisations et temporalités afin d’envisager l’évolution historique du
Québec dans son temps long, elles n’ont pas réussi à déloger les chronologies
dominantes. Au milieu des années 1990, la majorité des synthèses et manuels
scolaires en usage au Québec français proposent des repères on ne peut plus
traditionnels qui permettent à tout un chacun de « remonter » ou de
« descendre » le temps selon un parcours codé et balisé, connu et
reconnaissable46. Cela est vrai aussi dans le cas des manuels et des synthèses
utilisés au Canada anglais47. Il semble difficile de sortir des périodisations qui
se sont, avec le temps, cristallisées sous la forme d’axiomatiques historiques et
narratives, mémorielles et identitaires48. Ne pas avoir recours à ces
périodisations, c’est en quelque sorte donner au lecteur une boussole qui lui
indique une direction inconnue plutôt que le Nord. C’est risquer de le perdre au
moins comme sujet national. Si tous admettent qu’il est important de se
souvenir, encore faut-il se rappeler correctement les choses!49 Dans l’espace
public commun, l’histoire est après tout perçue comme la science exacte des
dates, des événements et de la mémoire (sic).
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Les contextes temporels sont importants, car, en érigeant des bords et des
limites à la factualité du passé, ils en mobilisent la matière en vue d’une quête et
d’une recréation de sens qui n’était pas immanent à l’effectuation des faits et
gestes des acteurs ayant vécu le passé dans son déroulement circonstanciel.
David Lowenthal a brillamment soutenu ce théorème en définissant le passé
comme un « lieu étranger »50. Dépendamment des contextes temporels choisis,
les événements prennent des significations variables. Un événement n’existe
d’ailleurs jamais en soi, il est, comme Marshall Sahlins l’a souligné, « une
relation entre quelque chose qui se produit et une structure. Il est une
transformation du phénomène en-soi en une valeur chargée de sens, d’où
découle son efficacité propre51. » De ce point de vue, il est intéressant
d’observer le jeu de polycontextualisation auquel s’est livré Jacques Godbout,
à propos de 1759, dans son documentaire intitulé Le Sort de l’Amérique52. À
force de multiplier les angles d’approche et d’ajouter des prises de vue, le
spectateur est dérouté. L’addition de repères ne repaît nullement sa mémoire
mais l’égare et la dissout au contraire dans un anéantissement identitaire. Sans
possibilité de se saisir pour Soi dans le temps d’une narration de Soi, le
spectateur, interpellé comme sujet historique, perd sens. Voilà pourquoi
Godbout apparaît comme un « traître » — selon le qualificatif de son jeune
assistant Philippe Falardeau. Le documentariste est un traître parce qu’il
n’assume pas son rôle de « grand parolier ». Il laisse le groupe — ici les
Québécois francophones — sans miroir pour se regarder et dialoguer avec luimême. Sans récit et sans chronologie établie, voire fixée, le narrateur ou le
chronologue n’offre pas au groupe la possibilité de se donner une consistance
dans l’image mimée qu’il exécute de lui-même53. Sans récit et sans
chronologie, il n’y a plus de passé, ou alors il y en a tellement qu’ils s’annulent
les uns les autres, cette infinité de possibles ouvrant le Vide comme horizon. Or,
l’individu, comme le sujet historicisé, répugnent à l’Absence. Un monde sans
écho et sans repère, sans odeur et sans saveur, est un monde en voie de
désintégration, un monde en proie aux langoliers, ces non-êtres qui nettoient le
temps de toute Présence et qui préparent l’avènement de l’Inexistence comme
référence54. L’Inexistence est la négation, l’antithèse de l’Être. Voilà pourquoi
exister suppose probablement — que l’on accepte mal cette thèse ne signifie
pas qu’elle soit fausse — adhérer à une conscience de la frontière.
L’établissement de chronologies participe de cet exercice de construction de
l’Être, elle est une arme dans la lutte de l’Être contre la Mort. S’il est inutile de
s’interposer dans ce combat éternel du Temps découpé et raconté contre le
Non-Sens, il est important de dénoncer les chronologies insensées. Il est surtout
essentiel d’empêcher que les chrono ne muent en chromo...55
Notes
*
1.
2.
160
Le lecteur devra considérer que, dans cet article, nous abordons une matière complexe et très
vaste sans nullement prétendre la couvrir de manière exhaustive.
À ce sujet, voir Chronotypes. The Construction of Time, sous la dir. de John Bender et David
E. Wellbery, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1991; Krzysztof Pomian, L’ordre du
temps, Paris, Gallimard, 1984; Constructions sociales du temps, sous la dir. de Florence
Piron et Daniel Arsenault, Sillery, Septentrion, 1996. Voir également les livraisons de la
revue Time and Society, publiée depuis 1992.
Cette trame temporelle et narrative, qui conforme largement la mémoire collective et la
culture historique des Québécois francophones, ressort clairement des mémoires déposés
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
devant la Commission sur l’avenir politique et constitutionnel du Québec. Voir l’étude
minutieuse réalisée par Jacinthe Ruel, « Entre la rhétorique et la mémoire : usages du passé et
références à l’histoire dans les mémoires déposés devant la Commission sur l’avenir
politique et constitutionnel du Québec (1990) », Discours social/Social Discourse, 6, 1-2
(1994), p. 213-242. Pour un exemple récent de la prégnance de cette temporalité
référentielle, citons cet extrait de l’« Appel aux historiens et historiennes pour le Oui »,
publié par le Regroupement des historiens et historiennes pour le Oui dans le Bulletin
d’histoire politique, 4, 3 (printemps 1996), p. 93-94 : « Parce que, depuis la défaite militaire
de 1760, les Québécoises et Québécois n’ont jamais pu décider du cadre constitutionnel qui
animerait leur activité socio-économique, leur culture et leur développement; depuis ce
temps, en 1763, en 1774, en 1791, en 1840, en 1867 comme en 1982, toutes les constitutions
de leur histoire leur ont été imposées. »
Jane Jenson, « Naming Nations. Making Nationalist Claims in Canadian Public Discourse »,
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 30, 3 (1993), p. 337-358; Graeme Wynn,
« Maps and Dreams of Nationhood : A (Re)View of the Historical Atlas of Canada »,
Canadian Historical Review, 76, 3 (septembre 1995), p. 482-510.
À ce sujet, voir J. Létourneau, avec la participation d’Anne Trépanier, « Le lieu (dit) de la
nation : essai d’argumentation à partir d’exemples puisés au cas québécois », Revue
canadienne de science politique, 30, 1 (mars 1997), p. 55-87.
Québec, éditeurs différents, 1848-1852, 4 tomes.
Histoire du Canada français depuis la découverte, Montréal, L’Action nationale, 19501953, 4 tomes.
Il est impensable dans le cadre de cet article de résumer la matière des ouvrages, notamment
celle des manuels scolaires, parus dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Pour une entrée en
la matière, voir néanmoins J. Létourneau, « Nous autres les Québécois. La voix des manuels
d’histoire », Internationale Schulbuchforschung, 18, 3 (1996), p. 269-287.
À ce sujet, voir Serge Gagnon, Le Québec et ses historiens de 1840 à 1920, Québec, PUL,
1978.
Dans un ouvrage fort intéressant par les perspectives qu’il ouvre, Jacques Mathieu et Jacques
Lacoursière ont bien fait ressortir l’importance pourtant déterminante de la vie quotidienne
dans la structuration des représentations populaires, celles-ci ne coïncidant pas
nécessairement avec l’identité qui était par ailleurs octroyée au « peuple ». Voir Les
mémoires québécoises, Québec, PUL, 1991.
Histoire économique et sociale du Québec, 1750-1860, Montréal, Fides, 1966.
Économie et société en Nouvelle-France, Québec, PUL, 1960. Voir aussi J. Hamelin et Yves
Roby, Histoire économique du Québec, 1851-1896, Montréal, Fides, 1971.
À ce sujet, voir Michel Brunet, « The British Conquest, Canadian Social Scientists and the
Fate of the Canadians », Canadian Historical Review, 40, 2 (juin 1959), p. 93-107; voir aussi
Guy Frégault, La société canadienne sous le régime anglais, Ottawa, Société historique du
Canada, 1954, « Brochure historique no 3 ». Plus généralement, voir l’ouvrage de Jean
Lamarre, Le devenir de la nation québécoise selon Maurice Séguin, Guy Frégault et Michel
Brunet, 1944-1969, Sillery, Septentrion, 1993.
À ce sujet, voir Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History : Aspects of English-Canadian
Historical Writing, 1900-1970, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1976. Voir aussi JeanPaul Bernard, « L’historiographie canadienne récente (1964-1994) et l’histoire des peuples
du Canada », Canadian Historical Review, 76, 3 (septembre 1995), p. 321-353.
Locution inspirée du célèbre roman de Hugh MacLennan, Deux solitudes, nouv. éd. revue et
corrigée, Montréal, Boréal, « Bibliothèque québécoise », 1992 [1945].
« Sur quelques discontinuités dans l’expérience socio-économique du Québec : une
hypothèse », Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 35, 4 (mars 1982), p. 483-521.
On sait que la perspective temporelle et que la thèse préconisée par Paquet et Wallot ne firent
pas l’unanimité. Il suffit de suivre le débat qui les opposa à Fernand Ouellet pour s’en
convaincre. Dans un ouvrage plus récent (Peasant, Lord and Merchant : Rural Society in
Three Quebec Parishes, 1740-1840, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1985), Allan
Greer émet lui aussi quelques réserves à l’endroit du travail des deux historiens, notamment
en regard des catégories normatives (d’inspiration « polanyiste») qu’ils utilisent.
161
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17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
162
Car il existe une foule de temporalités alternatives, spécifiques ou microscopiques le plus
souvent, à l’intérieur desquelles les acteurs situent leur praxis, ordonnent leur vie et bâtissent
leur conscience historico-biographique.
Marcel et Dominic Roy, Je me souviens. Histoire du Québec et du Canada, Saint-Laurent,
Éditions du renouveau pédagogique, 1995; Yves Tessier, Histoire du Québec : d’hier à l’an
2000, Montréal, Guérin, 1994; Gérard Cachat, À la recherche de mes racines, Montréal,
Lidec, 1984; Jean-François Cardin et al., Le Québec : héritages et projets, Montréal, HRW,
1994; Histoire du Québec, sous la dir. de Jean Hamelin, Montréal, Éd. France-Amérique,
1977; Gilles Bourque et Anne Legaré, Le Québec. La question nationale, Paris, Maspero,
1979; Denis Monière, Le développement des idéologies au Québec, des origines à nos jours,
Montréal, Québec/Amérique, 1977; Françoise Tétu de Labsade, Le Québec, un pays, une
culture, Montréal, Boréal, 1989. Nous pourrions allonger la liste ad nauseam.
C’est le cas du Guide d’histoire du Québec du Régime français à nos jours, publié sous la dir.
de Jacques Rouillard, Montréal, Méridien, 1991, et de la Bibliographie de l’histoire du
Québec et du Canada, 1981-1985, publiée sous la dir. de Paul Aubin et de Louis-Marie Côté,
Québec, IQRC, 1990, 2 tomes. La périodisation retenue par Aubin et Côté est la suivante :
préhistoire, ethnohistoire, explorations, colonisation française, colonisation anglaise,
confédération.
Cette périodisation a été consacrée au moment de la publication, par Paul-André Linteau et
al., de l’Histoire du Québec contemporain, Montréal, Boréal, 1979 et 1985, 2 vol. Elle a été
reprise par Jean Provencher dans sa Chronologie du Québec, Montréal, Boréal,
« Bibliothèque québécoise » 1997 [1991], et par plusieurs autres auteurs. Dans son Histoire
des idéologies au Québec aux XIXe et XXe siècles (Montréal, Boréal, 1993), Fernande Roy
associe également l’entre-deux guerres, et notamment la crise des années 1930, à une
période de mutation d’un libéralisme conservateur vers un libéralisme plus émancipateur.
Toutes les enquêtes, systématiques ou informelles, auxquelles je me suis livré indiquent que
cette relativisation n’a pas gagné, ou si faiblement, les milieux non universitaires.
J. Létourneau, « La production historienne courante portant sur le Québec et ses rapports
avec la construction des figures identitaires d’une communauté communicationnelle »,
Recherches sociographiques, 36, 1 (1995), p. 9-45.
Voir les travaux mentionnés à la note 20.
Jean Hamelin et Jean Provencher, Brève histoire du Québec, Montréal, Boréal, 1986.
Yvan Lamonde, « La modernité au Québec : pour une histoire des brèches, 1895-1950 »,
dans L’avènement de la modernité au Québec, sous la dir. de Y. Lamonde et Esther
Trépanier, Québec, IQRC, 1986. Voir aussi, dans ce même volume, les articles de J. Allard,
de E. Lavoie et de E. Trépanier. Lamonde justifie ainsi sa périodisation : « Au terme de cette
réflexion, la modernité a enfin une temporalité, une détermination dans le temps. Émergeant,
pour l’essentiel, du débat entre régionalisme et exotisme, au début du XXe siècle, cette
modernité se nomme en pointillé, jusqu’à la crise de 1929, participe ensuite à la recherche
d’un “nouvel ordre” et met un terme à une “quarantaine” culturelle dans la décennie des
années 1940. Les brèches qui s’additionnent, depuis un demi-siècle, atteignent, au seuil des
années cinquante, une ouverture critique, irréversible, qui culminera en débâcle après
1960. »
Jean-François Cardin et Claude Couture, avec la collaboration de Gratien Allaire, Histoire
du Canada. Espace et différences, Québec, PUL, 1996, p. 265 et ss.
Robert Lahaise, La fin d’un Québec traditionnel, 1914-1939, I. Histoire : Du Canada à
« Notre État français », Montréal, L’Hexagone, 1994.
Notons la chronologie originale proposée par Gilles Laporte et Luc Lefebvre dans leur
synthèse intitulée Fondements historiques du Québec (Montréal, Éd. de la Chenelière,
1995). Cette chronologie est jalonnée par les dates charnières suivantes : 1810/1880/1945.
Les justifications qu’ils mettent de l’avant se présentent ainsi : « L’approche chronologique
a perpétué une histoire essentiellement politique, où les jalons principaux (1760, 1867,
1960) ne rendaient pas compte des transformations profondes que connaissait la société
québécoise. Nous proposons un découpage de nature socio-économique, qui se distingue
franchement du découpage politique. Dans la première partie [du livre], qui couvre la
période allant de 1810 à 1880, on découvre que le Québec est marqué par une société rurale
repliée sur elle-même et par une société urbaine axée sur le commerce de quelques denrées
de base. La province est alors à la recherche d’un cadre politique qui puisse rendre compte de
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
sa dualité sociale et ethnique. Dans la deuxième partie, qui couvre la période allant de 1880 à
1945, on apprend comment le Québec s’intègre à une économie canadienne qui tente de se
diversifier et de s’industrialiser. Bon nombre de Québécois font alors l’expérience de la vie
urbaine et du travail salarié, alors que l’État provincial prend conscience de la faible marge
de manœuvre que lui alloue la Confédération de 1867. Dans la troisième partie, qui couvre la
période de 1945 à nos jours, on voit une société caractérisée par l’essor d’une économie de
services et par l’affirmation du groupe francophone aux points de vue social, culturel et
politique. Le nationalisme canadien et le souverainisme québécois plongent en effet leurs
racines dans le second conflit mondial. »
Voir, entre autres, Serge Courville et Normand Séguin, Le monde rural québécois au XIXe
siècle, Ottawa, Société historique du Canada, 1989, « Brochure historique », no 47; Serge
Courville, Jean-Claude Robert, Normand Séguin, Atlas historique du Québec. Le pays
laurentien au XIXe siècle : les morphologies de base, Québec, PUL, 1995.
Claude Couture et Claude Denis, « La captation du couple tradition-modernité par la
sociographie québécoise », dans Canada : Theoretical Discourses/Discours théoriques,
sous la dir. de Terry Goldie, Carmen Lambert et Rowland Lorimer, Montréal, Association
d’études canadiennes, 1994, p. 105-132.
Brève histoire socio-économique du Québec, Sillery, Septentrion, 1992 [1988]. Notons
aussi l’ouvrage de Robert Armstrong, Structure and Change. An Economic History of
Quebec, Toronto, Gage, 1984.
« Periodization in Quebec History : A Reevaluation », Québec Studies, 12 (printemps-été
1991), p. 1-10.
Nous avons longuement abordé cette question dans notre article déjà cité, « La production
historienne courante portant sur le Québec ».
Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 43, 1 (été 1989), p. 125-127.
« Revisionism and the Search for a Normal Society : A Critique of Recent Quebec Historical
Writing », Canadian Historical Review, 73, 1 (1992), p. 30-61.
« La quête d’une société normale : critique de la réinterprétation de l’histoire du Québec »,
Bulletin d’histoire politique, 3, 2 (hiver 1995), p. 9-42.
Plusieurs auteurs refusent de revenir sur cette idée d’associer 1960 à un moment de rupture.
Voir, entre autres, Michael D. Behiels, « Quand l’histoire nationaliste devient mythe et
propagande », Bulletin d’histoire politique, 3, 1 (automne 1994), p. 115-123; Nelson
Wiseman, « A Note on “Hartz-Horowitz” at Twenty : The Case of French Canada », Revue
canadienne de science politique, 21, 4 (décembre 1988), p. 795-806. Pour un aperçu général
de la vision du Québec telle qu’elle a été projetée par l’intelligentsia canadienne-anglaise,
voir Serge Denis, Le long malentendu. Le Québec vu par les intellectuels progressistes au
Canada anglais, 1970-1991, Montréal, Boréal, 1992. Il semble de toute façon qu’il soit fort
difficile de se défaire de la métaphore de la « Grande noirceur » et de la « Révolution
tranquille » pour envisager l’histoire du Québec contemporain, car les catégories qu’elle
mobilise sont rien de moins que les catégories centrales d’une construction historique du Soi
collectif dans un nouveau rapport avec l’Autre. À ce sujet, voir J. Létourneau, « La
Révolution tranquille, catégorie identitaire du Québec contemporain», dans Duplessis et le
duplessisme, sous la dir. de Alain G. Gagnon et Michel Sarra-Bournet, Montréal, QuébecAmérique, 1997.
Pour en avoir une idée, voir la livraison d’hiver 1995 du Bulletin d’histoire politique (4, 2),
entièrement constituée de réponses à Rudin. Voir aussi J. Létourneau, « Des récits
d’histoire », Bulletin d’histoire politique, 4, 3 (printemps 1996), p. 69-75.
Montréal, Trécarré, 1986 [trad. française de The Dream of Nation. A Social and Intellectual
History of Quebec, Toronto, Gage, 1983].
Voir son texte « L’histoire culturelle et intellectuelle du Québec : tendances et aspects
méthodologiques », dans Y. Lamonde, Territoires de la culture québécoise, Québec, PUL,
1991, p. 16.
Pour rester dans le domaine de l’histoire culturelle, mentionnons qu’Andrée Fortin, dans son
ouvrage intitulé Passage de la modernité. Les intellectuels québécois et leurs revues
(Québec, PUL, 1993), identifiait trois grandes périodes correspondant à trois modes
d’intervention des intellectuels dans le social : a) la prémodernité, qui va de la naissance de la
presse au Québec (à la toute fin du 18e siècle) à la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale (1917-
163
IJCS / RIÉC
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
164
1918); b) la modernité, qui va des années 1920 à la fin des années 1970; et c) la
postmodernité, qui recoupe la période contemporaine.
Cette périodisation retient les dates suivantes : 1607/1701/1832/1900/1940/1969/1979.
Voir Micheline Dumont, Michèle Jean, Marie Lavigne, Jennifer Stoddart (Collectif Clio),
L’histoire des femmes au Québec depuis quatre siècles, Montréal, Les Quinze, 1982.
À ce sujet, voir Homi K. Bhabha, « DissemiNation : Time, Narrative and the Margins of the
Modern Nation », dans Nation/Narration, Londres, Routledge, 1990; Julia Kristeva, « Le
temps des femmes », dans 33/44. Cahiers de recherche des sciences des textes et documents,
5 (hiver 1979), p. 15-19.
Dans leur ouvrage intitulé Les femmes au tournant du siècle, 1880-1940. Âges de la vie,
maternité et quotidien (Québec, IQRC, 1989), Denise Lemieux et Lucie Mercier ont
également retenu ces critères « privés» pour aborder, dans un livre empreint d’intimité,
l’importance décisive des apprentissages familiaux, des premières fréquentations, du
mariage, des naissances, de la maternité, etc., dans le cycle et l’itinéraire de vie des femmes.
Cela ne veut évidemment pas dire que les femmes ne participent pas d’une mouvance
politique globale et n’usent pas, dans leur gouverne personnelle, des repères politiques
consacrés quand cela leur sert. On doit toutefois convenir que ces bornes ne leur permettent
pas de conceptualiser, et donc de quérir et d’ordonner le sens de leur vie, sur un mode qui leur
soit satisfaisant.
Collectif Clio, L’histoire des femmes au Québec depuis quatre siècles, op. cit., p. 360.
Cela est vrai, en particulier, de la série d’ouvrages à grand succès de Jacques Lacoursière,
Histoire populaire du Québec, tome I : Des origines à 1791, tome II : de 1791 à 1841, tome
III : de 1841 à 1896, Sillery, Septentrion, 1996-1997.
Pour un aperçu critique et fort lucide de la situation, voir « New Wine or Just Old Bottles ? A
Round Table on Recent Texts in Canadian History», Revue d’études canadiennes, 30, 4
(hiver 1995-1996), p. 175-201. Il n’existe pas pour l’instant de livre de synthèse portant sur
l’histoire des anglophones du Québec qui repose sur l’utilisation d’une temporalité
originale. Dans son ouvrage intitulé The Forgotten Quebecers. A History of EnglishSpeaking Quebec, 1759-1980 (Québec, IQRC, 1985), Ronald Rudin reprend une
périodisation traditionnelle (1759-1867, 1867-1980) et rapporte l’histoire des anglophones
aux luttes d’affirmation ou d’émancipation des francophones. Il est vrai que, dans un
chapitre portant sur l’importance des anglophones dans l’économie montréalaise, il use
d’une chronologie plus empirique qui suit l’apogée (1867-1914), la stabilisation (19141960) et le déclin relatif (1960-1980) de cette communauté au sein d’un espace
métropolitain.
Il serait intéressant de voir quel fut l’impact des chronologies utilisées pour rendre compte
des temporalités spécifiques à chaque région du Québec sur le plan des structures
temporelles référentielles des habitants des « pays du Québec». On sait que la collection
d’histoires régionales réalisée et publiée sous l’égide de l’Institut québécois de recherche sur
la culture (maintenant INRS-Culture et société) propose un ensemble de périodisations
empiriques qui s’articulent aux temporalités vécues à l’échelle des espaces régionaux plutôt
qu’à la temporalité « nationale».
N’est-ce pas le conseil amical que le ministre Bernard Landry donnait à la nouvelle
lieutenant-gouverneur du Québec, madame Lise Thibault, peu avant son assermentation à ce
poste? À la suite d’une remarque jugée « indélicate » de Son Excellence relativement au fait
que « les Québécois avaient été chanceux que l’Angleterre fusse leur monarque plutôt que la
France », le ministre—originaire d’Acadie il faut l’admettre—répliquait : « C’est oublier
toutes les tentatives d’assimilation de la couronne britannique et de ses agents. C’est oublier
les Patriotes de 1837, les engagements violents, les pendaisons et l’exil. C’est oublier l’Acte
d’Union, qui a forcé le Québec à s’unir à l’Ontario, alors que l’Ontario était endetté et qu’ils
nous ont endettés en même temps. L’Acte d’Union par laquelle ils voulaient nous faire
perdre notre majorité en nous fondant dans un grand tout. C’est oublier le Rapport Durham.
C’est oublier le jugement du Conseil privé, qui a amputé le Québec du Labrador. » Et le
ministre de recommander à madame Thibault « de se rafraîchir la mémoire, de retourner à ses
livres d’histoire, de consacrer ses temps libres à la lecture des Brunet, Séguin, Lacoursière,
Vaugeois, Lamarche et autres. » Propos rapportés par Pierre O’Neil dans Le Devoir, 25-26
janvier 1997, p. A-5.
The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985.
51.
52.
53.
Des îles dans l’histoire, Paris, Gallimard, Le Seuil, Éditions de l’ÉHÉSS, 1989, p. 13-14.
Office national du film du Canada, 1996, 90 minutes.
À ce sujet, voir J. Létourneau, Christina Turcot et Stéphanie Vagneux, « Le sort du passé. À
propos du dernier film-documentaire de Jacques Godbout », Cahiers d’histoire du Québec
au XXe siècle, 7 (printemps 1997), p. 209-212.
54. Idée inspirée de l’intrigue d’un récit de Stephen King, Les langoliers, présenté sous la forme
d’une télésérie à la télévision de Radio-Canada en février de 1997.
55. Par chromo, nous entendons une espèce de matrice idéologique qui, en s’endurcissant dans
l’entrecroisement des discours sociaux, devient prêt-à-penser se substituant à la raison
scientifique tout en jouant le rôle d’axiomatique référentielle.
165
Open Topic Articles
Articles hors-thèmes
Michael A. O’Neill
Stepping Forward, Stepping Back? Health Care,
the Federal Government and the New Canada
Health and Social Transfer1
Abstract
This paper examines the changing role of the federal government in health
care policy and the factors that explain this change with particular reference
to the 1996 introduction of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST)
and the Mulroney (1984-1993) and Chrétien (1993-1997) governments. The
paper argues that the CHST marks the end point of a longer process of federal
withdrawal from national health care policy. The paper further argues that as
a result of its policies Ottawa has wounded its future steering capacity in the
health policy field in addition to weakening its main policy instrument, the
Canada Health Act.
Résumé
Le présent article passe en revue l’évolution du rôle du gouvernement fédéral
dans les politiques sur les soins de santé ainsi que les facteurs qui expliquent
cette évolution. L’auteur renvoie particulièrement au Transfert canadien en
matière de santé et de programmes sociaux (TCSPS), introduit en 1996, de
même qu’aux gouvernements Mulroney (1984-1993) et Chrétien (19931997). L’article allègue que le TCSPS marque la fin d’un plus long processus
de retrait du fédéral dans le dossier des politiques nationales en matière de
soins de santé. L’article allègue également que, par suite de ses politiques,
Ottawa a miné sa capacité de chef de file dans le domaine des politiques sur la
santé en plus d’affaiblir son principal outil politique, la Loi canadienne sur la
santé.
Canadians are understandably very proud of their health system for it has
managed to provide them with high-quality medical care irrespective of means
or region. In just over twenty years, Medicare has become a defining
characteristic of what it is to be Canadian.2 However, by 1996, the coincidence
of federal restraint of health transfers, provincial budgetary restraint policies
and the tone of the media’s coverage3 of health issues created a public
perception that Medicare was in crisis. Moreover, while the changes occurring
in Canada’s health care system were managed by provincial governments, the
financial conditions underlying these health system reforms raise questions
concerning the federal government’s role as the guarantor and principal funder
of health services. In light of this situation, this paper examines two issues:
firstly, how has the role of the federal government changed since it entered the
health policy area in 1957? Thus, the reliance on the steps metaphor. Secondly,
IJCS / RIÉC
what factors explain this changing role? This issue is particularly probed in the
period following the election of the Mulroney government in 1984 through to
the end of the Chrétien Liberal’s first term in office. It will be argued that since
1977, but more so since 1984, the main explanatory factor underlying federal
policy has been Ottawa’s budgetary rather than social priorities. Moreover, the
budgetary focus has served to reposition health care within a more rigid
division of jurisdictions between the federal and provincial governments. By
reducing its financial support for Medicare, Ottawa concomitantly reduced its
policy-making capacity in health and increased that of provincial governments.
This development reversed over twenty years of federal participation in
national health policy. This paper discusses this changing federal role in light of
the introduction of the CHST. It concludes that as a result of its funding
decisions, the federal government has not only abdicated an important steering
role in national policy but has also weakened its existing policy tools
sufficiently to undermine, to the point of making impossible, future federal
leadership in this important area of social policy.
Two Steps Forward: The Politics of Creation and Expansion
Prior to the late 1940s, the role of government in the area of health was fairly
minimal with that of the federal government limited to responsibility for the
health of Canada’s Native populations and members of the armed forces.4
Before the outbreak of war in 1939, neither level of government thought much
of personal health services as an area for public programs. However, as the
conflict came to an end, public disquiet about the future shape of post-war
Canadian public policy grew. In particular, Canadians feared a return to the
social and economic deprivations of the Depression. Canadians, Ottawa was
being told, “wanted a different society once the war was over.”5 Within this
political and social climate emerged two determining factors that would prove
catalytic to the development of public health insurance: first, many of the
public’s demands for improved social programming were channelled into
increasing support for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and
its broad social welfare state agenda—a fact quickly realized by the
Conservative Party which steered leftwards in order to cut off the CCF’s
electoral advantage. The Liberal Party and government, expecting its
management of the war effort to be sufficient to ensure its own electoral
advantage, did not at first try to emulate the Conservative’s swing left. Upon
this public and political climate landed the second catalyst, the publication in
Great Britain of the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied
Services.6 As Taylor notes, Prime Minister Mackenzie King was personally
influenced by the issues raised and recommendations made in Beveridge’s
report which he saw as consistent with his own goals for post-war Canadian
society.7 The Cabinet, however, resisted King’s proposals for a program of
social services comparable to Britain’s due to the attendant pressure on
Ottawa’s finances. However, electoral imperatives swayed the Cabinet to
accept the Prime Minister’s wish to include limited social reforms, excluding
health insurance, in the Party’s 1945 election platform. The Liberal’s narrow
victory in this contest—coupled with the gains made by the CCF and
Conservatives—quelled Cabinet’s opinion against social reforms as the King
170
Stepping Forward, Stepping Back?
government announced its intention to place health insurance on the agenda of
the Federal-Provincial Conference on Post-War Reconstruction.8 However, a
jurisdictional dispute concerning taxing powers scuttled King’s plan and the
federal government’s proposals were shelved.9 Such federal-provincial
disagreement over how to ultimately pay for health insurance would persist
throughout the history of Medicare.
Failure to achieve agreement on a workable national funding arrangement left
the issue of health insurance with provincial governments. Thus, the Province
of Saskatchewan was the first to enact hospitalization insurance in 1946 and
medical care insurance in 1962.10 Saskatchewan’s policies would serve as
models for its neighbours and eventually for the national plans.
Federally, the context surrounding the establishment of hospitalization
insurance mirrored that which had prompted King’s proposals. The mounting
electoral appeal of the CCF’s social policy platform—enhanced by the
demonstrated success of hospitalization insurance brought about by
Saskatchewan’s CCF government—coupled with the Conservatives’
endorsement of such a plan—prompted the Liberal government to seek
intergovernmental agreement on a funding formula to extend hospitalization
insurance to all the provinces.11 In April 1957, the House of Commons passed
the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostics Services Act or HIDSA. HIDSA
established a funding program whereby Ottawa defrayed approximately fifty
percent of the cost of provincial hospital insurance plans. However, this
conversion came too late for the Liberal government which was defeated by the
Conservatives in the following election. Thus, the Conservative government
was primarily responsible for completing the agreements with the provinces to
make national hospitalization insurance a reality across Canada. As the first
successful foray by Ottawa into health insurance, HIDSA’s cost-sharing
formula would serve as the model when medical care insurance was first
discussed.
Like HIDSA, the extension of federal health care policies to include medical
care also resulted from political and electoral prerogatives. From the
experience of HIDSA and the developments in Saskatchewan, the then
opposition Liberals came to realize the broad public appeal of social programs
and, under Lester Pearson, the Party added to its platform a plan for the
establishment of medical care insurance. This addition was not made without
opposition from the Party’s more fiscally conservative wing.12 However,
despite Pearson’s strategy to listen to his Party’s right wing and forestall
delivering on this promise, the results of the 1963 vote—minority
government—forced his government to rely on support from the CCF’s
successor party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), in exchange for which he
had to deliver on the promised medical insurance.13
As background to this decision were the recommendations of the 1964 Royal
Commission on Health Services. The Commission strongly supported a
universal, publicly funded medical insurance system. In 1966, the federal
government presented and passed the Medical Care Insurance Act, or
Medicare, which set out the basic conditions which the provinces had to satisfy
in order to qualify for federal government funding. Ottawa’s contribution
171
IJCS / RIÉC
toward medical insurance was set at fifty percent of the average national cost of
providing the plan.14 Unlike HIDSA, which most provinces welcomed,
Medicare caused reverberations along the federal-provincial fault line. Some
provinces, Ontario and Quebec in particular, were vehemently opposed to
another federal intrusion in a provincial field of jurisdiction. This reaction was
grounded in their objections to the federal government’s decision to create a
supplementary tax to pay for the new program. The disagreements were
profound and in the case of Quebec retarded its entry into Medicare until 1971.15
In the end, the provinces bent to their own electorates and intergovernmental
agreements soon brought comprehensive medical insurance to all Canadians.
But while under HIDSA and the Medicare Act approximately half of provincial
health expenditures were assumed by Ottawa, these agreements did not specify
how the provinces were to raise the funds to meet their portion of health care
expenditures. Thus, some provinces opted for annual health insurance
premiums while others funded their health services from general taxation.
Later, some of the provinces would begin to introduce a price mechanism, such
as user charges for hospital stays and physician extra-billing, in order to hold
the line on health costs. These practices would run head-on into Medicare’s
stipulation that direct charges to patients “should never be large enough to deter
people from seeking care.”16 This stipulation would prove to be the source of
the last major federal legislative initiative in health, the 1984 Canada Health Act.
The development of Medicare highlights the main features of Canadian
federalism. Firstly, the division of powers between both levels of government
permits a degree of policy innovation at the provincial level. In this instance,
policy innovation percolated upwards from Saskatchewan to other
jurisdictions and then nationally. Secondly, the federal government, through its
spending power, retains the ability to influence this process of policy
innovation and diffusion while at the same time imposing a degree of
conformity among provincial governments. In this instance, both HIDSA and
the Medicare Act, recognizing the provinces’ constitutional prerogative in
matters of health care delivery, set down only minimal conditions on the
provinces in order to receive federal funding. As a result, although the core of
health services are covered by Medicare—for example, visits to
physicians—public coverage of non-core services varies among the provinces.
For example, dental and optical services are publicly insured in some provinces
but not others. Thus, as Roemer notes, it is an error to speak of a Canadian health
insurance system, when there are, in fact, twelve different systems of varying
comprehensiveness.17
Additionally, the previous discussion highlights the importance of electoral
politics as the catalyst for Medicare since electoral considerations prompted the
parties to alter their policies and contributed to the opening of policy windows18
which governments used to proceed with policy change and innovation.
Clearly, the pressures of achieving power were critical to the decisions taken in
1945, 1955 and 1966 to proceed with the introduction of health
insurance—although the first post-war attempt ended in failure. Electoral
politics would later play a role in the Trudeau government’s decision to further
172
entrench Medicare through the introduction of the Canada Health Act and the
Chrétien government’s response to the report of the National Forum on Health.
As can be seen from this short overview, the early history of Canada’s health
insurance system was marked by a pattern of federal-provincial
accommodation. However, this accommodation would break down when
fiscal issues intruded. As such, early reticence by Ontario and Quebec to join
the federal Medicare plan harks back to the provincial rejection of King’s 1946
proposals. From 1966 onwards, the intergovernmental dialogue concerning
health insurance would increasingly focus on these fiscal issues—a focus
concretized in federal policy with the creation of the Established Programs
Financing (EPF) in 1977. In short, HIDSA and Medicare marked forward steps
on the part of the federal government in this area of social policy. Through its
financial commitment Ottawa gained a measure of steering capacity as its
dollars gave it access to the decision-making process in an area of provincial
jurisdiction.
One Step Back: Established Programs Financing and the Politics of
Constraint
The period which saw the creation and development of Medicare was one of
strong economic growth in Canada. Government revenues were equally strong
and permitted the expansion of social programs19 with little thought to capping
federal contributions to cost-sharing agreements with the provinces. By the
1970s, the oil-shock induced world economic recession ended Canada’s postwar economic growth. With the country mired in recession and stagflation, the
first hints that the federal government needed to reassess its spending began to
emerge. Foremost among the areas of concern was Ottawa’s ability to continue
meetings its commitment to federal-provincial cost-sharing programs. In
particular, Ottawa was concerned that it had little or no control over the level of
provincial spending. As long as a province followed Ottawa’s program
guidelines, the federal government was responsible for half the cost. In fact, this
was not a new realization on the part of federal policy as the 1969 Task Force on
the Cost of Health Services had concluded that Ottawa was overexposed to
provincial health spending and therefore needed to restructure its contribution
to health insurance.20 Ottawa’s response to this situation was the creation of
EPF.
EPF shifted Ottawa’s financial responsibility from the conditional grants
outlined in HIDSA and Medicare to new “block funding” where Ottawa
transferred to the provinces a set amount of cash to disburse provided they met
federal criteria,21 thus insulating Ottawa from the actual costs of medical and
hospital care. The EPF had two main components, cash transfers and tax points
(an additional inducement included a payment of $20 per capita for the
inclusion of extended health care services into the EPF arrangements). Under
EPF the federal government established a total dollar amount equivalent to its
share of total health spending under the 1957 and 1966 agreements. This total
was then divided equally between a cash payment and a transfer of tax points.22
Over time the cash portion of EPF would be reduced, thereby forcing the
provinces to lean increasingly on their own resources—in part composed of
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their newly acquired tax points23—to maintain existing levels of health
services.
The provinces were understandably unwilling to significantly alter the funding
programs established in the previous decade, especially since these programs
were the price of federal intrusion in areas in which they had constitutional
jurisdiction. On the other hand, the move to block funding increased provincial
flexibility in planning their social programs.24 Provinces which had wanted out
of conditional grants because of the obligation to pursue programs largely
designed by the federal government found in EPF a new latitude in their policy
making.
While the creation and expansion of Canadian health insurance can be seen as
responses to electoral and political imperatives, the creation of the EPF was a
response to a situation exogenous to politics. Simply put, the ramifications on
the Canadian economy of the global economic crisis of the 1970s significantly
undermined Ottawa’s economic and social steering capacity. Although the
overall impact of the Trudeau government’s spending compressions were in no
way as severe as those which marked the post-1984 period,25 they reflected a
reversal of priorities on the part of Ottawa—social programming would
become increasingly subservient to fiscal planning. This change represented a
shift in economic and political thinking comparable to that found in
Britain—and across the West—at about the same period.26
Additionally, the creation of EPF is an important example of Ottawa
unilaterally changing the rules to suit its particular policy priorities. Although
the switch to the EPF was ostensibly founded on an intergovernmental
agreement, underlying this agreement was Ottawa’s determination to change
the structure of health financing unilaterally27 and, as a consequence, its own
role in national health policy. Under these terms the provinces had little choice
but to reach agreement with Ottawa. Despite the sword of unilateral action that
hung over their heads, the provinces emerged from the EPF discussions with
approximately the same level of funding as under Medicare and HIDSA. But,
when in 1981 the federal government made the post-secondary education
portion of the block grant subject to its anti-inflation program, the base amount
of the EPF dropped.28 The slow process of chipping away at Medicare funding
had begun.
The creation of EPF is critical to the overall examination of federal health
policies for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights a desire on the part of Ottawa to
disengage from the direct funding of health services and overall Medicare
policy making. This was further emphasized when, as a consequence of the
creation of EPF, the responsibility for federal transfers for social programs
shifted from the Department of Health and Welfare to the Department of
Finance. Henceforth, the federal role in health policy would be defined in
strictly financial/fiscal terms rather than social terms. In the evolution of
Canadian health insurance, EPF marks Ottawa’s first real step backward.
Secondly, as the decision to make transfers subject to anti-inflation policy
highlights, the EPF had created a policy tool over which Ottawa had sole
control. The importance of this would be critical to the penalties created by the
174
Canada Health Act and more so to the overall policies of the Mulroney
government.
Another Step Forward: The Canada Health Act and the Politics of
Consolidation
If the EPF marked Ottawa’s response to exogenous economic conditions, its
decision to introduce legislation safeguarding Medicare’s principles can be
seen as a response to electoral and political imperatives similar to those of the
1950s and 1960s. However, the conditions leading up to the introduction of the
Act, user-charges and facility fees, were the result of prior federal policy in the
form of the EPF. Moreover, the Canada Health Act, was made necessary by the
ambiguity of the conditions outlined in the HIDSA and Medical Care
Insurance Act, and by changes in the level of federal financial support in the
wake of the introduction of EPF. In particular, by not specifying how the
provinces were to fund their share of health insurance, HIDSA and Medicare
made it possible for professionals and institutions to directly charge patients for
certain health services. The EPF, for its part, by delinking federal health
funding from provincial expenditures, opened the possibility for provincial
governments to redirect federal moneys for health to other areas of spending.
While the Canada Health Act sought to consolidate and strengthen the
principles of HIDSA and Medicare, at the outset the conditions necessitating
this response were exogenous to both the federal and provincial governments.
Namely, the same economic conditions which had brought about the
introduction of the EPF (inflation and economic stagnation accompanied by
erosion of state fiscal capacity) continued to affect the Canadian economy after
1977. Provincial governments—just as Ottawa—were also forced to re-assess
their spending programs in order to meet these exogenous constraints.
Therefore, at the outset of the 1980s, provincial governments had to deal with
reduced federal transfers due to the introduction of EPF just as their economies
were also stagnating thereby limiting the value of their newly awarded tax
points.29 In response, provincial governments were increasingly considering
demand-side measures to reduce health spending through the introduction of
user-charges and facility fees. Provincial governments also restrained fee
increases for physicians although some permitted doctors to seek
compensatory extra-payments from their patients.30
As early as the 1979 election campaign, voices from a variety of quarters began
questioning provincial use of federal transfer funds. In particular, there existed
a widespread opinion that provincial governments were diverting these funds
into other areas of spending. These concerns emanated particularly from
citizens groups such as Friends of Medicare and later a labour-supported
group, the Canadian Health Coalition, which at one point had over 2.5 million
members.31 While Ottawa seemed primarily concerned about the diversion of
EPF funds, for these citizens groups, the primary threat to Medicare came from
the extra fees and charges which they successfully portrayed as impediments to
access. The main political pressure exerted by this and other groups, combined
with political pressure from the New Democratic Party, forced the then
Conservative government of Prime Minister Joe Clark to establish a
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commission of inquiry, chaired by the same Emmett Hall whose 1964 Royal
Commission had paved the way for medical care insurance, to look at the issue
of provincial use of federal Medicare funds, extra-billing and hospital user fees.
The Commission made two key observations: the provinces were not diverting
federal funds away from Medicare, but the practices of extra-billing and user
charges were indeed an impediment to access to health care.32
By the time the Commission submitted its report, another election had been
called and the Liberal Party was once again in office in Ottawa. A federalprovincial meeting was called to discuss the findings of the report, but this
meeting ended with only Saskatchewan disposed to ban user-charges and
physician extra-billing. Although the federal-provincial conference had ended
without an agreement, the Minister of Health, Monique Bégin, was undeterred
as she continued to pressure her Cabinet colleagues and the Prime Minister to
act decisively along the lines of Hall’s recommendations. However, although
Hall’s report met with wide public approval, it was the reaction of the provincial
governments which the federal government was watching and this reaction was
overwhelmingly negative.33 It must be recalled that at the time relations
between Ottawa and the provinces, particularly Alberta and Quebec, were
strained over constitutional and energy policy. Concerned about starting
another jurisdictional row with the provinces, action on the user-fees and
charges was reserved.
Between the release of Hall’s report and the Liberal government’s introduction
of the Canada Health Act the tone of the public and political debate concerning
Medicare continued to escalate. Federal overtures to the provinces were shot
down, for example following the release of the Preserving Universal Medicare
White Paper, while public pressure, fanned by the NDP and Canadian Health
Coalition, urged the federal government to act.34
While the issue swirled in the public and political realms, Canada’s economy
once again began to sour. With the clock running out on his mandate, the Prime
Minister was swayed by Bégin’s arguments, especially as the Cabinet came to
realize that defending Medicare was politically advantageous in the prevailing
economic conditions.35 In addition, Trudeau was hoping to trap the Tory
opposition into voting against the Canada Health Act, but Brian Mulroney’s
party voted with the government. The Progressive Conservative’s support for
the Canada Health Act is important, for it marked the party’s first statement of
policy on Medicare under the leadership of Brian Mulroney. This position was
subsequently understood by many commentators to apply to all of Canada’s
social programs. In lining his party up in favour of the Canada Health Act,
Mulroney stated, “Medicare is a sacred trust which we will preserve.”36
The Canada Health Act introduced a ban on user-fees and extra-charges which
Ottawa backed-up with a dollar for dollar penalty mechanism. In addition, the
new Act consolidated federal health insurance legislation and more precisely
defined the conditions for federal transfers.37 While the EPF had marked a
liberalization of provincial spending discretion for health and post-secondary
education, the Canada Health Act seemed to reverse that dynamic. This marked
a return of an active federal presence in the area of health care policy after its
partial withdrawal in 1977.
176
In terms of my discussion the case of the Canada Health Act is particularly
interesting as its highlights both the ability of the federal government to act in
matters of health policy but also that this reaction was necessitated by Ottawa’s
own previous actions.
Just as in 1957 and 1966, the Canada Health Act was clearly a legislative
response to a political problem fed by mounting public opinion concerning the
state of Medicare. That the conditions at the heart of provincial recourse to outof-pocket disbursements by patients were in part the result of Ottawa’s creation
of EPF never truly entered the debate, with the possible exception of the
Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA) campaign against the Act.38 This
does not mitigate the Act’s contribution to safeguarding and strengthening
Medicare. It does, however, as in the previous episodes, make Ottawa’s policy
innovations in this field subject to the electoral timetable.
Nothing unique or exceptional underlies the primarily political motivations for
the Canada Health Act—politics being the core of most policy decisions.
However, the Act is important because it defined a benchmark against which
future governments—provincial and federal— would be seen to be managing
health care. Furthermore, it marks the last major positive action by Ottawa in
the health care field. From 1984, onwards the prevailing economic and political
climate would make social policy more greatly contingent than ever on fiscal
goals. In fact, Ottawa’s determination to safeguard Medicare and reassert the
federal prerogative in health policy would not outlive the change in government
brought about by the September 1984 election.
Two Steps Back: Mulroney and the Politics of Restraint
It has been noted that social policy in general, and health in particular, was not a
priority for the Mulroney government.39 Rather, the policy priorities of the
Tory government centered on dealing with Canada’s budget deficit and
national debt. This concern had been central to the Conservative Party’s
strategy throughout the 1984 election campaign and, after only a few weeks in
office, the government concretized these priorities in an economic statement
and an agenda paper entitled A New Direction for Canada.40
Where the government’s policies impacted on health was through its fiscal
restraint agenda, especially through its curbs on the EPF. These cuts to the EPF,
in the form of modifications to the EPF’s escalator, cumulatively reduced
transfers to the provinces. In so doing, the federal government was moving a
portion of its spending to the next level of government, a practice which has
been termed “deficit offloading.”41 As the costs of providing health services
continued to rise, the provincial governments were left carrying an increasingly
large share of the overall burden of the health system. In the end, the provinces
had to cut services, increase taxes or increase their deficits to compensate for
restraint in federal transfers.42
The Mulroney government’s fiscal rebalancing began in earnest with Finance
Minister Michael Wilson’s first full budget in 1985. As a result of his policies,
the EPF formula was altered three times between 1985 and 1991. These
changes were unilateral and caught the provincial finance and health ministers
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largely by surprise. Thus, in fiscal year 1986-87, the Mulroney government
reduced the EPF escalator by two percent less than GDP growth. This was
followed in 1989-90 with a further reduction of the EPF escalator by one
percent. In 1990-91, the knife was set aside in favour of the icebox as the per
capita entitlements of the EPF formula were frozen. In all, these measures
contributed to a $41 billion reduction in federal cash transfers to the
provinces—a cash shortfall the provinces had to offset from their own
resources.43
The consequences of the federal government’s funding decision were felt
across the country as provincial governments attempted to hold their
expenditures in check while at the same time maintaining a comprehensive
health system which conformed to the Canada Health Act. Although at first the
provinces were able to absorb the federal cuts to health transfers, by 1993, this
ability was severely stretched. As a Health Canada study noted:
The control in the growth of federal transfers may have provided
incentives for the provinces to reduce their health expenditures [. . .].
This trend line should be more evident in 1994 and 1995 when
reductions in health expenditures announced by many provinces are
to be realized.44
In short, the net effect of the Mulroney government’s policies led to the
provincial restructuring drives and the alarming consequences reflected in the
media headlines noted earlier. At this time, and particularly in the latter half of
the 1980s, a growing number of provinces began to take liberties with the spirit,
if not the letter, of the Canada Health Act.
As the Mulroney government proceeded to restrain federal contributions to
health care, the issue of its commitment to the Canada Health Act gained in
salience.45 In an era when the financial commitment of the federal government
was being reduced, many provinces demanded the right to look at other revenue
sources, including various patient charges. Thus, during the Mulroney
government, several internal and external debates surrounded the ban on user
fees and charges in a period of fiscal austerity.46
More inclined towards demand-side solutions than its predecessors, the
Mulroney government closed its eyes on flagrant violations of the Canada
Health Act.47 From the outset, Mulroney’s first health minister, Jake Epp,
outlined his desire for a more conciliatory federal position in relations with the
provinces in matters relating to health funding and the health system in
general.48 While publicly committed to the ban on user charges,49 Epp was also
willing to show some “leeway in interpreting the Act.”50 It is further interesting
to note that in 1991, while no longer Health Minister, Epp would himself come
out in support of user fees.51
Epp’s successors, Perrin Beatty and Benoît Bouchard, closely towed the
government’s public line on the issue of safeguarding national standards and
maintaining the ban on user fees and charges. The appointment of Bouchard
also marked a change in style from his predecessors as he is widely credited
with striking a more definite position against any derogation to the Canada
Health Act.52
178
However, despite the reassurances of its health ministers, the Mulroney
government finally realized that its successive cuts to the EPF were limiting its
ability to enforce the Canada Health Act. This was acknowledged by Finance
Minister Michael Wilson in his 1991 budget speech. The Government’s
solution was to make all federal transfers, not just those earmarked for health,
susceptible to withholding should a province not comply with the Act.53
The Mulroney government’s period in office marks two important steps back
for Ottawa’s role in national health policy. The first, its decision to restrain its
contributions to Medicare, reduced its ability to influence provincial decision
making. The second, was its lax enforcement of the Canada Health Act’s ban
on extra charges despite public assurances to the contrary from Ministers of
Health Epp, Beatty and Bouchard. This was highlighted by the newly elected
Liberal government’s decision to penalize Alberta and British Columbia for
contraventions of the Act between 1990 and 1993.54 But, Ottawa’s continued
withdrawal from the health policy arena would not end with the election of the
Chrétien Liberal government in October 1993.
A Further Step Back: The Chrétien Liberals and the CHST
In some measure, the Mulroney government’s record on social programs
funding—and health care in particular—contributed to the Conservative
Party’s staggering election defeat of 1993. In its place, Canadians opted for the
Liberal Party under the leadership of Jean Chrétien. As its election manifesto,55
the so-called Red Book, reminded voters, the Liberals had been the party
behind the construction of national health insurance and Canadians widely
expected the Liberal Party to end the Tories’ restraint of Medicare funding and
reassert Ottawa’s role in health policy. A Liberal government, the Red Book
promised, would be firmly committed to the five principles of Medicare and
would “not withdraw or abandon the health care field,” but would take a firm
stand against any and all forms of patient charges.56 Confirmation of this stand
seemed to come in the form of Ottawa’s decision to penalize Alberta and British
Columbia for violations of the Canada Health Act.57
Another signal of Ottawa’s renewed desire to re-engage itself in the area of
health policy was the establishment of the National Forum on Health in June
1994.58 Chaired by the Prime Minister, the Forum was given a broad mandate
to assist government to “develop a new vision for Canada’s health system for
the 21st Century.”59 However, the provinces’ decision not to participate in the
Forum—coupled with Ottawa’s other actions in the area of health and social
policy—seemed to curtail the value of the Forum’s contribution to policy
development.
Prior to its election in October 1993, the Liberal Party had argued that much of
the pressure being exerted on provincial health systems originated in the
Mulroney government’s decision to restrain federal transfer payments for
health. By contrast, the Red Book committed the Liberal Party to “a continuing
and meaningful participation in the funding of health care.”60 However, once in
office the Liberal government continued in the way of its predecessor and it too
would make the fight against the federal deficit a priority over the continued
funding of health care.61 Among the measures introduced as part of this policy
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was the creation of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), the most
significant change in federal-provincial fiscal arrangements since EPF. As a
result of the CHST, Ottawa’s financial stake in Medicare was further eroded.
Although the Red Book called for a re-negotiation of federal-provincial
arrangements for social programs, many were surprised when Finance Minister
Paul Martin announced plans in his second Budget Speech of February 1995 to
create a new block transfer to replace the EPF. The new CHST created a single
federal payment covering health, post-secondary education and welfare. As
was the case with the EPF, the new CHST would consist of a transfer of tax
points and cash.62 The lumping together of these transfers was significant for
the CHST eliminated a direct federal stake in individual areas of social policy.
Just as the EPF had freed the hands of the provinces from the conditions of
HIDSA and the Medicare Act, the CHST liberated provincial social policy
from federal controls. In short, the CHST broke down the walls separating
program areas—walls which could be seen as curtailing policy innovation and
responses to circumstances at the provincial level, but walls which also ensured
that only minimal disparity between provinces would exist in areas of social
programs. For example, with the CHST, provinces could now raid the funds for
post-secondary education to pay for health insurance while increasing student
fees to offset the shortfall thus created.
With the introduction of the CHST the Liberal government was in effect
extending the cuts to health transfers which had begun under the previous
Conservative government. With the CHST the provinces would experience a
net loss of between $4.5 billion and $7 billion, depending on the calculations
used,63 in annual federal funding. A loss which the provinces would either have
to make up out of their own resources or through reforms of their social
programs. In the area of health, the most politically important aspect of the
CHST was the establishment of a guaranteed cash floor of $11 billion for
federal funding. This amount is smaller in real terms than at any time since
198564 thereby showing the Chrétien government to have pushed down federal
transfers even harder than its Conservative predecessors. This guarantee was
meant to reassure provincial governments concerned about the dwindling
federal share of health expenditures while at the same time maintaining a
sufficient financial presence on the part of the federal government with which
to enforce the Canada Health Act. However, uncertainty remains on both
counts among both provincial governments and health policy advocates.65
With the coming into force of the CHST on April 1, 1996 the Chrétien Liberals
took a further step backwards for the federal role in health. From the outset, it
had been understood that Ottawa’s dollars were the glue that held Medicare
together as a national program. And, as long as its financial contribution
remained, Ottawa’s steering role in health policy was assured. In one sense,
therefore, Ottawa’s financial contribution was very much the price of entry into
a provincial field of jurisdiction. And, while on the surface the National Forum
on Health appears to indicate a return to the federal role in the development of
national health policy, the creation of the CHST, and the further cuts to federal
transfers inherent in it, suggests otherwise. By reducing the flow of federal
dollars, the CHST weakens both Ottawa’s policy capacity and its ability to
180
enforce existing national standards as outlined in the Canada Health Act. As the
Mulroney era Taskforce on Program Review noted in 1985, any reduction in
federal funding would virtually eliminate the federal government’s leverage in
enforcing national standards.66 Without stick nor carrot, Ottawa’s role in
national health policy would become increasingly marginal. Even the Chrétien
Liberal’s guarantee of a continued cash component for health is of questionable
policy utility if its value is eroded by inflation. Although opinion polls show
that Canadians continue to resist shifts away from Medicare’s principles and
values,67 the dwindling amount of money allocated to it by Ottawa has already
resulted in health service cuts68 which may only be exacerbated by the CHST’s
further reductions.
If fiscal considerations can be labelled the primary motivation behind the
decision of the Chrétien government to reduce health care funding, the same
electoral and political imperatives which had marked other policy initiatives
also needed to be addressed. Although Canadians, it appeared, could be sold on
the need for deficit reduction, polls continued to indicate a high degree of
support for the principles of universal medicare. These same polls were also
showing increasing concern about both Ottawa’s ability to guarantee
Medicare’s principles and the provinces’ willingness to continue offering the
same panoply of health services as in the past.69 In this context, the introduction
of the CHST both undermined Ottawa’s main policy tool—funding—at the
same time reducing the provinces ability to maintain services. With an election
call looming, these concerns needed to be addressed. The key to successfully
navigating these politically choppy waters arrived in the form of the final report
of the National Forum on Health.
Shortly after the release of the Forum’s report, the Minister of Health, David
Dingwall, seemed to endorse two of the Forum’s main recommendations:
home care services and pharmaceutical insurance (pharmacare). These two
elements, the Forum report suggested, were an expansion consistent with the
logic of Medicare and would, over time, help reduce the overall costs of health
insurance.70 The Minister would further expand on the Liberal government’s
plans for Medicare in a speech in April 1997. In his speech, Dingwall would
commit his government to bringing about pharmacare and home care programs
in which the government would “do its part and contribute financially.”71 The
speech also included a commitment to preserving Medicare’s principles—
including a continued strict enforcement of the Canada Health Act’s ban on
user fees and charges.72
On the issue of funding levels, the Forum echoed the concerns from many
quarters and called not only for an end to federal cutbacks but also for an
increase of $1.5 billion in Ottawa’s cash contribution. Recognizing that there
was “no magic number” when it came to funding levels, the Forum concluded
that Ottawa’s cash floor of $11 billion was too low to adequately meet
provincial needs and future requirements.73 The Minister was less committal
stating that:
the era of transfer cuts is over [emphasis in original] . . . [In] fact the
transfers will begin to grow within three years . . . A guaranteed cash
floor is in place. This cash floor will ensure a continuing federal role in
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health, something Canadians overwhelmingly see as a duty of their
federal government.74
This statement by the Minister is interesting for it asserts the federal
determination to maintain a policy lever to ensure provincial compliance with
the Canada Health Act’s principles yet evades the more important policy issue
of how much funding Ottawa was willing to commit to maintain provincial
health services without their recourse to additional sources of funding.75
Conclusion: Further Steps
The advent of the CHST marks the end of a longer process of federal
withdrawal from social policy in general and health in particular. Ironically, the
CHST marks a reversal of the Liberal Party’s traditional position concerning
social programming and a break with its Red Book promise to continued and
predictable federal funding for health care. Gone are the policies that marked
the involvement of the federal government in fields of provincial jurisdiction
for the benefit of Canadians. In their place is a public policy which sets fiscal
imperatives ahead of social needs—a point explicitly made by Jean Chrétien in
reply to questions concerning his government’s health policy.76
Beyond simply a change in public policy priorities, the advent of the CHST,
also marks a further change in the involvement of the federal government in
health policy. Thus, through the CHST the federal government has sufficiently
reduced its financial participation in the health sector so as to make greatly
difficult, or at least not very meaningful, any attempt to withhold federal
transfer funds for violations of the Canada Health Act.
The creation and administration of Medicare proved that governments could
work together to better the lives of Canadians—irrespective of traditional
divisions like region, language or ethnic roots. However, the policies pursued
by Ottawa since 1984 have reduced the influence of the federal government
over the future direction of Medicare. In that sense, what marks the MulroneyChrétien policies is the creeping return of 92.7—that is a de facto return to the
strict constitutional division of powers which assigns health squarely to the
provinces. Thus, although Ottawa could not wind-up Medicare, with the
exception of its dwindling financial stake, Ottawa no longer has the policy tools
necessary to stop a province from restructuring its heath system to make
Medicare an empty shell. Here is precisely where many Canadians fear the
system is headed.77 As Thomas Courchene writes succinctly, the consequence
of the Mulroney-Chrétien policies has been to make the Canada Health Act
obsolete.78 In this sense, even if the federal government chooses to heed the
advice of the National Forum and increase the CHST’s cash floor to $12. 5
billion, as noted above, this amount is still proportionately lower in real terms
than at any time since 1985.79
Another interesting element to emerge from the Chrétien government’s first
term in office concerns its management of the politics of health care. With
David Dingwall’s endorsement of pharmacare, the government appears to have
opted for expansion at the expense of possible further retrenchment of core
medical services and coverage. Thus, while Ottawa avoids blame for provincial
182
restructurings of health services—in large part due to Ottawa’s imposed
funding cuts—it plays the political card with Canadians and in the process
gains praise by promising to increase social protections for Canadians.
In short, since 1984, through a series of policy decisions, including the
restraining and freezing of program budgets and lax enforcement of the Canada
Health Act, Ottawa has changed the nature of the federal government’s
participation in social programming. No longer is the federal government to be
an active participant in designing social policy. This marked a shift in the
overall vision of government. The days of government as an enabler and
guarantor of citizens’ welfare, especially after 1984, to those of government as
prudent financial administrator. This change in priorities may prove most
dramatic for the nation’s health insurance system as the country adjusts to a
changing global political economy.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
In addition to the sources identified below, this article is based upon a series of interviews
conducted in the summer of 1994, January 1995 and autumn of 1996 with current and former
federal government officials and members of interest groups involved in health policy. As
the interviewees accepted to participate in this research with the understanding their
comments would be treated confidentially, these individuals will not be cited. Thank you to
Alan Maslove, Kenneth McRoberts and the reviewers of this Journal for their comments on
earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to Sean Houlahan for editorial support.
Maclean’s, 1 July 1994, 10-15; Toronto Star, 29 November 1996, A27.
Recent headlines from Canadian dailies highlight this sense of emerging crisis. For example:
“Health Care nears crisis in funding” (Halifax Daily News, 14 May 1996, 14); “Plus de 900
patients en attente d’une chirurgie cardiaque” (Le Journal de Montréal, 27 April 1996, 2);
“Doctors to ration services” (Sudbury Star, 24 July 1996, A1); “Survey says funding cuts
putting patients in danger” (Calgary Sun, 25 April 1996, 21); “Don’t become sick or old in
Alberta” (Edmonton Journal, 3 January 1996, A9).
Garth Stevenson, G. (1988), “The Division of Powers,” in R.D. Olling and M.W.
Westmacott, eds., Perspectives on Canadian Federalism, (Scarborough, 1988), 36-37.
Jack Granatstein, Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government 19391945, (Toronto, 1975), 251.
Gwendolyn Gray, Federalism and Health Policy: The Development of Health Systems in
Canada and Australia, (Toronto, 1991), 30.
Malcolm G. Taylor, Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy: The Seven Decisions
that Created the Canadian Health Insurance System and their Outcomes, (Montreal, 1987),
9-10.
Gray, Federalism, 32.
Carolyn J. Tuohy, Policy and Politics in Canada: Institutional Ambivalence, (Philadelphia,
1992), 109-110.
See Taylor, Health Insurance, 69-104, 239-331.
Gray, Federalism, 36.
Gray, Federalism, 42-43.
Taylor, Health Insurance, 333-334.
See Ann Crichton et al. (1990), Canada’s Health System, (Ottawa, 1990), 33-35.
Tuohy, Policy and Politics, 112. See also, Taylor, Health Insurance. A major disagreement
between the Quebec government and its medical profession further contributed to this
delayed entry into the program.
Gwendolyn Gray, “Privatization: An Attempt that Failed,” Politics, 1987, Vol. 22, No. 2.,
15-28.
Milton I. Roemer, National Health Systems of the World, (Oxford, 1991).
See John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policy, (New York, 1994).
Robert Bothwell et al., Canada since 1945, (Toronto, 1987), 477.
183
IJCS / RIÉC
20. Crichton, Canada’s Health System, 34.
21. Crichton, Canada’s Health System, 34.
22. Alistair Thomson, Federal Support for Health Care: A Background Paper, (Ottawa, 1991),
17. Under the EPF, the total entitlements of the provinces were calculated based on the
average federal per capita contribution for the base year 1975-76, cumulatively increased
year by year according to an escalator corresponding to a moving average of the gross GNP
over three years.
23. Tax point transfer involved the federal government reducing its personal and corporate tax
rates by a set percentage, which provinces then took up by increasing their respective tax
rates. In 1977, the federal government agreed to cede 13.5 points of personal income tax and
1 point of corporate income tax.
24. Michael Butler, “The Current Predicament in Fiscal Federalism,” Policy Options,
(December, 1993), 22-26.
25. See Donald J. Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada, (Toronto, 1990).
26. See Peter A. Hall, “The Movement from Keynesianism to Monetarism: Institutional
Analysis and British Economic Policy in the 1970s,” in Sven Steinmo et al, eds, Structuring
Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, (Cambridge, 1992), 90-113.
27. Tuohy, Policy and Politics, 113.
28. Michael Rachlis and Carol Kushner, Strong Medicine, (Toronto, 1993), 31.
29. Taylor, Health Insurance, 434.
30. See Taylor, Health Insurance, 435-437.
31. Gray, Federalism, 117.
32. Taylor, Health Insurance, 428-429.
33. Gray, “Privatization,” 22.
35. See Paul Barker, “The Canada Health Act and the Cabinet Decision-Making Style of Pierre
Elliot Trudeau,” Canadian Public Administration, 1989, Vol. 32, No. 1, 84-103.
36. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 9 December 1983, 44.
39. Personal communication, former federal health minister, January 1995.
40. Canada, A New Direction for Canada: An Agenda for Economic Renewal, (Ottawa, 1984).
41. Paul Boothe and Barb Johnson, “Stealing the Emperor’s Clothes: Deficit Offloading and
National Standards in Health,” Commentary, 41 (March ,1991).
42. Michael Butler, “The Current Predicament in Fiscal Federalism,” Policy Options,
(December, 1993), 22-6.
43. Boothe, “Deficit Offloading,” 3.
44. Health Canada, National Health Expenditures 1973-1994, (Ottawa, 1994), 8.
45. Michael A. O’Neill, “Health as an Irreversible Part of the Welfare State: Canadian
Government Policy under the Tories,” International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 26,
No. 3 (1996), 551.
46. Personal communication, former federal health minister, January 1995; senior Health
Canada official, summer, 1994.
47. See Canada, Canada Health Act Annual Report, (Ottawa, years 1988-1992).
48. Personal communication, senior Health Canada official, summer 1994. See also Toronto
Star, 18 September 1984, A12.
49. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 9 December 1987, 11625.
50. One former federal health minister described Epp’s attitude to the enforcement of the Act as
“less interventionist, he would rather wait than act.”
51. Winnipeg Free Press, 21 April 1991, 1.
52. Calgary Herald, 12 November 1991, A6. Personal communications, representatives of the
Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Hospital Association and the Canadian Nurses’
Association, summer 1994. Also, Benoît Bouchard, Healthy Canada, (Ottawa, 12 May
1993).
53. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 26 February 1991, 17695.
54. Health Canada, News Release No. 1994-14 (19 May 1994); Health Canada, News Release
No. 1995-67, (16 October 1995).
184
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
Liberal Party of Canada, Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada, (Ottawa,
1993).
Liberal Party, Creating Opportunity, 77, 79.
Health Canada, News Release No. 1994-14, (19 May 1994).
Health Canada, News Release No. 1994-19, (29 June 1994).
National Forum on Health, Fact Sheet.
Liberal Party, Creating Opportunity, 80.
The comments of Prime Minister Chrétien during a December 1996 television appearance
highlight this point. Infomart, Transcript of CBC Television’s The National: Townhall with
Prime Minister Chrétien, (10 December 1996).
Odette Madore, The Canada Health and Social Transfer: Operation and Possible
Repercussions on the Health Care Sector, (Ottawa, 1995), 6.
Madore, The Canada Health and Social Transfer, 7.
Health Canada, National Health Expenditures, Table 3A.
Ottawa Sun, 14 January 1996, 15; Ottawa Citizen, 13 January 1996, A1. The federal
contribution is guaranteed to be no less than $11 billion over the five years of the federalprovincial funding arrangement according to public statements by Health Minister David
Dingwall.
Canada, Improved Program Delivery: Sports and Health. A Study Team Report to the Task
Force on Program Review, (Ottawa, 1985), 14.
Toronto Star, 29 November 1996, A27.
Health Canada, National Health Expenditures, 8.
Personal communication, Health Canada official, Autumn 1996.
Forum national sur la santé, La santé au Canada: un héritage à faire fructifier. Rapport final
du Forum national sur la santé, (Ottawa, 1997), 23; See also Forum national sur la santé, La
santé au Canada: un héritage à faire fructifier. Rapport de synthèse et documents de
référence, (Ottawa, 1997).
David Dingwall, Building a Better Health System for Canadians, (Toronto, 22 April 1997).
Dingwall, Building.
Forum national, La santé, 13.
Dingwall, Building.
In an election campaign commitment, the Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, promised to
increase the CHST’s cash floor to $12.5 billion in line with the National Forum’s
recommendations. Barrie Examiner, 30 April 1997, 21.
Informart, Transcript of CBC Television’s The National.
Maclean’s, 2 January 1995, 10-12.
Thomas Courchene, Redistributing Money and Power: A Guide to the Canada Health and
Social Transfer, (Toronto, 1995), 80-1.
Health Canada, National Health Expenditures, Table 3A.
185
Mark E. Rush
Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United
States: Managing the Tension that Haunts
International Law
Abstract
The alien rights debate is commonly cast in favor of the fundamental rights of
aliens or the sovereign rights of citizens. Resolving the controversy in such a
manner is impractical because both sides of the debate embody compelling
human rights claims. However, it can be managed if we preserve the
distinction between persons and citizens. While this may upset alien rights
advocates, it is important to note that this distinction is reflected in the
constitutions of both Canada and the United States as well as international
human rights documents. The paper assesses the manner in which the
supreme courts of Canada and the United States have sought to manage the
alien rights dilemma within the confines of their respective constitutions.
Résumé
Le débat sur les droits étrangers penche souvent en faveur des droits
fondamentaux des étrangers ou des droits souverains des citoyens. Il n’est pas
pratique de tenter de résoudre la controverse de cette façon puisque les deux
parties qui s’affrontent campent des positions probantes en matière de droits
humains. Cependant, il est possible de « gérer » la situation en préservant la
distinction entre « personnes » et « citoyens ». Bien que cette solution puisse
déranger les défenseurs des droits étrangers, il est important de noter que
cette distinction est reflétée dans les constitutions canadienne et américaine
ainsi que dans les documents internationaux sur les droits humains. Dans le
présent article, l’auteur évalue la manière dont les cours suprêmes du
Canada et des États-Unis ont cherché à gérer le dilemme des droits étrangers
en se basant sur leurs constitutions respectives.
The debate over alien rights has developed in fits and starts—most recently, in
reaction to two key events in the United States. First, in 1983, the Supreme
Court ruled that Texas could not deny access to free public education to the
children of illegal (undocumented) aliens (Plyler v. Doe). More recently, the
people of California passed Proposition 1871 which would deny illegal aliens
access to welfare and other aspects of public largesse. In Canada, the alien
rights debate has focussed less on the issue of illegal immigrants than on
balancing the Charter’s commitments to an expansive notion of equality of
persons and the sovereignty of the provinces (Tessier).
While much scholarly commentary is sympathetic to the plight of
aliens—regardless of whether they were legally admitted to a country—a
IJCS / RIÉC
continuum of opinion can be developed which represents three principal views
of the tension between the universal equality rights of persons and the rights of
citizens to self-determination and sovereignty.
Lonely advocates of restricting alien rights are Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith
who, in Citizenship without Consent, argue against birthright citizenship.
Instead, they propose a model of citizenship based on mutual consent between
members of an existing polity and outsiders seeking admission. As well,
Jacobson (1996:9) acknowledges the need to preserve sovereignty as a basic
building block of the international order. Michael Walzer (upon whom just
about every participant in the alien rights debate relies to support an argument)
contends that sovereignty—and the right to exclude aliens—is a key
component of self-determination
In opposition to Schuck and Smith, we find critics such as Elizabeth Hull,
Joseph Carens and Linda Bosniak who lament any discriminatory regulations
which, based on citizenship distinctions, establish a “caste system” of rights.
Finally, critics such as Gerald Neuman, Gerald Rosberg and Jamin Raskin
occupy a middle position. They argue that governments are obliged to
recognize certain rights of persons to the extent that these persons either
contribute to a state’s common weal or are affected by its policies.
In moving from Hull, Carens and Bosniak, through Neuman, Rosberg and
Raskin to Schuck and Smith and Walzer, we see the focus of concern shift from
the plight of supplicant aliens who seek to improve their lives by gaining access
to freedoms or welfare to the plight of citizens who wish to preserve and protect
the integrity of the society they may have built. While each point along the
continuum is subject to serious challenges, this paper suggests that the tension
between the universal rights of persons seeking access to polities and the
sovereign rights of citizens cannot be “resolved.” Instead, it can only be
“managed” by establishing a balance between the two competing interests.
Such a balance requires the preservation of a distinction between citizens and
persons. While this distinction may upset alien rights advocates, it is important
to note that it is reflected in the constitutions of both Canada and the United
States as well as international human rights documents. Despite this, there is no
gainsaying the fact that the jurisprudence of both countries has thus far failed to
set forth a coherent doctrine of citizenship rights. But this is due, in large part, to
the inability of either judiciary to agree upon and set forth a consistent and
usable notion of equality that accommodates necessary differences based on
citizenship while militating against patently unconstitutional discrimination
(Beatty 1996, 351).
In managing the tension between the particular rights of citizens and the
universal rights of persons, the courts of both nations have sustained a plenary
national power to restrict immigration (Fong Yue Ting, Mathews, Union
Colliery, Lavoie). However, when confronted with attempts by states or
provinces to restrict access to employment, welfare, the franchise or other
rights to citizens (or, at least, state or provincial residents) the courts have
struggled to set forth a consistent measure for balancing the sovereign rights of
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Citizenship and Rights in Canada and the United States
the states or provinces with the constitutional equality rights of all persons
(Andrews, Morgan; Ambach, Griffiths, Sugarman).
This difficulty springs from the acknowledgment by both supreme courts that,
while immigration is largely a political matter for national governments to
address—and therefore subject to relatively few constitutional
restrictions—the treatment of lawfully admitted aliens is certainly subject to
constitutional restrictions. Accordingly, American and Canadian courts
originally approached questions of alienage discrimination more in terms of
resolving disputes over federal divisions of power than in terms of equality
rights of persons.2 Since the current debate is energized by the plight of and
reaction to illegal aliens, discourse focuses on whether any differentiation
between persons is morally justifiable under any scheme of equality—
regardless of whether they were lawfully admitted to a country.
The jurisprudential difficulties reflect the absence of a coherent theoretical
conceptualization of what constitutes membership in a community. With
regard to legally admitted residents, critics generally agree that they ought to
have access to all public benefits (Guendelsberger, e.g.). For the most part,
legally admitted United States residents do have broad access to the public
services that citizens enjoy (Note 1989; Aleinikoff 1989, 865-66). However,
critics such as Carens and Bosniak would expand the scope of alien privileges
further— even to illegal immigrants.
Focussing on whether or not aliens have achieved (or should be regarded as
having achieved) membership status in a nation (and therefore should be
afforded more of the privileges normally reserved for citizens) overlooks the
fact that citizenship itself is not always a sufficient criterion for exercising the
full complement of rights in a constitution. For example, despite their
commitments to different visions of equality (Beatty), Canadian and American
courts have thus far managed to strike essentially the same practical balance
between the impulse to minimize discrimination among persons and the need to
preserve the integrity of citizenship.
This paper discusses the tensions that inhere in American and Canadian
jurisprudence regarding aliens. The accommodation by both courts of the
competing interests of sovereignty/citizenship and universal rights of persons
lays the groundwork for a much more workable approach to the alien rights
problem than any alternative proposed by critics who would resolve the tension
in favour of the nation-state of the supplicant alien. The distinction between
citizens and persons acknowledges the need to maintain the sovereignty of the
nation-state. To the extent that alien rights advocates attack the nation-state and
citizenship as inherently unjust and discriminatory, they ultimately threaten the
viability of the rights claims they seek to protect. The enforcement of universal
human rights depends on the preservation of limited, discrete, particular rights
of citizenship. If citizenship is diluted, so too is the capacity of nation-states to
enforce the universal rights that alien advocates proclaim.
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Citizens and Aliens: Theoretical Perspectives
Critics who contend that states ought to liberalize their procedures for granting
citizenship are especially concerned with the inequality that inheres in notions
such as “citizenship” and “sovereignty.” In Without Justice for All, Elizabeth
Hull notes:
Aliens will never receive the treatment that befits their human status
until [the United States] experiences a fundamental institutional and
philosophical reorientation. This reorientation depends upon two
related phenomena. One [sic] the Supreme Court must assume greater
responsibility for the rights of noncitizens. . . . Two [sic] the United
States and eventually every other country must cease to revere, and
indeed genuflect before, the twin altars of “citizenship” and
“sovereignty” (1985, 148).
Linda Bosniak laments the fact that reserving certain privileges for citizens
serves only to create “caste” systems of rights that are inherently unjust. She
argues that debating the justification of alienage discrimination essentially puts
the cart before the horse: “The very existence of alienage is a product of this
world because the government designates aliens as such in the exercise of its
immigration power” (1994b, 1055). Contending that universal equality—not
national sovereignty—ought to be the measure by which alienage policies are
justified, she calls for an examination of the relationship between the
government’s power to regulate its border and its power to control the
composition of the national community, (1994b, 1047).
A more qualified vision of alien rights is espoused by writers such as Jamin
Raskin, Gerald Rosberg, Gerald Neuman and Alexander Aleinikoff. While
acknowledging a national right to police immigration, they cast the relationship
between “persons” and “nations” (and logically, “citizens”) in terms of what
Robert Dahl described as the “doctrine of affected interests”: “everyone who is
affected by the decisions of a government should have the right to participate in
that government” (Dahl 1970, 64).
With regard to extending the right to vote to noncitizens, Raskin and Rosberg
argue that resident aliens ought to be granted the right to vote—at least in local
elections—because they have consented to abide by the laws of the community
in which they live (Raskin, 1394). Drawing a parallel to the American
revolutionaries’ cries of “taxation without representation,” Raskin contends
that consistency would dictate that the descendants of those patriots ought to
show the same sympathy for resident aliens who are governed and taxed
without representation.
To reinforce this view, Raskin cites Judith Shklar: “No historically significant
form of government or of citizenship is in principle incompatible with the
exclusion of large groups of people, but natural rights theory makes it very
difficult to find good reasons for excluding anyone from full political
membership in a modern republic” (Raskin, 441, n. 270). This expansive vision
of rights places the onus on the excluding community to justify its contention
that maintenance of its political integrity requires discrimination against
resident noncitizens.
190
Gerald Neuman argues similarly in Strangers to the Constitution where he
states that “no human being subject to the governance of the United States
should be a stranger to the Constitution” (189). He explains that “current
constitutional doctrine is unclear about whether the constitutional rights of
aliens impose constraints on the substantive criteria adopted by Congress for
the admission, exclusion, and deportation of aliens” (118). Yet, he argues that
an approach to human rights based upon a “mutuality of obligations” between
states and persons has informed the American Court’s alien rights
jurisprudence and has led to the Supreme Court’s acknowledging that aliens
“both inside and outside the borders of the United States enjoy the protection of
certain constitutional rights” (118).
Neuman’s “mutuality of obligations” approach echoes the doctrine of
“affected interests” and can lead to similarly problematic considerations. Dahl
acknowledged that the doctrine, if applied consistently, could result in virtually
any person’s having a legitimate claim to participate in the American political
process. So long as it could be shown that a policy had an impact on someone’s
life—regardless of that person’s residence or citizenship—he or she would
have a legitimate claim to participate in the political process.
Neuman does perceive state obligation in such broad terms. Thus, he goes so far
as to suggest that foreigners seeking visas should be afforded due process rights
insofar as their petition for entry into the United States has brought them into
contact with (and, therefore, subject, somewhat to the governance of) the nation
(127-128). Similarly, he contends that the children of illegal aliens should be
granted the benefits of citizenship essentially as a fait accompli. Since they are
within the jurisdiction and impacted by the policies of the nation, there is no
justifiable basis on which to relegate them to an hereditary second-class status.
Thus, in moving from Hull and Bosniak to Neuman, Raskin and Rosberg, we
see a shift in emphasis. Hull and Bosniak proceed from an assumption that
persons have an a priori entitlement to access to resources or privileges that
might better their lives. It is, they argue, unfair that the “haves” should erect
obstructions to “have nots” who merely seek to obtain the same privileges held
by the haves. Neuman, Raskin and Rosberg qualify this to the extent that they
base any claim of right on the existence of a relationship between a nation and
noncitizens/nonresidents who are affected by the nation’s actions.
However, the thesis of mutual obligation that underpins Neuman, Raskin and
Rosberg is cast in terms that are very one-sided. As described by Neuman,
mutuality of obligation begins, essentially, because a nation exists. Once it
exists, it will, unavoidably, have an impact on the lives of anyone with whom it
comes in contact. However, the same may be said for anyone who comes in
contact with a nation. Accordingly, as it is presented, the mutuality of
obligation approach to alien rights does not move us very far from the position
occupied by Hull and Bosniak. Nations are described as being bound to
recognize rights-claims which have arisen because an individual is able to say
that the nation has impacted him or her. However, the nation has no ability to
avoid incurring such obligations because, as the mutuality of obligation thesis
suggests, its mere existence may be the source of the impact upon which a
191
IJCS / RIÉC
rights-claim is based. Thus, the nation is encumbered regardless and the rights
claims are, for all intents and purposes, a priori.
The establishment of such a priori claims against a state—especially, for
example, by virtue of birth—is the impetus for Schuck and Smith’s assertion
that citizenship should be established on the basis of a mutuality of consent, not
obligation. Based on this, Schuck and Smith argue against unlimited and
unqualified birthright citizenship because it encourages illegal immigration
and undermines the sovereign rights of citizens.
Schuck and Smith wrote in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v.
Doe, where it struck down a Texas law that authorized local school districts
either to prohibit illegal aliens from attending public schools or, at least, to
charge them tuition. The basis for the restriction was fiscal: the children were
not legally admitted into the nation and it was costing Texas to educate them. In
response to the Fourteenth Amendment claim brought on behalf of the children,
Texas responded that insofar as the aliens were not legally admitted to the
country or the state, they were not, technically, “in the state’s jurisdiction.”
Therefore, they were not entitled to the equal protection of the laws granted by
the Fourteenth Amendment because its text refers specifically to persons
“within the state’s jurisdiction.”
The Supreme Court acknowledged that “persuasive arguments support the
view that a State may withhold its beneficence from those whose very presence
within the United States is the product of unlawful conduct” (219). However, it
ruled that a state could not justify such treatment of the children of illegal aliens
who had no control over their coming into the country.
At the least, those who elect to enter our country by stealth and in
violation of our law should be prepared to bear the consequences,
including, but not limited to, deportation. But, the children of those
illegal entrants are not comparably situated. . . . Even if the State found
it expedient to control the conduct of adults by acting against their
children, legislation directing the onus of a parent’s misconduct
against his children does not comport with fundamental conceptions
of justice (220).
The court acknowledged that it is necessary for states to distinguish between
different classes of citizens, noncitizens and residents: “a legislature must have
substantial latitude to establish classifications that roughly approximate the
nature of the problem perceived” (216). However, it said that this authority did
not extend so far as to permit states to create classes of people to whom the law’s
protections did not apply:
To permit a State to employ the phrase “within its jurisdiction” in
order to identify subclasses of persons whom it would define as
beyond its jurisdiction, thereby relieving itself of the obligation to
assure that its laws are designed and applied equally to those persons,
would undermine the principal purpose for which the Equal
Protection Clause was incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Equal Protection Clause was intended to work nothing less than
the abolition of all caste-based and invidious class-based legislation.
That objective is fundamentally at odds with the power the State
192
asserts here to classify persons subject to its laws as nonetheless
excepted from its protection (213).
Schuck and Smith contend that Plyler diluted citizenship and the sovereign
rights of citizens. Plyler (and arguments by those who applaud the decision)
creates a right to membership in a community without recognizing a right of
existing members to self-determination (101-108). Thus, the vision of
membership and entitlement set forth in Plyler, like that manifested by
advocates of the “mutuality of obligation” thesis, favours individual rights of
membership at the expense of group rights of self-determination.
Schuck and Smith seek to reconcile the competing concerns of transcendent
human rights and government by consent. However, in the end, their rejection
of birthright citizenship is grounded more on a concern to minimize the threat
they perceive from undocumented aliens’ gaining access to the welfare state
than on setting forth a consistent, practical theory. Thus, they acknowledge that
a consistent application of their consent-based theory could result in
foreboding difficulties such as involuntary expatriation of citizens or the unjust
exclusion of persons who are entitled to citizenship (101-103). To get around
such problems, Schuck and Smith qualify their theory in order, for example, to
assure birthright citizenship to the children of citizens. For this, they are taken
to task by critics (Schwartz) who contend that once constraints on a state’s
ability to regulate its membership—and, therefore, constraints on a polity’s
right to self-determination—any additional, morally justified restraint ought to
be applied as well.
Joseph Carens contends that “[p]eople who live in a state for any significant
period of time become members of that society, although membership may be
acquired in other ways as well. All members of a society are morally entitled to
citizenship” (1989, 33). Thus, he continues: “once one starts with a
commitment to liberal principles of individual freedom and the moral equality
of all human beings, one is well on the road to the conclusion that political
membership should be determined on the basis of individual consent, no matter
how expansive a view one takes of the state’s functions” (1987b: 418).
Similarly, Raskin argues that “the differences between citizens and noncitizens
are probably much less significant than we often imagine” (1447). As well,
Justice William Brennan contended that the Fourteenth Amendment
“expressly equates citizenship only with simple residence” (Zobel v. Williams,
69).
However, Carens and Brennan do acknowledge that citizenship is a special
type of membership, one that “requires a higher and deeper commitment both
by the individual to the society and by the society to the individual” (Carens
1989, 34). Similarly, Brennan acknowledged that states may make “reasoned
distinctions between citizens . . . [i]nsofar as those distinctions are rationally
related to the legitimate ends of the State” (Zobel, 70). Such qualifications alter
the terms of the alien rights debate. The debate is as concerned with establishing
membership in a community as it is with determining whether and how
citizenship should play a role in the distribution of privileges among a society’s
members. This is addressed thoroughly by a source common to virtually all
participants in the alien rights debate: Michael Walzer.
193
IJCS / RIÉC
In Spheres of Justice, Walzer (1983) develops the issue of alien rights in terms
of the plight of the guest worker. However, in doing so, he distinguishes
between two stages of admission to a society: immigration and naturalization.
Walzer’s concern is with the injustice that develops when a country which
permits immigration and potentially unlimited residence, denies the possibility
of citizenship to its permanent resident aliens. Insofar as aliens are governed
and in residence, says Walzer, they are entitled to some say in the political
process: “men and women are either subject to the state’s authority, or they are
not; and if they are subject, they must be given a say, and ultimately, an equal
say, in what the authority does” (61).
Walzer does make the case for reasonable constraints on the process by which
aliens can apply for citizenship. However, critics of such restraints tend to
ignore or gloss over this aspect of Walzer’s theory. For example, in the United
States, resident aliens may naturalize after five years so long as they can
demonstrate good moral character and basic English proficiency (8 U. S. C. §§
1423(1), 1427(a)(3) (1988)). While Raskin describes any waiting period as
“tyrannical,” (1448) Walzer concedes that states need only to provide aliens
with the opportunity to become citizens:
Participants in local economy and law, they ought to be able to regard
themselves as potential or future participants in politics as well. And
they must be possessed of those basic civil liberties whose exercise is
so much preparation for voting and office holding. They must be set
on the road to citizenship. They may choose not to become citizens, to
return home or stay on as resident aliens . . . the principle of political
justice is this: that the process of self-determination through which a
democratic state shapes its internal life, must be open, and equally
open, to all those men and women who live within its territory, work in
the local economy, and are subject to local law. Hence, second
admissions (naturalization) depend on first admissions
(immigration) and are subject only to certain constraints of time and
qualification, never to the ultimate constraint of closure (60-61,
emphasis added).
Yet Walzer contends that, ultimately:
the right to choose an admissions policy is . . . not merely a matter of
acting in the world, exercising sovereignty, and pursuing national
interests. At stake here is the shape of the community that acts in the
world, exercises sovereignty, and so on. Admission and exclusion are
at the core of communal independence. They suggest the deepest
meaning of self-determination. Without them, there could not be
communities of character, historically stable, ongoing associations of
men and women with some special commitment to one another and
some special sense of their common life (61-62).
Walzer acknowledges that morally-based limits may apply to the methods in
which states control immigration (34-40). However, while Bosniak cites these
limits as supporting her thesis (Bosniak 1994b, 1070), the key element of the
limits Walzer describes is that they are the product of internal policymaking
decisions by the citizens of a nation. The constraints are not driven by the vision
of equality that animates her argument.
194
Thus, Walzer substantiates the legitimacy of a state’s distinguishing
citizenship from residence and, accordingly, requiring citizenship as a basis for
the acquisition and exercise of certain privileges, such as the right to vote.
Accordingly, insofar as aliens choose not to become citizens, they voluntarily
choose not take on the responsibilities that come with the citizenship-based
privileges that they seek. Yet, Walzer does not draw this conclusion. While he
acknowledges an unfettered right of nations to control their borders, he
contends as well that this discretion is quite constrained when it comes to
dealing with what can be done or denied to aliens once they become residents
(62). He suggests that, after a period of time, resident aliens ought to be afforded
virtually the same rights and privileges as citizens (58-9) regardless of whether
or not they choose to naturalize. Holding permanent residents to the “second
class status” that they agreed to when they were admitted, says Walzer, would
be unjust. Thus, at least with regard to legally admitted aliens, Walzer’s theory
does support Bosniak, Raskin, Neuman and Rosberg who seek to minimize the
distinctions between resident aliens and citizens. Still, Walzer’s
acknowledgment of a virtually plenary power over immigration establishes a
basis on which such distinctions can be justified.
If the power to admit is plenary, it seems that the power to admit with
restrictions is equally absolute. Accordingly, while Walzer contends that, for
all intents and purposes, lawful presence in a community establishes a
fundamental right to the opportunity for full admission, his argument also
suggests that the nature of that presence can be limited at the time of admission.
Therefore, mere presence can be read as infinitely meaningful or virtually
meaningless, depending on which aspect of Walzer’s argument one chooses to
rely.
The significance of one’s presence within the geographic confines of a nation
touches upon the jurisdictional issue that was the heart of Texas’ argument in
Plyler. Yet, insofar as Plyler places great emphasis on an individual’s
geographic presence, it is anomalous. As early as 1884, the United States
Supreme Court concluded that a claim to citizenship had to be based upon more
than mere presence.
In Elk v. Wilkins, the Court contended that “no one can become a citizen of a
nation without its consent” (103). As a result, native Americans who were
members of tribes were not recognized as American citizens and could not
obtain citizenship simply by leaving the tribe. While native Americans were
certainly born within the United States, they were not subject to its jurisdiction
in the sense contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Schuck and Smith rely on Elk to substantiate their assertion that birthright
citizenship is not an unqualified right and that Plyler was an anomaly. Since a
nation cannot possibly have consented to admit the children of illegal aliens,
they conclude that they cannot gain the protections offered by that nation’s
constitution. Yet, Elk raises important considerations for Walzer who, on the
one hand, supports a strong immigration power but considers residence a
sufficient basis for asserting rights claims.
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In the same way that Walzer does not effectively address the question of illegal
immigrants, he does not address the dilemma posed by Elk. The power over
admission that Walzer supports suggests that one’s presence in a community
can be justified as a matter only of consent. But Elk clearly was in the United
States; then again, he was not. His geographic presence was the result of
consent manifested in a treaty between the United States and an Indian tribe.
But, the treaty essentially prevented Elk from “immigrating” and changing
nationalities.
Thus, Walzer’s vision not only establishes a principled basis for discriminating
against illegal aliens—regardless of how long they have been present in a
community—but also places inherent limits on the virtually unlimited scope of
the rights claims that “mutuality of obligation” or “affected interests” would
acknowledge. Yet, his insistence that legally established presence creates a
basis for rights claims does support arguments such as those of Raskin and
Neuman.
Ultimately, however, Walzer does little more than balance the different
emphases that characterize the alien rights continuum. A gray area remains in
which the self-determination rights asserted by Schuck and Smith seem to
supersede the claims of illegal aliens, but similarly seem constitutionally
encumbered by legally admitted aliens who wish to become, in the Orwellian
sense, “more equal.”
American and Canadian Jurisprudence
The Courts of the United States and Canada have also managed to strike a
balance among the diverse concerns that animate the alien rights debate.
Despite the different conceptions of equality that inhere in their jurisprudence
(Beatty, Lepofsky, Smith), the American and Canadian Supreme Courts have
arrived at strikingly similar positions in balancing the broad claims of the rights
of “persons” to equality with the rights of “citizens” to discriminate in favour of
themselves. In this respect, both courts have incorporated Walzer’s distinction
between unconstrained authority over immigration and constrained authority
over residents.
In Mathews v. Diaz (1976), a unanimous American Court sustained federal
residency restrictions on alien access to Medicare. It emphasized that alien
rights are grounded principally in the due process protections of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. In this respect, alien rights are inherently negative in
the sense that they are the manifestations of restrictions which impose standard
operating procedures on the federal and state governments: “Even one whose
presence in this country is unlawful, involuntary or transitory is entitled to
[Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process protections]” (Mathews 77).
However, while aliens are entitled to due process of law, they are not entitled to
the substantive benefits conferred upon citizens: “The fact that all persons,
aliens and citizens alike, are protected by the Due Process Clause does not lead
to the further conclusion that all aliens are entitled to enjoy all the advantages of
citizenship” (78). In particular, said the Court,
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the fact that Congress has provided some welfare benefits for citizens
does not require it to provide like benefits for all aliens. Neither the
overnight visitor, the unfriendly agent of a hostile foreign power, the
resident diplomat, nor the illegal entrant, can advance even a
colorable constitutional claim to share in the bounty that a
conscientious sovereign makes available to its own citizens and some
of its guests (81).
Thus, in the eyes of the American Court, aliens who seek admission to the
nation are mere seekers of privilege and have no constitutional rights regarding
the dispensation of their application. (See Landon, 32.)
Similarly, in Lavoie v. Canada (1995), the Supreme Court of Canada upheld
section 16(4)(c) of the Public Service Employment Act R. S. C. 1985, which
gave Canadian citizens preference in hiring for federal public service jobs. The
Court’s opinion echoed Mathews when it supported the government’s claim
that:
[b]ecause citizenship is a distinctive concept, it is impossible to
achieve complete equality between citizens and non-citizens without
abolishing the concepts that distinguish citizenship. Therefore, for
citizenship to remain a viable concept, some distinctions must be
recognized as compatible with the equality principle and reconcilable
with s. 15(1) of the Charter (92).
The Lavoie Court also acknowledged that it could not claim any superior
authority upon which to challenge the reasoning of the federal Parliament with
regard to immigration:
the court is in no better position than Parliament to decide whether the
right balance has been struck or the right means has been chosen to
accord a preference to Canadian citizens with respect to public service
employment as an entitlement of citizenship and an enhancement
toward naturalization. In this regard, the court considers that the
government had a reasonable basis for the choice that it has made and
that the choice impairs constitutionally protected rights as little as
possible (116).
Thus, both Supreme Courts defer to the plenary power of the national
government and, thereby acknowledge virtually no constitutional restrictions
on immigration power. In this respect, they echo the distinction that Walzer
makes. However, they have been quick to restrict attempts by states or
provinces to place limitations on privileges and rights afforded to legally
admitted resident aliens. For example, in Mathews, the American Court
contended that state attempts to restrict alien access to welfare would not be
sustained because they would encroach upon federal prerogatives in setting
immigration policy:
Insofar as state welfare policy is concerned, there is little, if any, basis
for treating persons who are citizens of another State differently from
persons who are citizens of another country. Both groups are
noncitizens as far as the State’s interests in administering its programs
are concerned. Thus, a division by a State of the category of persons
who are not citizens of that State into subcategories of United States
citizens and aliens has no apparent justification, whereas a
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comparable classification by the Federal Government is a routine
and normally legitimate part of its business. Furthermore, whereas
the Constitution inhibits every State’s power to restrict travel across
its own borders, Congress is explicitly empowered to exercise that
type of control over travel across the borders of the United States
(Mathews, 85. Italics added.).
Accordingly, the relationship between a nation and its residents is different
than that between a nation and those who aspire to be admitted to it. Both courts
suggest that, until the person is actually admitted by the national government,
he or she has no rights to claim. However, once an alien is admitted, he or she is
afforded certain procedural rights automatically. Thus, while aliens are not
entitled to federal substantive rights, they are apparently entitled to state or
provincial substantive rights unless the state or province has a compelling
interest for restricting alien access. But, this distinction is not absolutely clear.
For example, the Mathews Court found it necessary to resolve what appeared to
be a contradiction between the Mathews decision and that rendered in Shapiro
v. Thomson (1969), where it ruled that states could not restrict the access of new
residents (who were American citizens) to welfare assistance because such
policies impinged upon what the Court described as a fundamental right to
interstate travel.
The Mathews Court suggested that “resident aliens” and “citizens of other
states” were equally protected from state discrimination; therefore, both were,
for all intents and purposes, granted the right of access to public coffers.
However, the Court went on to explain that there were limits to the equality that
the two groups shared. In a footnote at the end of Mathews, the Court pointed
out that the right to interstate travel was still a citizen’s right and was not
necessarily reserved as well to resident aliens:
In Shapiro v. Thompson, we held that state-imposed requirements of
durational residence within the State for receipt of welfare benefits
denied equal protection because such requirements unconstitutionally
burdened the right to travel interstate. Since the requirements applied
to aliens and citizens alike, we did not decide whether the right to
travel interstate was conferred only upon citizens. However, our
holding was predicated expressly on the requirement that “all citizens
be free to travel throughout the length and breadth of our land
uninhibited by statutes, rules, or regulations which unreasonably
burden or restrict this movement” (Mathews at 86, citing Shapiro at
629. Italics added.)
Thus, the privileges and rights to which resident aliens are entitled and the
sovereign rights of states and provinces remain unclear. At first blush, the
Court’s reasoning reflects Walzer’s assertion that long-time residents are
entitled to virtually all privileges afforded to citizens. Yet, in contrast to
Walzer, the Court still maintained that certain privileges, such as the right to
interstate travel and the right to vote, remain attached to citizenship. The
Canadian Court’s jurisprudence regarding provincial laws which prefer
provincial residents is similarly fuzzy. The key difficulty encountered by both
Courts lies in the fact that, since both nations are federally organized, their
jurisprudence must respect the constitutionally implicit—albeit limited—self-
198
determination rights of provinces and as well as the constitutionally explicit
commitments to equality.
Prerogatives of the American States
As early as 1886, the Court declared in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) that lawfully
admitted resident aliens were “persons” insofar as the Fourteenth Amendment
declared that a State could not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws” (369). The Court struck down a municipal
regulation of laundry operations because it was enforced discriminatorily
against Chinese laundry operators. This reading of the Fourteenth Amendment
imposes certain standard operating procedures on the states. However, it was
not clear whether it imposed certain affirmative duties on them as well. While a
state was bound to respect the procedural premises which underlie the
constitutional notion of due process, the question remained whether the
residents of a state could pool resources for their collective good and restrict
access to the benefits from such resources.
In Graham v. Richardson (1971, 372), the Court ruled that “classifications
based on alienage, like those on nationality or race, are inherently suspect and
subject to close judicial scrutiny.” It therefore struck down Arizona and
Pennsylvania statutes which restricted resident aliens’ access to welfare
benefits. The decision reflected Walzer’s distinction between the status of
aliens who have and have not been admitted to a country. The Court focussed on
the impact of the states’ laws on the ability of Congress to administer
immigration and naturalization. Insofar as Congress had admitted the alien
plaintiffs without placing any indigence-based restriction on their status, it
ruled that the states could not justify creating an alienage-based barrier to
welfare (377).
Having established the aliens’ rights to equal access to welfare, the
Graham Court then addressed whether states could justify any citizenshipbased restriction on public benefits. It pointed out that, in the past, it and other
Courts had acknowledged that states might have had “special public interest”
reasons for restricting access to certain privileges. Citing Crane v. New York
(1915), the Court indicated that alienage discrimination was sometimes
justifiable:
To disqualify aliens is discrimination indeed, but not arbitrary
discrimination, for the principle of exclusion is the restriction of
resources of the state to the advancement and profit of the members of
the state. Ungenerous and unwise such discrimination may be. It is not
for that reason, unlawful. . . . The state, in determining what use shall
be made of its own moneys, may legitimately consult the welfare of its
own citizens rather than that of aliens. Whatever is a privilege rather
than a right, may be made dependent upon citizenship (373).
But, in Graham, the Court emphatically rejected “the concept that
constitutional rights turn upon whether a governmental benefit is a right or a
privilege” (374). In so doing, it expanded the rights of supplicants seeking
access to state privileges and largesse, while emasculating the rights of citizens
of particular states to develop their own common weal.
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In Sugarman v. Dougall (1973), a divided Court struck down a New York State
law which prohibited the employment of aliens in competitive civil service
positions. The division within the Court focussed on 1) whether the Court
should continue to regard aliens as a suspect class (as it had established in
Graham) and 2) where to draw the line between permissible and impermissible
restrictions based on citizenship and the political/fiscal nature of the restriction.
Citing Graham, the Court “recognized a State’s interest in establishing its own
form of government, and in limiting participation in that government to those
who are within the basic conception of a political community” (642). However,
the Court concluded that New York had no rational basis for making a
universal, citizenship-based restriction (645). Aliens could still be refused or
discharged from public employment “if the refusal to hire, or the discharge,
rests on legitimate state interests that relate to qualification for a particular
position or to the characteristics of the employee” (647), but equal protection
forbade the establishment of a class-based distinction.
In in re Griffiths (1973), the Court struck down a Connecticut statute which had
established citizenship as a prerequisite for practicing law in the state. The court
stated that “[i]n order to justify the use of a suspect classification, a State must
show that its purpose or interest is both constitutionally permissible and
substantial, and that its use of the classification is necessary to the
accomplishment of its purpose or the safeguarding of its interest” (722).
Echoing Graham, the Court concluded that while Connecticut could determine
the eligibility of applicants to the bar on a case by case basis, it could not justify
the implementation of a wholesale ban on resident aliens’ access to it. The
Court relied on the fact that lawyers were neither “officials of the government”
nor “so close to the core of a political process as to make [them] formulator[s] of
government policy (729). Therefore, while the Court respected the legitimate
concerns of states to ensure that the governors actually be members of the polity
over which they governed, it now expressed a willingness to second-guess state
decisions regarding what exactly constituted a government official or function.
In Nyquist v. Mauclet (1977), the Court applied this calculus to strike down
another New York State law which banned resident aliens from receiving state
financial assistance for higher education. While the majority struck down the
law on grounds similar to those set forth in Sugarman and Griffiths, the dissents
contended that, the restriction was a reasonable exercise of state power because
the state had merely required the appellees to make a choice: insofar as they
chose freely to retain their foreign citizenship, they had no grounds to challenge
their ineligibility for financial aid. Furthermore, Justice Burger resurrected the
privilege-right distinction and asserted that, in the absence of any fundamental
right, the Court could not justify applying strict scrutiny to state legislation:
“Where a fundamental personal interest is not at stake—and higher education is
hardly that—the State must be free to exercise its largesse in any reasonable
manner” (14).
Nyquist seems to have brought about a sea change which was grounded on an
appreciation for the rights of self-determination and self-government of state
residents/citizens. In several ensuing cases, the Court used the rights-privilege
distinction to sustain citizenship-based restrictions. In Foley v. Connelie
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(1978), the Court sustained a New York statute that required all state police
officers to be American citizens. The Court explained that certain citizenshipbased restrictions, such as those on the franchise, access to the ballot or the
“nonelective offices” noted in Sugarman, were absolutely necessary to the
protection of the enterprise of self-government:
This is not because our society seeks to reserve the better jobs to its
members. Rather, it is because this country entrusts many of the most
important policy responsibilities to these officers, the discretionary
exercise of which can often more immediately affect the lives of
citizens than even the ballot of a voter or the choice of a legislator. In
sum, then, it represents the choice, and right, of the people to be
governed by their citizen peers (296).
Along with a new appreciation of self-government rights came a willingness to
give states the benefit of the doubt regarding what constituted a government
function or official. In Ambach v. Norwich (1978), the Court sustained a New
York law which conditioned eligibility for a public school teaching position
upon one’s having acquired or intending to seek citizenship. In that case, the
Court acknowledged the necessity of distinguishing between citizens and
noncitizens:
The distinction between citizens and aliens, though ordinarily
irrelevant to private activity, is fundamental to the definition and
government of a State. The Constitution itself refers to the distinction
no less than 11 times . . . indicating that the status of citizenship was
meant to have significance in the structure of our government. The
assumption of that status, whether by birth or naturalization, denotes
an association with the polity which, in a democratic republic,
exercises the power of governance. . . . This form of association is
important; an oath of allegiance or similar ceremony cannot substitute
for the unequivocal legal bond citizenship represents. It is because of
this special significance of citizenship that governmental entities,
when exercising the functions of government, have wider latitude in
limiting the participation of noncitizens (75).
In his dissent in Ambach, Justice Blackmun tried to distinguish between
procedural protections that extended to aliens and privileges of citizenship that
do not. Citing Court history that went back as far as Yick Wo v. Hopkins, he
explained that the Court tended to uphold only those citizenship-based
restrictions that were intimately related to state functions, such as that upheld in
Foley. Citing Sugarman, he contended that there are “those employments that a
State in its wisdom constitutionally may restrict to United States citizens, on the
one hand, and those employments on the other, that the State may not deny to
resident aliens” (84). Insofar as certain state functions can reasonably be said to
require citizenship for the fulfillment of their responsibilities, a state could
justify discrimination against aliens.
Blackmun’s response illuminates the difficulty inherent in applying the test set
forth in Griffiths: by what criteria do we identify key state functions or
distinguish between a right and a privilege? The Court has maintained that the
states are constitutionally entitled to “preserve the basic conception of a
political community (Dunn, 344). Blackmun himself had stated elsewhere that
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states are entitled to structure relations exclusively with their own citizens or
create effective programs for solving local problems and distributing
government largesse because such policies “reflect the essential and patently
unobjectionable purpose of state government—to serve the citizens of the
State” (Reeves, 442). But, if members of the court were still willing to second
guess policies designed by citizens to protect and administer a common weal,
then the self-determination rights of which the Court spoke were clearly
imperilled.
In perhaps the strongest reassertion of the rights-privilege distinction, the Court
upheld a California law requiring all “peace officers,” including probation
officers, to be citizens (Cabell, 1982). Speaking for the Court, Justice White
elaborated on the “basic governmental process” distinction developed in Foley
and Ambach:
The exclusion of aliens from basic governmental processes is not a
deficiency in the democratic system but a necessary consequence of
the community’s process of political self-definition. Selfgovernment, whether direct or through representatives, begins by
defining the scope of the community of the governed and thus of
governors as well: Aliens are by definition those outside of this
community. Judicial incursions in this area may interfere with those
aspects of democratic self-government that are most essential to it
(439-40).
Canada’s Provinces: Andrews and Morgan
Canada’s jurisprudence is torn in a similar manner. In Andrews v. Law Society
of British Columbia (1989), the Canadian Court struck down British
Columbia’s requirement that all members of the bar be Canadian citizens. Yet,
in Morgan v. Attorney General for Prince Edward Island (1975), it sustained a
PEI statute which limited the rights of nonresidents of PEI (both citizens and
aliens) to hold land.
Morgan was decided essentially as a federalism case. The Court argued that the
power of a province to regulate land ownership “is not contested” (533). It
acknowledged that the land ownership restrictions could be read as conflicting
with the federal government’s powers over naturalization and citizenship.3
However, in a clear manifestation of the Canadian doctrine of federalism as
expressed prior to the Charter, the Court argued that the powers reserved to the
provinces could not be overridden by the federal government: The federal
power, said the Court, “may not be invoked to give aliens, naturalized persons
or natural-born citizens any immunity from provincial regulatory legislation,
otherwise within its constitutional competence simply because it may affect
one class more than another or may affect all of them alike by what may be
thought to be undue stringency” (538-39).
Critics might contend that decisions such as that in Andrews, as well as the
protection of mobility rights in section 7 of the Charter, undermine the
provincial powers established in Morgan. In Andrews, a divided Court
contended that resident aliens were “discrete and insular” minorities who come
within the protection of section 15 of the Charter (24, 32-33). Echoing Morgan,
202
the Court sympathized with British Columbia’s desire to protect the integrity of
provincial interests. However, the majority did not see how restricting access to
the bar was vital to doing so. As LaForest stated:
There is no question that citizenship may, in some circumstances, be
properly used as a defining characteristic for certain types of
legitimate governmental objectives . . . citizenship is a very special
status that not only incorporates rights and duties but serves a highly
important symbolic function as a badge identifying people as
members of the Canadian polity. None the less, it is, in general,
irrelevant to the legitimate work of government in all but a limited
number of areas. By and large, the use in legislation of citizenship as a
basis for conditioning access to the practice of a profession, harbours
the potential for undermining the essential or underlying values of a
free and democratic society that are embodied in s. 15 (40).
The reasoning in Andrews closely resembled Justice Blackmun’s calculus in
Ambach. In seeking to distinguish between justified and unjustified
discrimination based on citizenship, the Court sought to differentiate between
key governmental functions (which needed the assured loyalty that came with
citizenship) and other functions or activities of the state that did not require such
loyalty (27-28). Thus, in the spirit of the American decision in Griffiths, the
Canadian Court applied a rational basis test to the legislation in question.
However, the decision suffered the same inconsistencies as that of American
counterpart insofar as it, too, failed to set forth a clear means for determining
when a province is entitled to decide the scope of self-government.
Thus, Canada’s jurisprudence embodies the same difficulties and tensions as
its American counterpart. Both Courts recognize a virtually unfettered national
power to control immigration and place restrictions on the rights immigrants
may exercise. Yet, both contend that, once they have been admitted, there are
limits to the restrictions that can be imposed on aliens.
Interestingly, both Courts have argued that provinces and states may not
prevent legally admitted resident aliens from pursuing a livelihood (Takahashi,
Andrews, Griffiths). But, to the extent that both courts contend that the right to
travel is restricted to citizens (Mathews, Shapiro, Chiarelli, Hogg 1992, 1006),
they have created a jurisprudential tension. The American Court’s recognition
of a state right to self-determination clearly conflicts with the equality rights
and right to a livelihood that it has recognized of all persons who are legal
residents. Similarly, Section 6(2) of the Charter grants to persons who are
permanent residents the rights to reside and gain a livelihood in any province.
Yet, Section 6(3)(b) grants the provinces authority to establish reasonable
“residency requirements.” Thus, Sections 6 and 15 would appear to conflict as a
result of the Andrews decision.
A good example of the Canadian Court’s difficulties appears in McIntyre’s
opinion in Andrews. He condemns discrimination based on personal
characteristics (such as alienage) because it “withholds or limits access to
opportunities, benefits, and advantages available to other members of society”
(18, emphasis added). However, McIntyre does not go on to develop his
reference to “other members of society.” He clearly regards resident aliens as
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members of the polity. However, he maintains that they do not have the special
status that comes with citizenship which “requires the taking on of obligations
and commitments to the community . . . as well as the rejection of past loyalties,
may reasonably be said to conduce the desired result” (29).
Conclusion: Rights, Privileges and Sovereignty
The glaring difficulty that plagues both Courts’ decisions lies in the absence of
any clear criteria for discerning when a state may reasonably distinguish among
classes of legal residents. Nonetheless, both Supreme Courts do recognize, at
least in principle, a provincial/state right of self-determination. Thus, both
Courts continue to seek a means of managing the tensions built into their
respective constitutions between the rights of persons and the rights of citizens.
Alien rights advocates would certainly challenge decisions such as Morgan and
Ambach while celebrating Andrews and Sugarman or Griffiths. Ironically,
advocates such as Neuman (1996) and Henkin (1994) call—at least in regard to
the United States—for a “constitutionalization” of immigration power. By
putting immigration “under the protective wing of the Constitution,” says
Henkin, we would “discourage mantras of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘national security’
as substitutes for constitutional principle” (338). However, it is important to
note that the constitutions of Canada and the United States make distinctions
not only between the rights of persons and the rights of citizens, but also
establish hierarchies of rights for which citizenship is necessary but not
sufficient. Thus, while alien rights advocates may cite international human
rights documents such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights to sustain their assertions that nations may not restrict alien access to
welfare and education rights (Knight, 1995), they overlook the fact that such
documents not only distinguish between the rights of citizens and the rights of
individuals, but also establish rights to self-determination which would justify
citizenship-based preferences.4
In Section 6 of the Canadian Charter, for example, we see several gradations of
mobility rights as applied to citizens and landed immigrants. Section 3 limits
the right to vote only to citizens. Section 23 allocates minority language
education rights among groups of citizens based on the nature of one’s
education and whether one is a citizen by birth or naturalization. The American
Constitution makes similar distinctions. Article II states that only citizens by
birth may be president. Age restrictions exist on the right to vote in federal
elections, and the Thirteenth, Nineteenth and Twenty-fourth Amendments
were necessary to prevent franchise restrictions based on race, gender or
wealth.
Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights make
distinctions between citizens and persons. Especially important for the
purposes of this paper is the recognition of a right of self-determination: “All
peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right, they freely
determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and
cultural development.”5 The right of a community to protect its political
204
integrity which underpins franchise decisions resonates with what Thomas
Franck refers to as an international commitment to “creating the opportunity for
all persons to assume a responsibility for shaping the kind of civil society in
which they all live and work” (Franck, 79).
Thus, an important aspect of the right to self-determination and sovereignty
seems to be a clear distinction between the rights of all persons and those
special rights and privileges that come with citizenship. In Mathews and
Lavoie, both Supreme Courts maintained that national governments had the
authority to make such distinctions while provincial or state governments did
not. This appears to be a double-standard only insofar as it reflects the absence
of a federalism component in Walzer’s theory.
Critics and theorists address the rights of aliens and citizens in the abstract and
essentially at the level of the nation-state. Such an approach conceives of the
alien rights issue only in terms of national borders. The existence of
constitutionally protected internal borders in federal nations complicates the
alien rights issue and results in jurisprudential anomalies that are not easily
resolved by reliance on arguments such as those set forth by Carens and
Bosniak which fail to account for the balance that must be struck between
competing human rights of self-determination and equality.
Criticisms of Canadian and American jurisprudence reflect the struggle of both
Courts to reconcile tensions built into their constitutions between federalism
and human rights and between the rights of citizens and those of persons. Both
Courts have acknowledged that there are certain basic human rights such as due
process. However, they have also maintained that there are certain
constitutional rights and substantive entitlements that may be reserved to
citizens. While this may appear to be a reasonable means of managing the
tensions, it still leaves us with no clear judicial statement concerning the nature
and scope of citizenship and sovereignty because both Courts have yet to set
forth clear distinctions between rights and privileges and vital and nonvital
state functions.
The American Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe may draw praise from Henkin,
Carens, Neuman and Bosniak because it brings the Constitution’s equal
protection clause not only to bear on immigration but also on state attempts to
prosecute persons who violate immigration restrictions. Nonetheless, it
remains a potential threat to self-determination. Insofar as the Court created a
cause of action against state governments for illegal aliens, it essentially
challenged the integrity of the national government’s authority to proscribe
certain types of immigration and thereby define the scope of its polity.
Alien rights advocates fail to perceive that, in their zeal to remove all
inequalities that result from sovereignty and citizenship, they actually imperil
the human rights that they seek to protect. Without states—popularly governed,
democratically elected, sovereign states—there will exist no accountable
bodies that can protect human rights. The jurisprudence and constitutions of
Canada and the United States, as well as the text of human rights documents,
show that controversies between citizens and aliens involve two distinct types
of rights. Alien claims are grounded on rights that are described in general,
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universal terms. However, those general rights claims can be acknowledged
and enforced only if there also exist particular rights reserved to some persons
by virtue of their membership in a sovereign community. Accordingly, an
ironic tension exists: fundamental human rights cannot be enforced or
protected unless particular, citizenship-based rights are enforced
discriminatorily. This tension within the American and Canadian
constitutional frameworks is hardly unique; its intractability is symptomatic of
broader crises of liberal commitments to human liberty on the one hand and
rights of self-determination on the other. Unless alien rights advocates
acknowledge the necessity of this rights dichotomy, they may find that the
realization of their goals will imperil the rights they seek to protect.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
206
Proposition 187 is codified at Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code section 10001.5 (Deering Supp. 1995)
and Cal. Health & Safety Code section 130 (Deering Supp. 1995).
In response to California’s Proposition 187, see, e.g., Note, 1995. “The Constitutionality of
California’s Proposition 187: An Equal Protection Analysis,” California Western Law
Review 32:129; Note, 1995. “Unenforced Boundaries: Illegal Immigration and the Limits of
Judicial Federalism,” Harvard Law Review 108: 1643; “Comment: Closing the Doors to the
Land of Opportunity: the Constitutional Controversy Surrounding Proposition 187,”
University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 26 (1994-95): 363; Note, 1995.
“Citizenship as a Weapon in Controlling the Flow of Undocumented Aliens: Evaluation of
Proposed Denials of Citizenship to Children of Undocumented Aliens Born in the United
States,” George Washington Law Review 63:551; Phillip J. Cooper, 1995. “Plyler at the
Core: Understanding the Proposition 187 Challenge,” Chicano-Latino Law Review 17:64;
Anne Paxton Wagley, 1995. “Newly Ratified International Human Rights Treaties and the
Fight Against Proposition 187,” Chicano-Latino Law Review 17:88; T. Alexander
Aleinikoff, 1995. “The Tightening Circle of Membership,” Hastings Constitutional Law
Quarterly 22:915; Stephen H. Legomsky, 1995. “Ten More Years of Plenary Power:
Immigration, Congress, and the Courts,” “Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:925;
Karl Manheim, 1995. “State Immigration Laws and Federal Supremacy,” “Hastings
Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:, 939; Michael A. Olivas, 1995. “Storytelling Out of
School: Undocumented College Residency, Race and Reaction,” “Hastings Constitutional
Law Quarterly 22:1019; Margaret H. Taylor, 1995. “Detained Aliens Challenging
Conditions of Confinement and the Porous Border of the Plenary Power Doctrine,”
“Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:1087. In response to the American Supreme
Court’s controversial decision in Plyler v. Doe (striking down a Texas Law which denied
public education benefits to the children of undocumented aliens), see, e.g., “Symposium:
Strangers to the Constitution: Immigrants in American Law,” University of Pittsburgh Law
Review 4 (Winter, 1983): 163.
For example, in Union Colliery and Tomey Hanna, the Privy Council resolved the
restrictions on alien employment on the basis of whether the provincial labour laws in
question impinged upon federal citizenship powers. Similarly, in cases such as Hines v.
Davidovitz and Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission, the American Court addressed
whether the state restrictions based on alienage could be perceived as interfering with federal
immigration authority.
See, e.g., Union Colliery v. Bryden (1899) where the Privy Council struck down a British
Columbia law that prohibited the employment of Chinese persons in mines. Cases such as
this were approached as federalism disputes. Accordingly, in later cases such as
Cunningham v. Tomey Homma (1903), the Council upheld similar provincial restrictions on
employment whose impingement on the federal naturalization power was regarded as minor, if
not incidental.
U. N. T. S. No. 14668, vol 999 (1976), p. 171 and U. N. T. S. No. 14531, vol 993 (1976), p. 3,
respectively.
See the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, part I, Article 1.1.
References
Alexander Aleinikoff, 1989. “Here and There: Federal Regulation of Aliens and the Constitution,”
American Journal of International Law 83:862.
David M. Beatty, 1996. “The Canadian Conception of Equality,” University of Toronto Law
Journal 46:349.
Linda Bosniak, 1988. “Exclusion and Membership: The Dual Identity of the Undocumented
Worker under United States Law,” Wisconsin Law Review 1988:955.
_______, 1994a. “Immigrants, Preemption and Equality,” Virginia Journal of International Law
35:122.
_______, 1994b. “Equality and the Difference that Alienage Makes,” NYU Law Review 69:1047.
William Rogers Brubaker, ed., 1989. Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and
North America. Lanham, MD. University Press of America.
Joseph Carens, 1987a. “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,” The Review of Politics
49:251.
_______, 1987b. “Who Belongs? The Theoretical and Legal Questions about Birthright
Citizenship in the United States,” University of Toronto Law Journal 37:413.
_______, 1989. “Membership and Morality: Admission to Citizenship in Liberal Democratic
States,” in William Rogers Brubaker, ed., Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in
Europe and North America. Lanham, MD. University Press of America.
_______, 1996. “Realistic and Idealistic Approaches to the Ethics of Migration,” International
Migration Review 30:156.
Robert Dahl, 1970. After the Revolution? New Haven: Yale University Press.
Thomas M. Franck, 1992. “The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance,” American Journal
of International Law 86:46.
John W. Guendelsberger, 1993. “Equal Protection and Resident Alien Access to Public Benefits in
France and the United States,” Tulane Law Review 67: 669.
Louis Henkin, 1994. “Comment: An Agenda for the Next Century: The Myth and Mantra of State
Sovereignty,” Virginia Journal of International Law 35: 115.
Peter W. Hogg, 1992. Constitutional Law of Canada, Third edition. Scarborough, Ontario:
Carswell.
Elizabeth Hull, 1985. Without Justice for All. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
David Jacobson, 1996. Rights Across Borders. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Stephen Knight, “Proposition 187 and International Human Rights Law: Illegal Discrimination in
the Right to Education,” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 19
(1995):183.
Zig Layton-Henry, ed., 1990. The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe.
London: Sage.
M. David Lepofsky, 1992. “The Canadian Judicial Approach to Equality Rights: Freedom Ride or
Roller Coaster?” Law and Contemporary Problems 55:167.
Sanford Levinson, 1989. “Suffrage and Community: Who Should Vote?,” Florida Law Review
41:550.
Gerald Neuman, 1996. Strangers to the Constitution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Note, (1989). “Membership Has Its Privileges and Immunities: Congressional Power to Define
and Enforce the Rights of National Citizenship,” Harvard Law Review 102:1925.
Jamin B. Raskin, (1993). “Legal Aliens, Local Citizens: The Historical, Constitutional and
Theoretical Meanings of Alien Suffrage,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review
141:1391.
Gerald M. Rosberg, 1977. “Aliens and Equal Protection: Why Not the Right to Vote?,” Michigan
Law Review 75:1092.
Michael Scaperlanda, 1996. “Partial Membership: Aliens and the Constitutional Community,”
Iowa Law Review 81:708.
Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith, 1985. Citizenship Without Consent. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
David S. Schwartz, 1986. “The Amorality of Consent,” California Law Review 74:2143.
Judith Shklar, 1991. American Citizenship. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kevin Tessier, 1995. “Immigration and the Crisis in Federalism: A Comparison of the United
States and Canada,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 3:211.
C. Lynn Smith, 1992. “Adding a Third Dimension: The Canadian Approach to Constitutional
Equality Guarantees,” Law and Contemporary Problems 55: 211.
Michael Walzer, 1983. Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.
Human Rights Documents
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
207
IJCS / RIÉC
Court Cases: Canada
Lavoie v. Canada [1995]125 D. L. R. (4th) 80.
Chiarelli v. Canada [1992] 1 S. C. R. 711.
Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia, [1989] 56 D. L. R. (4th) 1.
Morgan v. Attorney General for Prince Edward Island [1975] 55 D. L. R. 527.
Cunningham v. Tomey Hanna, [1903] A. C. 151.
Union Colliery v. Bryden [1899] A. C. 580.
Court Cases: United States
LULAC v. Wilson, CV. 94-7569 (18 January 1995)
Landon v. Plasencia, 459 US 21 (1982)
Zobel v. Williams 457 US 55 (1982)
Chavez v. Cabell-Salido 454 US 432 (1982)
Plyler v. Doe 457 US 202 (1981)
Ambach v. Norwick, 441 US 68 (1978)
Mathews v. Diaz 426 US 67 (1976)
Reeves v. Stake 447 US 429 (1980)
Foley v. Connelie 435 US 291 (1978)
Nyquist v. Mauclet 432 US 1 (1977)
Sugarman v. Dougall 413 US 634 (1973)
in re Griffiths 413 US 717 (1973)
Dunn v. Blumstein 405 US 330 (1972)
Graham v. Richardson 403 US 356 (1971)
Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission 334 US 410 (1948)
Hines v. Davidovitz 312 US 52 (1940)
Crane v. New York 239 US 195 (1915)
Yick Wo v. Hopkins 118 US 356 (1886)
Elk v. Wilkins, 112 US 94 (1884)
208
David G. Delafenêtre
Daisy L. Neijmann
The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in
Canada: A Sociological and Literary Perspective1
Abstract
This article provides a theoretical framework to Netherlandic- and
Scandinavian-Canadian patterns of adaptation, as well as an indication of
their cultural reflection through a comparison of Dutch-Canadian and
Icelandic-Canadian literature. An outline of the main features of the
integration of these two “invisible” groups into Canadian society is used to
conceptualize the Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition in Canada. A
comparative analysis of the development of Dutch-Canadian and IcelandicCanadian literature demonstrates to what extent and in what way writers
from both groups have dealt with their ethnic background and its preservation
in Canada in their literature. The outcome of the adaptive process and
contemporary situation of Canadians of Dutch and Scandinavian descent is
emphasized in the context of the ideological concept of multiculturalism, and
we assess its influence on the development and reception of Dutch-Canadian
and Icelandic-Canadian literature.
Résumé
Le présent article présente un cadre théorique pour analyser les tendances
canado-néerlandaises et canado-scandinaves en matière d’adaptation et fait
ressortir les manifestations culturelles de celle-ci grâce à une comparaison
entre les littératures canado-hollandaises et canado-islandaise. Un survol
des principales caractéristiques de l’intégration de ces deux groupes
« invisibles » au sein de la société canadienne permet de « conceptualiser »
la transition que vivent les Néerlandais et les Scandinaves au Canada. Une
analyse comparative du développement des littératures canado-néerlandaise
et canado-islandaise démontre dans quelle mesure et de quelle façon les
écrivains provenant de ces deux groupes ont traité de leur origine ethnique et
de sa préservation au Canada. Le résultat de ce processus d’adaptation et de
cette analyse de la situation contemporaine des Canadiens d’origines
néerlandaise et scandinave est abordé à la lumière du concept de
multiculturalisme. Les auteurs évaluent son influence sur le développement
des littératures canado-hollandaise et canado-islandaise ainsi que sur
l’accueil dont elles font l’objet.
Previous studies have underlined the negative or at least indifferent attitudes of
Canadians of Northern and Western European origins towards ethnic
maintenance.2 This is particularly true for Netherlandic and Scandinavian
Canadians who are often regarded as the “champions” of assimilation and,
IJCS / RIÉC
consequently, as supporters of the Anglo-conformity or melting pot options.3
Some academics have even gone so far as to blame Canadians of Germanic
origins for their civil disobedience to the principles of multiculturalism.4 On
the whole, the disinterest in the retention of their ancestral culture shown by
invisible ancestry groups has led scholars of ethnicity to conclude that their
contributions to Canada have been limited.5 We will argue, however, that this
traditional image of Netherlanders and Scandinavians does violence to the
reality of their impact on Canadian society.
Our purpose is, first, to present an alternative interpretation of the Netherlandic
and Scandinavian transition and to discuss its main feature, intermarriage. We
will also examine the contemporary outcome of what we call the
“transcultural” attitudes of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians. Second,
we intend to illustrate the Scandinavian and Netherlandic acculturative process
through a discussion of Dutch-Canadian and Icelandic-Canadian literature.
Finally, we will briefly examine the influence of the institutionalized mosaic on
both literatures.
Part I : The Transcultural Dynamics of Netherlandic and Scandinavian
Adaptation
In 1982, the Journal of Canadian Studies published a special issue devoted to
the first decade of multiculturalism. Three articles provided an assessment of
the field of Canadian ethnic studies. In one of these papers, it was argued that,
due to the pressure of multicultural interests, some phenomena were
systematically ignored by Canadian scholars of ethnicity.6 In this regard,
another contributor found it surprising that research on intermarriage had so far
been scarce despite the available evidence of high rates of exogamy among
Canadians.7 Finally, it was suggested that the study of invisible groups such as
the Dutch and the Scandinavians should be encouraged in order to understand
the total ethnic dimension in Canada.8 The findings and conclusions of these
three authors could well be linked since it is the main contention of this section
that the implications of the intermarriage pattern of Netherlandic and
Scandinavian ancestry groups in Canada have been consciously avoided by
scholars of Canadian ethnic studies in the 1970s and 1980s. Before proceeding
with the discussion, however, it is important to underline the difference
between ethnic and ancestry group.
In this paper, the term “ancestry group” refers to a statistical category used in
Canadian censuses to classify persons according to their ethnic origins. As
such, an ancestry group differs from the concept of “ethnic group” which
implies a notion of common identity among a majority of members of a given
ethnic origin. The term of ethnic group has often been erroneously used in the
analysis of census data where ancestry groups have been equated with ethnic
groups. Since 1871, Canadians have been asked to report their ethnic origins
and not the ethnic group with which they identify. However, this important
distinction was overlooked when multiculturalism was first introduced in
Canada. It is possible to trace the roots of the problem back to the 1960s.
The early phase of multiculturalist experiments was characterized by two
diverging interpretations of cultural pluralism. The first understanding of
210
The Netherlandic and Scandinavian Transition in Canada
cultural diversity was based on the notion that each individual should be treated
equally regardless of his or her ethnic origins. In addition to this right, everyone
was free to maintain one’s ethnicity or not. However, this freedom of
integration was superseded by a second understanding of ethnic diversity, the
mosaic ideology, which regarded Canada as an ethnic mosaic. Accordingly,
Canadians were expected to see themselves as members of ethnic groups since
ethnic maintenance was central to the theory of the mosaic. This vision of
Canada prevailed in the policy developments of multiculturalism in the 1970s.
However, in the explosion of ethnic studies which followed the establishment
of a multicultural policy, it very soon emerged that the Netherlandic and
Scandinavian patterns of adaptation in Canada did not fit the mosaic
assumption that immigrant groups and their descendants had formed cohesive
ethnic groups.9 Some academics undertook the task of creating an experience
for Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians which would correspond to the
theory of ethnic maintenance. This approach is particularly evident in the
works published on Orthodox Calvinists who represent only a minority of
Dutch-Canadians.10 This dubious academic enterprise focused on those
aspects of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian immigrant experiences which
could give the impression of a distinct ethnic group. Moreover, due to their
prescriptive approach in favour of the mosaic theory, the few studies on the
Netherlandic and Scandinavian presences in Canada that do exist have failed to
capture the essential dynamics of these groups’ transition.
The fact of the matter is that the Netherlandic and Scandinavian adaptation to
Canada has never been one of ethnic maintenance but rather transcultural
integration. This adaptive process can be defined as a generational transition
which combines an individual integration into an evolving Canadian culture
and a shift from ethnic to Canadian identity. This pattern implied a willingness
on the part of immigrant generations to transfer from their homeland some of
their values or skills to the Canadian setting while at the same time blending
with the host society and other immigrants. The same argument pertains to
Icelandic- and Dutch-Canadian literatures (see Part II). The result of
transcultural integration was not complete assimilation but a “transfusion” that
would eventually lead to the formation of a new, distinctive Canadian
culture.11 It is important at this point to stress that the historical integration of
multigenerational ancestry groups such as Netherlandic and Scandinavian
Canadians differs from the classical assimilationist ideologies.12 In particular,
the transcultural adaptation defined above is to be distinguished from the
melting pot imagery which also implies a merging of ethnic groups to form a
new culture. However, the melting pot theory was based on an established and
static notion of Canadianism as exclusive as the policy of Anglo-conformity.
By contrast, the transcultural adaptation takes into account the dual dynamics
of a convergence to Canadian identity while the indigenous culture
simultaneously undergoes a transition with the infusion of elements from
immigrant cultures and new aspects introduced by successive Canadian-born
generations.13 That is why we prefer to speak of a “transvergence” to
characterize both the Netherlandic- and Scandinavian-Canadian transition.
This model is also in opposition to the theory of divergence implied by the
mosaic rhetoric where immigrant groups become subsequently ethnic groups
211
IJCS / RIÉC
whose culture is perpetuated intergenerationally and always differs from that of
the mainstream group. The current policy of multiculturalism attempts to
promote the mosaic “ideal” but, as previous models, it fails to take into account
Canadian social reality. Moreover, the multicultural policy creates a hierarchy
of “ethnic groups” where individuals are expected to conform to a process of
segmentation in Canadian society along ethnic lines. In this context, one
understands why, today, Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins
are the pariahs of multiculturalism whereas they had previously been the
preferred groups of the proponents of assimilationism. But both assimilationist
and mosaic assumptions were flawed. For its part, the transcultural concept
addresses the dimensions of the Netherlandic- and Scandinavian-Canadian
experience and distances itself from the influence of the ideology of the day.
The ethnic transfer previously outlined enables us to reassess the Netherlandic
and Scandinavian impact on Canada. For example, the transitory nature of the
economic contributions of Netherlanders and Scandinavians makes them no
less valuable than more visible signs of ethnic presence. Typical of this is the
impact made by Danish and Dutch immigrants on Canadian agriculture in the
1950s.14 The Danes and Dutch brought with them a long tradition in the dairy
industry which was adapted to the Canadian environment. Simultaneously,
their expertise was soon transmitted to Canadian farmers. Although the Danish
and Dutch character of this transmission was to disappear, as it was in the case
of most contemporary Icelandic- and Dutch-Canadian writing (see below)15,
its long-term effects have been essential. The partial adoption of majority
values was part of this mutual process of adaptation which comprised a
selective transfer of ethnic values to the mainstream.
Perhaps the most obvious feature of the transcultural integration of
Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians has been their readiness to
intermarry. Although this intermarriage pattern had previously been
documented, the fiction that Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians
constituted continuing separate ethnic groups was maintained by the fact that,
until 1971, census data on the ethnic origins of Canadians were traced through
the paternal line and respondents were only allowed to report one origin.16 Not
only was this procedure downright sexist but it gave a misleading appearance of
“ethnic purity,” understood as the complete transplantation of immigrant
cultural baggage and its maintenance by their descendants in Canada.17
Moreover, the large wave of Danish and Dutch immigration to Canada in the
1950s provided the temporary illusion of an ethnic revival for the Scandinavian
and Netherlandic ancestry groups. The influx of Dutch and Danish speakers
had naturally increased the numerical strength of Netherlandic and
Scandinavian linguistic groupings. Very soon, however, the great majority of
post World War II immigrants from the Netherlands, Belgium and the
Scandinavian countries adopted an official language. Nevertheless, some
scholars suggested that multiculturalism would make Canadians of
Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins think of themselves as members of
ethnic groups.18 The future would prove them wrong. Paradoxically, it was
during the following decades of multiculturalism that the artificial character of
the “cultural mosaic” would be thrown into light and that the real outcome of the
Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition would be underlined.
212
Interestingly, the changes that affected successive censuses from 1971 to 1991
progressively broke down the myth that Canada would remain a multicultural
society in the sense that a separation of ethnic groups had been maintained by
marriage within their own group. Once again, the Netherlandic and
Scandinavian adaptive process would directly challenge that assumption.
The first sign of the gap between mosaic theory and Canadian social reality was
presented in a monograph on ethnicity and language based on the 1971 census
data. By 1971, English was the home language of 89.7% and 96.8% of
Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups respectively.19 Since 1971,
the Netherlandic and Scandinavian languages in Canada have declined further
and seem to have reached a bottom line. The small numbers of Netherlandic and
Scandinavian immigrants to Canada in recent years account for the fact that
those languages have not yet completely disappeared from Canada. The latest
studies on language maintenance indicate that Netherlandic and Scandinavian
Canadians have the lowest transmission rate of mother tongue to their children
and they display the highest intergenerational language transmission to
English. Moreover, the retention of Netherlandic as well as Scandinavian
languages is largely dependent on high age groups which indicates that those
languages are not transmitted to the younger generations.20 This language shift
was partly the result of the intermarriage pattern of Netherlandic and
Scandinavian Canadians. However, it was not until the late 1980s that this
phenomenon would be clearly exposed in Canadian censuses.
The most important development occurred in 1981 when for the first time the
ethnic origins of Canadians were traced through both maternal and paternal
lines and when multiple responses were allowed.21 Unfortunately, respondents
were not instructed to report as many origins as possible. This omission resulted
in an underestimation of the number of people of mixed origins (Table 1).
However, the move of statisticians towards providing a better picture of
Canadian social reality was further improved in 1986. This time respondents
were encouraged to declare as many origins as possible. This procedure which
was repeated in 1991 made it possible to examine the extent of ethnic mixing
and revealed how misleading the 1971 data were. In the space of 20 years, the
Netherlandic ancestry group thus ‘increased’ by more than 500,000
respondents (125.8%) whereas the number of Canadians of Scandinavian
origins increased by 300,000 (86.4%). From 1971 to 1990, only 24,080
immigrants came from the Netherlands whereas 13,256 persons immigrated to
Canada from the Scandinavian countries.22 The dramatic numerical increase of
Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups was due to large numbers of
multiple responses: 62.8 % of Netherlandic Canadians and 75.7% of
Scandinavian Canadians were of mixed origins in 1991 (Table 1). Most
important for a perspective into the future was the fact that 78.2% and 92.7%
respectively of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups under 24
years of age were of mixed origins (Table 2).
213
IJCS / RIÉC
Table 1
Dutch and Scandinavian Ancestry Categories, 1971, 1981, 1986 & 1991,
Canada
Ethnic origin
Dutch Total
Dutch Unmixed
Dutch Mixed
Scandinavian Total
Scandinavian Unmixed
Scandinavian Mixed
1971* 1981** 1986
425,945
NA 881,940
NA 408,235 351,765
NA
NA 530,175
384,790
NA 609,180
NA 282,795 183,340
NA
NA 425,840
%
100.0
39.9
60.1
100.0
30.1
69.9
1991
961,595
358,180
603,415
717,200
174,375
542,825
%
100.0
37.2
62.8
100.0
24.3
75,7
*: Paternal descent only; **:Paternal & maternal descent
Source: Statistics Canada, Catalogues 92 723 (1971), 92 911 (1981), & 93 315 (1991); Michel
Ledoux & Ravi Pendakur, Multicultural Canada: A Graphic Overview, Ottawa:
Multiculturalism and Citizenship, 1990 for the 1986 Census data.
Table 2
Dutch and Scandinavian Ancestry Categories by Age Groups Showing
Proportion of Mixed/Unmixed Descent, 1986 & 1991, Canada
Age group
less 24 years
25-44 years
45-64 years
65 & +
years
All
Type
Unmixed
Mixed
Unmixed
Mixed
Unmixed
Mixed
Unmixed
Dutch
1986
26.8
73.2
44.9
55.1
61.0
39.0
59.9
Mixed
Unmixed
Mixed
40.1
39.9
60.1
Dutch Scandinavian Scandinavian
1991
1986
1991
21.8
9.7
7.3
78.2
90.3
92.7
43.5
25.2
21.5
56.5
74.8
78.5
58.0
53.4
44.3
42.0
46.6
55.7
62.0
74.5
68.9
38.0
37.2
62.8
25.5
26.3
73.7
31.1
22.8
77.2
Source: Statistics Canada, Catalogues 93 109 (1986) & 93 315 (1991).
The main reason for the difference between both groups is that the majority of
Scandinavian immigrants came to Canada before World War II whereas the
bulk of Netherlandic immigration occurred after the war. This factor accounts
for the greater degree of mixed ancestry among Canadians of Scandinavian
origins. In any case, the historical process of ethnic mixing questions the
legitimacy of the mosaic. The inescapable reality of mixed ancestry thus calls
for a reappraisal of the notions of ethnicity and identity for Netherlandic and
Scandinavian ancestry groups.
214
The ancestral diversity of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians implies
that the ethnicity of a majority of second and subsequent generations of
Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins has progressively
become insignificant. The expression of an ancestral ethnicity remains optional
and often takes on a silent and private form.23 This invisible ethnicity
challenges the prescriptive mosaic ideology where Canadians are supposed to
conform to one stereotyped ethnicity regardless of the heterogeneity and
remoteness of their origins. Indeed, the proponents of the mosaic vision of
Canada have shown an obvious disregard for the very diversity of those
individuals who are ethnically Canadian. The explanation given for the
inclusion of the ethnic origin question exemplifies this official attitude: “This
question provides information which can be used extensively by ethnic or
cultural associations in Canada to study the size, location, characteristics and
other aspects of their respective groups.”24 Multicultural programs support the
public and symbolic ethnicity of ethnic lobby groups. However, ethnic
community leaders defend the interests of a minority of the Scandinavian and
Netherlandic ancestry categories. Here, it is essential to define the concept of
ethnic community. As we have seen, few persons of Netherlandic and
Scandinavian ancestry categories could be described as “ethnics” which
implies that the use of “ethnic group” to refer to this social group is not valid.
Hence the need to speak of “ethnic community” to refer to this minority section
of ancestry categories whose primary identity is “ethnic.” Despite the fact that
few Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians would identify with the goals of
ethnic organizations which receive public funding, the official policy of
multiculturalism favours the ethnic community model. These interest groups
are in no way representative of the great majority of their so-called
constituencies. By favouring the ethnocentric character of “pure” ethnicity,
Canadian governments currently ignore the very meaning of “multicultural”
for individual Canadians, that is, the diversity and mixity of their origins. In this
sense, the ancestral ethnicity and indigenous identity of Canadians of
Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins can be seen as the result of a dynamic
transgenerational process of transformed cultural identification. As a result of
this ancestral shift stemming from the first generation which has attenuated the
ethnicity of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians, their Canadian identity
has conversely been strengthened. The progressive disappearance of the ethnic
specificity of Netherlandic and Scandinavian immigrant influences should
therefore not be regarded as “ethnic loss” but as “Canadian gain.” Furthermore,
the consequences of this transgenerational process of ethnic mixing are
important to emphasize.
The majority of sociologists tend to agree that ethnic intermarriage reduces
rather than enhances ethnic identity among the offspring of such marriages.25
In this respect, the traditional school of ethnic research mistakenly maintained
that census data on the ethnic origin of Canadians constituted proof that
Canadians did identify primarily as “ethnics.”26 Some scholars began to view
the “single response category” as the core ethnic group believing that these
unmixed or “pure” respondents were more likely to identify as “ethnics.”27 The
final blow to these illusions occurred during the tests conducted prior to the
1991 census.28
215
IJCS / RIÉC
For the first time, Statistics Canada tested an ethnic identity question. However,
the mark-in box “Canadian” was shown as the last entry and this undoubtedly
reduced the number of respondents who chose to identify themselves that way.
Nevertheless, this test revealed that only 37.4% of Canadians of Dutch origin
chose to identify as Dutch. The corresponding data for the Scandinavian
ancestry group were 36.4% (Table 3). In most cases, this shift from
Netherlandic or Scandinavian to Canadian identification had already taken
place by the first generation. The trend towards increasing self-identification as
Canadian is very clear from generation to generation.29 However, this identity
transfer should not be considered as a step towards an established Canadian
conformity. On the contrary, it denotes an integration to a dynamic version of
Canadianism.
Table 3
Comparison of Selected European Ethnic Ancestry and Ethnic Identity
Groups, 1986 & 1988, Canada (excluding Yukon and Northwest
Territories)
Ethnic Category
Dutch
Scandinavian*
Irish
Italian
German
Polish
Scottish
Ukrainian
1986 Census
Ethnic Ancestry
879,720
211,470**
3,611,890
1,006,000
2,460,210
610,915
3,906,475
958,715
1988 NCT
Ethnic Identity
329,000
77,000**
1,167,000
704,000
974,000
277,000
1,361,000
521,000
1988 NCT / 1986
Census (%)
37,4
36.4**
32.3
70.0
39.6
45.3
34.8
54.3
* The Finnish ethnic origin group was included with Scandinavian figures.
**Includes only unmixed responses.
Source: Pamela M. White, National Census Test Report: Ethnic Origin, Ethnic Identity, July
1989, Tables 3 & 6.
The identity shift from ethnic to indigenous is crucial for our understanding of
the present situation of Canadians of Netherlandic and Scandinavian origins.
Even for those individuals who still have a silent or personal ethnic feeling,
such as writers David Arnason and Aritha Van Herk (cf Part II), the primary
identity is also Canadian. Ironically but not surprisingly, these non-hyphenated
Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians who display the greatest diversity of
origins have been overlooked by the proponents of multiculturalism.30
Considering the results of the 1988 census test and of the 1991 census, one
would have hoped that Statistics Canada would have gone one step further in
enabling Canadians to describe their identity. However, the pressure from the
ethnic lobby led to a bad compromise for the 1996 census. “Canadian” was
included as an accepted response for the ethnic origin question. However, a
216
more appropriate ethnic identity question would have provided a better
understanding of the differences between ancestral ethnicity and current ethnic
identity.
Part II: Transcultural Patterns in Dutch-Canadian and IcelandicCanadian Literature
Significantly, the implications of the Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition
and its outcome in the present multicultural context are reflected in the
development of Dutch- and Icelandic-Canadian literature.
The Icelandic immigrants to Canada produced a voluminous quantity of
literature in Icelandic during the first decades of immigration, at the end of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Literature had been the
main vehicle for cultural expression in Iceland and it retained its central
function in Canada. Much of the early writing, however, dealt with the
invention and construction of a new cultural identity. The focal question in
many literary works was how to adapt and become Canadian citizens while
preserving the best of the Icelandic cultural heritage.31 Indeed, the ideology
soon developed that the Icelanders’ main contribution to Canadian culture was
to be a literary one, on a level to be recognized by the Canadian literary
establishment, an ideology reflective of transcultural integration on a literary
level. Writers such as Stephan G. Stephansson and Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason
regarded themselves as pioneers in the physical as well as in the literary sense,
and used literature as a medium to root Icelanders in their new Canadian
environment by poetically/fictionally negotiating, exploring and re-creating
the often painful but also exhilarating transition from Icelandic to Canadian
Icelandic identity in the linguistic security of their native Icelandic.32
The first major writer to exit the realm of Icelandic and enter the Anglophone
world was Laura Goodman Salverson. Her debut immigrant novel The Viking
Heart (1923) attempts to translate one group’s immigrant experience into a
Canadian idiom. At the same time, the novel, like its contemporaries in
Icelandic, seeks to locate the group in Canada and justify its inclusion in the
dominant culture and society as Canadians with an Icelandic heritage, by
demonstrating its sacrifices, achievements and contributions.33 Significantly,
Icelandic-Canadian reactions to Salverson’s work were very critical, and in
many ways revealing of the Icelandic-Canadian “ethnic strategy” that had
gradually evolved: ethnicity was an in-group concern, while assimilation was
the policy for the outside, public, Anglo-Canadian world.34 The criticisms also
expose the factionalism within the Icelandic community as to what exactly
“Icelandic” was to constitute in Canada.
Contrary to Icelandic Canadians, Netherlandic Canadians produced hardly any
literature in Dutch or English during their early immigrant years before World
War II. Immigration was limited to comparatively small numbers at the time,
with no one main area of settlement, and since literature in the Netherlands had
mostly been the domain of the higher educated, there was little to promote
literary production on a large scale. The Dutch were also divided along the lines
of religion, class, etc., even before they immigrated to Canada. The only
immigrant writing in Dutch consists of letters written to Dutch newspapers or
217
IJCS / RIÉC
friends and relatives during the first decades of the century. Some of this writing
has only recently been translated and published. The letters of Willem de
Gelder (1910-13) and the columns of Jane Aberson (1929-36) give a good
indication of the initial Dutch transition in Canada through hard work and quick
cultural assimilation.35 These letters confirm the impression that there was
little interest in retaining Netherlandic culture in Canada, which is not to say
that they expressed uncritical Anglo-conformity: both writers criticized to
varying degrees the culturally superior attitude of the Anglo-Celtic majority
group in Canada. Rather, the Dutch were almost obsessed with the desire to
socially re-create themselves as New Canadians, by which they appear to have
understood a much wider transcultural sense of Canadian identity.36
This attitude is echoed in the first Dutch-Canadian immigrant novel by Maxine
Brandis called Land For Our Sons. Published in 1958, it is the first DutchCanadian piece of writing in English. Like The Viking Heart but even more so,
this novel sets out to prove the commitment of its immigrant protagonists to
becoming Canadian citizens who are a valuable contribution to their new
country. Whereas in The Viking Heart there still lingers an ideal of a dual
loyalty, in Land For Our Sons there is no sense of loss or regret, only the
celebration of a new life in a new country. Indeed, Brandis admonishes those
Dutch immigrants who do not immediately make an effort to integrate into
Canadian society, and she sees little value in the ideal of cultural retention
among immigrants:
It is very nice of the Canadians to say that immigrants should be
allowed to hold on to their old customs . . . but looking at it from
another angle I feel strongly that it is to the immigrant’s benefit—and
in the end to the country’s, too—that he should conform to his new
surroundings. If he hollers, let him holler—he hollers anyway!37
Although the attitude expressed by Brandis may seem inordinately drastic in
today’s multicultural climate, it does reflect the adaptive patterns of
Netherlandic immigrants generally as outlined above. The narrator and her
husband, for instance, begin speaking English at home on their very first day in
Canada in order to facilitate the integrative process for their children. Even in
literature, it is certainly not as unusual as one might be led to believe. As
contemporary writer Daphne Marlatt has observed, the immigrant imagination
(which she opposes to the émigré imagination), rather than bound up in the
place left, embraces the new place it enters: “It seeks to enter into its mystery, its
this-ness, to penetrate it imaginatively even as it enters from outside.”38
Interestingly, both Brandis and Salverson were native speakers of
Dutch/Icelandic, who chose to adopt English, thereby consciously opting to
participate and contribute to Canadian literature as they documented their own
and their group’s experience, achievements and acculturation. Never
diminishing the sacrifices involved in the immigrant experience or denying the
value of their cultural backgrounds, they embrace on a literary level a new
Canadian identity for themselves and their children, as their compatriots did on
a social level, thus reflecting the low cultural and linguistic retention rates
among first and second generation Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians.
218
The literature produced by second- and third-generation Icelandic Canadians
after Salverson, viz between 1940 and 1970, is nearly all in English and has
little “ethnic” content as such. However, Enoch Padolsky has drawn attention
to the fact that literary texts reproduce the acculturative stances of ethnic
authors in various, complex ways, such as the choices made with regard to
form, genre, theme and outlook, in which they will differ from majority
writers.39 For instance, the awareness of a multidimensional sense of self (of
being, for instance, Canadians of—part—Icelandic or Dutch descent) is often
extended to the social and geographical environment.40 This is demonstrated in
early Icelandic-Canadian literature in English, which expresses a celebration of
things Canadian that reveals an outlook founded upon the sacrifices with which
they were won. The outlook and choice of that Canadian subject-matter, too, in
many cases reflect a more recent, non-colonial immigrant past, in that its
interpretation of what constitutes “Canadian” is wider than that found in most
Anglo-Canadian writings of the time, as in Kristine Kristofferson’s novel
Tanya (1950), which focuses on inter-racial tensions that erupt in a small
community in northern Manitoba, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s writings,
which celebrate Inuit culture and at the time opened up an almost completely
unknown part of the Canadian landscape to the field of Canadian literature.41
Canadians of Dutch descent only really began to produce literature after 1970.
Interestingly, this literature reflects a similar Canadian authorial stance and
intended readership as that found in early Icelandic-Canadian literature in
English, which, as census data (quoted above) suggest, could very well be
attributed to the fact that the authors in both cases were second- or thirdgeneration Canadians. The early works of Marianne Brandis (This Spring’s
Sowing, 1970) and Peter van Toorn (In Guildenstern County, 1973) appear
thoroughly Canadian in their structure, imagery and thematic concerns, and the
same can be said about what is probably the most widely known author of Dutch
descent, Aritha van Herk (Judith 1978; No Fixed Address, 1986).42 Although
their writing shows little tangible evidence of “Dutchness,” again, it does
reflect an outlook and cultural basis that often differs from that of the dominant
culture. Thus, these Dutch-Canadian authors recreate a Canadian social and
geographical landscape that has been shaped by an immigrant rather than an
established Anglo-Canadian past. Van Toorn and van Herk’s works express a
fascination and exuberance with Canadian landscapes and wilderness and a
gusto at the possibilities of exploration and new vistas that recall the
immigrant’s hard-won achievement of these, so different from a more
established colonial mentality focused on the culture lost rather than on a
country and culture gained.43
Around this time, in the wake of Pierre Trudeau’s announcement of the
multicultural policy in 1971, Canadian authors of Icelandic descent begin to
incorporate more recognizably Icelandic-Canadian elements in their work. Bill
Valgardson, a fourth-generation Icelandic Canadian on his father’s side,
published several short story collections which recreate both the physical and
psychological landscape of immigrant communities in the Manitoba Interlake
area, including Icelandic Canadians as well as, for instance, Ukrainian and
Native Canadians (Bloodflowers, 1973; God is not a Fish Inspector, 1975).
David Arnason, a fourth-generation Icelandic Canadian from Gimli,
219
IJCS / RIÉC
reconstructs a personal as well as a community Icelandic past in his postmodern
works, using contemporary literary theories about marginal writing (Marsh
Burning, 1980; Fifty Stories and a Piece of Advice, 1982). Their literary use of
an Icelandic background is noteworthy and suggests that the mosaic ideology
may initially have worked as a catalyst. Of particular interest is the fact that
Valgardson’s work is much more saliently “ethnic” than Arnason’s, seeing that
Valgardson is of mixed origins while Arnason is not, which seems to contradict
the census data of cultural maintenance among people of diverse origins.
Valgardson himself has attributed this to the traditional, ideological support of
literary activities within the Icelandic community, which was, certainly at the
time when he began to write, not forthcoming from the larger Canadian
community. At the same time there are indications that, for Valgardson, writing
has been a way of finding an integrated identity, of achieving a more total sense
of self through his fiction. Arnason’s Icelandic background, on the other hand,
is only part of a larger Prairie Canadian identity and thus surfaces only
occasionally in his literary works.44
The Prairie Canadian affiliations of Valgardson and Arnason reflect the
generally much greater regional affiliations among Icelandic-Canadian
authors than among Dutch-Canadian authors, who appear to embrace a much
more general “Canadian-ness.” This may perhaps be explained by the fact that
the main area of Icelandic settlement was on the Prairies, and the IcelandicCanadian experience has, therefore, largely been a Prairie one while
Netherlandic Canadians were more evenly spread throughout Canada. While it
is true that both Vanderhaeghe and van Herk closely identify with a Western
Canadian identity that could be termed regional, certainly in van Herk’s fiction,
that identification appears as much broader and less specifically localized than
that in Icelandic-Canadian writing.45
A slightly different slant is added by Kristjana Gunnars, often called an
Icelandic-Canadian author, although she is a recent immigrant of mixed
Icelandic and Danish descent and with a largely urban experience. She has
translated the immigrant experience of alienation and dislocation into
contemporary Canadian literature which structurally and linguistically tries to
push and crack the boundaries of the traditional Anglo-Canadian mould (The
Axe’s Edge, 1983; The Nightworkers of Ragnarök, 1985).46 It is interesting to
note that, like Valgardson, Gunnars is more obviously “Icelandic” in her
writing, since both writers are of diverse origins. For Gunnars, writing also
seems to constitute a medium to achieve a form of integration, or, in Daphne
Marlatt’s words, an expression of the immigrant imagination’s desire to “knit”
together “two (at least!) selves somehow,” while the traditional Icelandic
support of writing has likely been a determining factor in her ethnic affiliation
too.47 In this respect, it would appear that the introspective nature of literature,
as a medium for the exploration, negotiation and reconstruction of issues like
culture and identity, causes literary patterns to deviate from the social patterns
of adaptation.
In the course of the 1980s, more works by authors of Dutch descent began to
appear as well, although few of them have any Dutch content. In 1982, Guy
Vanderhaeghe, of part Flemish descent, won the Governor General’s Award
220
for his first book of short fiction called Man Descending.48 Vanderhaeghe’s
fiction has much in common with that of Valgardson in the way that it explores
and mythologizes the sufferings and hardships of the victims of an impersonal
social and geographical landscape, the awareness of which Valgardson (1987)
has attributed to the heritage of an immigrant experience that begins in death
and imposes on its people the burden of achievement and the taboo of grief and
failure. Aritha van Herk has also pointed to the existence of silenced, “covert”
stories alongside the exterior, “overt” stories in immigrant fictions. Van Herk
regards immigration as an act of imagination and fictionalization, the
immigrant writing him/herself into a new being in an act of invention as well as
denial and erasure.49 For van Herk, like for Ondaatje, the immigrant past is
embedded in historiography rather than in history, with the overt and covert
stories tightly interwoven: “To write the immigrant self is to engage in an active
fiction, however physical and representative, to fiction a present and a future
out of a self-censored past.”50
Not surprisingly, the works that do have more recognizably Dutch content are
all authored by Dutch immigrants. Only Hugh Cook’s Cracked Wheat and
Other Stories (1985), however, would classify as “ethnic” literature in the
multicultural sense, something that can be explained by his Dutch-Reformed
background, as some orthodox groups segregated themselves from the larger
Canadian society for religious reasons and thus, unlike most Netherlandic
immigrant groups, did form ethnic communities. Cook’s stories are a literary
exploration of the Dutch Calvinist heritage in Canada as experienced by
immigrant children who try to knit together the subtle, and sometimes not so
subtle, differences of an inner, ethnic-religious and an outer, secular-Canadian
world.51 In the poetry of Maria Jacobs, the sense of an integrated Canadianism
is occasionally weighed down or interrupted by an Old World history that
exerts its influence through fragmented memories, lingering linguistic
remnants that break through or inform the English, and a broad, inclusive
cultural frame of reference (What Feathers Are For 1986; Iseult We Are Barren
1987). Only her first book, Precautions Against Death (1983), is set in the
Netherlands and deals with childhood memories from World War II. It is,
however, linked to Canada in that the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian
soldiers forms the main catalyst for future immigration.52
In 1986, Netherlandic Press published the first in a series of anthologies of
Dutch-Canadian writing as a response to the absence of Dutch-Canadian
literature in Canadian surveys. These publications have helped make the
contribution of Dutch Canadians to the Canadian literary mosaic more widely
known and accessible. Characteristically, this is the stated goal of the
anthologies, rather than an intention to point out the degree of “Dutchness” in
the writing of Dutch Canadians.53 Netherlandic Press has also helped introduce
new writers, sometimes with success, as in the case of the poet Diane Brebner
(Radiant Life Forms, 1990).54 Brebner admits in an interview that she was not
really conscious of being a “Dutch-Canadian” until she was approached by the
Press.55 Her poetry contains a symbiosis of dual experience that reflects in
many ways the Dutch integration in Canada, where a strong kinship with the
Canadian land and wilderness is connected to a sense of belonging to a long Old
World history of ideas.56 The concern with an Old World cultural history
221
IJCS / RIÉC
appears to be more pronounced in the writing of urban authors such as Gunnars,
Jacobs and Brebner, and seems to contribute to a sense of alienation and/or
duality, although this is less strongly present in the work of Brebner who is not
an immigrant. The works of these writers suggest that an urban environment
increases the experience of cultural alienation.
The reception of both Icelandic-Canadian literature and Dutch-Canadian
literature has been problematic. Earlier authors such as Salverson and Brandis
were excluded from the Anglophone canon. Although regional literary critics
were more accommodating, authors were still hardly taken seriously by the
Canadian literary establishment as late as the 1970s and early 1980s.57 Scholars
of ethnic and post-colonial literature have during recent years pointed to the
problem of ingrained ideas about literary excellence which in many cases
appear to prevent recognition for ethnic writing. In a discussion of the critical
neglect of ethnic writing, especially ethnic women’s writing, in Canada,
Gunnars suggests that “[w]ithin the whole multicultural debate, it is still a fact
that much ethnic writing is ignored because it has elicited no interest” and she
concludes:
Within this spectrum, the ethnic writer cannot be sure whether she is
recognized because she is not good, or because she is ethnic . . . The
literary establishment presumes, and this to a large degree pretense,
that there is such a thing as an objective standard. The issue of politics
is mixed with notions of excellence and artistic judgement.58
With the institutionalization of the mosaic, however, another problem
surfaced. From being virtually ignored, Icelandic-Canadian authors now began
to feel pressured to be “ethnic” in their writing. Gunnars complained in an
interview about the way multiculturalism tyrannized the way in which one’s
own culture was experienced, and felt she was being ghettoized: “In Canada
you sometimes need to resist being pegged out of existence by cultural
assumptions if you belong to a distinct ‘ethnic’ group.”59 Elsewhere she stated:
“An ‘ethnic’ writer always struck me as somehow not a full member of the
writing community in Canada and the term itself seemed tainted with a vague
form of racism.”60 Valgardson has pointed out how the painful complexity of
being of mixed origins and the consequent desire for integration is completely
ignored in the celebration of a superficial notion of ethnicity.61 To avoid such
pressure and ghettoization, it seems that Icelandic-Canadian authors have
begun to move away again from the confines imposed by “ethnic” writing.
More recent publications show a near absence of visible ethnic content, such as
Gunnars’ Zero Hour (1991) and The Substance of Forgetting (1992),
Valgardson’s The Girl with the Botticelli Face (1992) and David Arnason’s
The Pagan Wall (1992). Similarly, Marion Johnson (The Book of All Sorts,
1989) and Martha Brooks (Paradise Café and Other Stories, 1988; Two Moons
in August 1991) show minimal interest in their Icelandic heritage as a source of
inspiration for their writing.62
The contribution of Dutch-Canadian authors has been largely ignored by both
mainstream and minority Canadian literary critics throughout. No critical
discussions of Dutch-Canadian literature exist, and we know of no critical
discussions of ethnic literature that include Dutch-Canadian writing. Of the
222
two multicultural anthologies of Canadian writing to date, Other Solitudes
(1990) and Making A Difference (1996), only the latter includes an author of
Dutch descent (Aritha Van Herk).63 One might well wonder why; even if the
editors were mainly interested in writing which clearly deals with ethnicity on
one or more levels and which would at the same time satisfy certain demands
for artistic quality, certainly authors like Maria Jacobs and Cornelia Hoogland
could have been considered. Even the writing of van Herk and Vanderhaeghe
has received much less critical attention than one might expect, seeing that, for
instance, Vanderhaeghe has twice received a Governor General’s Award (in
1996 for The Englishman’s Boy). Obviously, the literary impact of Canadians
of Dutch descent is there, just like their economic contributions, though it has
been minimized by scholars. Interestingly, the works of contemporary authors
born in Canada of Icelandic and Dutch descent are regarded as part of Canadian
literature in their countries of “origin.” In Iceland, Salverson, Valgardson and
Arnason while attracting more attention than other Canadian writers because of
their background, are read and studied as part of a Canadian literary tradition.
Gunnars, however, is still regarded as a (partly) Icelandic writer, presumably
because she was born and brought up in Iceland, is a native speaker of Icelandic
and has remained in close contact with the Icelandic literary community.64 In
Flanders and the Netherlands, too, the works of authors like Vanderhaeghe and
van Herk are considered part of Canadian literature, and although, again, their
background contributes to an added curiosity whereby they have received
relatively more attention as Canadian writers than elsewhere, attention does
tend to focus much more on their writing than on the question of their origins
which is usually dealt with in a sentence or two.65
While it is true that Anglo-Canadian literary criticism has now begun to
formulate approaches and theories to accommodate ethnic writing, most of the
theories and discussions appear to be based on the thematic and formal
representations of the differential concept of ethnicity versus majority. As
such, they exclude and/or are irrelevant to Dutch-Canadian and IcelandicCanadian literature.66 This minimal interest on the part of Canadian
scholarship in the literary contribution of Canadians of Dutch and Icelandic
descent echoes the general neglect of Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry
groups in the sociological sphere, and for apparently the same reason: their
willingness to embrace a larger, inclusive Canadianism went at the expense of a
visible ethnic specificity. Although Icelandic-Canadian writers have tended to
be more obviously “ethnic” during the last decades, largely due to the
traditional, ideological role literature has played for Icelandic Canadians, they
are obviously unhappy with the resulting marginalization of their work as
“ethnic” rather than Canadian writing. Dutch-Canadian literature, where
visible “ethnic” content is only latently present if not absent, has been virtually
ignored. Rather than being identified as “others” (“ethnic”) in a multicultural
context, Icelandic-Canadian and Dutch-Canadian writers allow for a
continuous intercultural exchange within a dynamic Canadianism.
Conclusion
Icelandic- and Dutch-Canadian literature generally reflect the acculturative
patterns of Netherlandic and Scandinavian Canadians. As Canadians, most
223
IJCS / RIÉC
contemporary authors of Dutch and Icelandic descent reject the static,
segregative concept of a self-generated ethnicity promoted by the official
mosaic ideology, in favour of a more dynamic, transcultural sense of self that is
constantly re-interpreted in a Canadian literary context. In this regard, their
concerns over the trend of multiculturalism in its current form in Canada are
based on the acculturation patterns shared by many Canadians of Netherlandic
and Scandinavian origins whose hyphen has disappeared through a pattern of
transcultural adaptation. As writer Ven Bengamudré puts it: “Transculturalism
assumes that there is a process of change and of evolution which is necessary
among these different cultures and that eventually we stop being IndoCanadian or Ukrainian-Canadian; we simply become human.”67 While it is
true that the Scandinavian and Netherlandic transition has been facilitated by its
northwestern European background, the significance of the phenomenon of
ethnic mixing for other ancestry groups has just begun to be addressed by some
scholars.68 In any case, as this comparative study has set out to demonstrate, the
Netherlandic and Scandinavian transition strongly suggests that to view the
Canadian population as divided into segmented ethnic groups is mistaken. As
such, it will hopefully encourage Canadianists to respond to Canadian
transcultural dimensions.
Acknowledgement
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for
Canadian Studies held at the Université du Québec à Montréal on 7-10 June 1995. The
authors would like to thank Professor J.D. Wilson of the Department of Educational Studies
at the University of British Columbia for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article,
and Professor Herman Ganzevoort (University of Calgary) and Hendrika Ruger
(Netherlandic Press, Windsor, Ontario) for their generosity in providing source materials
that were instrumental to the research for this paper.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
224
For our present purposes, Netherlandic Canadians refer to Canadians of Dutch, Flemish, and
Frisian origins; Scandinavian Canadians include persons of Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian,
and Swedish ancestry. Due to insufficient data for the Flemish and Frisian origin groups,
only Dutch figures are presented in the tables.
Leo Driedger, The Ethnic Factor: Identity and Diversity (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson,
1989) 53; Jeffrey G. Reitz, The Survival of Ethnic Groups (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson)
65-66.
K. G. O’Bryan, J. G. Reitz and O. Kuplowska, Non-Official Languages: A Study in
Canadian Multiculturalism (Ottawa: Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism, 1976) 53,
173 & 298; Herman Ganzevoort, A Bittersweet Land: The Dutch Experience in Canada,
1890-1980 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1988) 112; Manfred Prokop, The German
Language in Alberta: Maintenance and Teaching (Edmonton: The University of Alberta
Press, 1990) 64; Howard Palmer, “Ethnicity and Pluralism in North America: A Comparison
of Canadian and American Views,” in Rob Kroes and Henk-Otto Neuschäfer, eds., The
Dutch in North America: Their Immigration and Cultural Continuity (Amsterdam: VU
University Press, 1991) 451.
Manoly R. Lupul, “Multiculturalism and Canada’s White Ethnics,” Canadian Ethnic
Studies 15, 1 (1983) 103-104; Harmut Froeschle, “The German-Canadians: A Concise
History,” in German-Canadian Yearbook, Volume 12 (Toronto: Historical Society of
Mecklenburg Upper Canada, 1992) 70-71; Grant R. Cassidy, “Multiculturalism and Dutch
Canadian Ethnicity in Metropolitan Toronto,” in Herman Ganzevoort and Mark Boekelman,
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
eds., Dutch Immigration to North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of
Ontario, 1983) 197-219.
Peter Toner, “Lifting the Mist: Recent Studies on the Scots and Irish,” Acadiensis 18, 1
(Autumn 1988) 216.
Norman Buchignani, “Canadian Ethnic Research and Multiculturalism,” Journal of
Canadian Studies 17, 1 (Spring 1982) 29.
Alan B. Anderson, “Canadian Ethnic Studies: Traditional Preoccupations and New
Directions,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 1 (Spring 1982) 9.
Howard Palmer, “Canadian Immigration and Ethnic History in the 1970s and 1980s,”
Journal of Canadian Studies 17, 1 (Spring 1982) 46. Britanno-Celtic ancestry groups along
with Canadians of Germanic descent are often referred to as “invisible”.
In addition, the tendency of Canadian ethnic studies to concentrate on social problems has
not made the Netherlanders and Scandinavians good peoples upon whom to focus study; see:
Robert F. Harney, “Preface,” in Herman Ganzevoort and Mark Boekelman, eds., Dutch
Immigration to North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1983)
viii. This is particularly evident if one looks closer at the experience of other Northwestern
Europeans in Canada. Contrary to Finns or Germans, Netherlandic and Scandinavian
immigrants were virtually never considered as enemy aliens. Symptomatically, the Finnish
and German experiences during the periods of nativism have been well documented thanks
to a large number of material available.
See, for example, K. Ishwaran, Family Kinship and Community: A Study of DutchCanadians (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1977). This overgeneralization of minority
phenomena such as ethnic endogamy within ancestry groups is also visible in the studies of
Jorgen Dahlie on Scandinavian Canadians. For a critique of Scandinavian-Canadian
historiography, see David G. Delafenêtre, “The Scandinavian Presence in Canada:
Emerging Perspectives,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 27, 2 (1995) 34-58.
Richard Ogmundson, “On the Right to be a Canadian,” in Stella Hryniuk, ed., Twenty Years
of Multiculturalism: Successes and Failures (Winnipeg: St. John’s College Press, 1992) 46.
Howard Palmer, “Reluctant Hosts: Anglo-Canadian Views of Multiculturalism in the
Twentieth Century,” in Gerald Tulchinsky, ed., Immigration in Canada: Historical
Perspectives (Toronto: Copp Clark Longman, 1994) 301-309.
For a discussion of transcultural integration, transfusion and transvergence, see David
Delafenêtre, La population fenno-scandinave du Canada: Origines et intégration, Thèse de
Doctorat (Centre d’Etudes Canadiennes, Institut du Monde Anglophone, Sorbonne
Nouvelle, Paris, 1996) 443-457.
Erik Helmer Pedersen, “Danish Farmers in Canada,” in Henning Bender & Birgit Fleming
Larsen, eds., Danish Emigration to Canada (Aalborg: Danes Worldwide Archives, 1991)
163; Margaret Edith Ginn, Rural Dutch Immigrants in the Lower Fraser Valley, MA Thesis
(The University of British Columbia, 1967) 156.
Kirsten Wolf, “Icelandic-Canadian Literature: Problems in Generic Classification,”
Scandinavian Studies, 64, 1992, 452.
Both Netherlandic and Scandinavian ancestry groups had already the highest intermarriage
rates before WWII as shown in census monographs for 1921, 1931, and 1941. William
Burton Hurd, Origin, Birthplace, Nationality, and Language of the Canadian People
(Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1929) 116-130; Racial Origins and Nativity of the
Canadian People (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1942) 104-125; Ethnic Origin
and Nativity of the Canadian People (Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics) 14-18. Some
studies have highlighted the continuing and increasing intermarriage of European Canadians
after 1945: Warren E. Kalbach, “Propensities for Intermarriage in Canada, as Reflected in
the Ethnic Origins of Husbands and their Wives: 1961-1971,” in K Ishwaran, ed., Marriage
and Divorce in Canada (Toronto: Methuen, 1983) 196-212; Madeline A. Richard, Ethnic
Groups and Marital Choices: Ethnic History and Marital Assimilation in Canada, 1871 and
1971 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1991); Edward N. Herberg, Ethnic
Groups in Canada: Adaptations and Transitions (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1989) 184194.
John Kralt, “Netherlanders and the Canadian Census,” Canadian Journal of Netherlandic
Studies 3, 1-2 (Fall 1982/Spring 1983) 41.
225
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18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
226
Herman Ganzevoort and Mark Boekelman, eds., Dutch Immigration to North America
(Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1983) xi; Jorgen Dahlie, “Scandinavian
Immigration, Assimilation and Settlement Patterns in Canada: Large Landscape, Limited
Impact,” Siirtolaisuus/Migration 4 (1984) 11; John S. Matthiasson, “Icelandic Canadians in
Central Canada: One Experiment in Multiculturalism,” Western Canadian Journal of
Anthropology 4, 2 (1974) 58.
John Kralt, Ethnic Origins of Canadians (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Trade and
Commerce, 1977) 43.
Ravi Pendakur, Speaking in Tongues: Heritage Language Maintenance and Transfer in
Canada (Ottawa: Dept. of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, 1990) 22; John Kralt & Ravi
Pendakur, Ethnicity, Immigration and Language Transfer (Ottawa: Dept. of
Multiculturalism and Citizenship, 1991) 13.
Although this new method was clearly an improvement, some scholars complained about the
lack of historical comparability between the censuses, see Bohdan S. Kohdan, “Ukrainians
and the 1981 Census Ethnic Origin Question,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies 10, 2 (Winter
1985) 5-6; William Darcovich, ed., Ukrainian Canadians and the 1981 Census: A Statistical
Compendium (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988) 6 & 109-113.
9246 immigrants arrived from Belgium during the same period, see Immigration Statistics,
Annual reports (1971-1976), Dept. of Manpower and Immigration, (Ottawa: Information
Canada); (1977-1990), Dept. of Employment and Immigration, (Ottawa: Minister of Supply
and Services).
Janny Lowensteyn, “Dutch Ethnicity in Montreal: Its Persistence, Meaning and Uses,”
Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies 3, 1-2 (Fall 1981/Spring 1982) 24-33; Will C.
Van Den Hoonaard, Silent Ethnicity: The Dutch in New Brunswick (Fredericton: New
Ireland Press, 1991); Anne Brydon, “Celebrating Ethnicity: The Icelanders in Manitoba,” in
Gurli A. Woods and Peter Ohlin, eds., Scandinavian-Canadian Studies, Volume 4 (Ottawa:
Association for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies in Canada, 1991) 1-14.
Centre for Ethnic Measurement, Canadian Census Ethno-Cultural Questions 1871-1991
(Ottawa: Statistics Canada, n.d.) 69.
Jay Goldstein and Alexander Segall, “Ethnic Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity,” in Jean E.
Veevers, ed., Continuity and Change in Marriage and Family (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston of Canada, 1991) 165-166; Jeffrey G. Reitz and Raymond Breton, The Illusion of
Difference: Realities of Ethnicity in Canada and the United States (Toronto: C. D. Howe
Institute, 1994) 51-55.
Herberg, op. cit. 22.
Bohdan S. Kordan, “Ukrainians in Canada: 1981 Census Profile,” Journal of Ukrainian
Studies 13, 2 (Winter 1988) 70.
Edward T. Pryor, Gustave J. Goldmann, Michael J. Sheridan, and Pamela M. White,
“Measuring Ethnicity: is ‘Canadian’ an Evolving Indigenous Category?” Ethnic and Racial
Studies 15, 2 (April 1992) 228.
O’Bryan, et. al., op. cit. 100-101; In this study, 52.6% of first generation Dutch Canadians
and 58.1% of their Scandinavian counterparts did identify as Canadian. By the second
generation, these proportions had respectively increased to 65.9 and 67.5%. Finally, 79.3%
and 70.1% of the third generation of Dutch and Scandinavian ancestry groups considered
themselves as ‘Canadians’.
This procedure dates back to the preparation for the Book IV of the Royal Commission on
Bilingualism and Biculturalism, see Joseph Di Santo, “Non-Hyphenated
Canadians—Where Are You?” in James S. Frideres, ed., Multiculturalism and Intergroup
Relations (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1989) 145-146.
On this subject see, for instance, Kirsten Wolf, “Heroic Past—Heroic Present: Western
Icelandic Literature,” Scandinavian Studies 63 (1991) 432-52.
Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason, Ritsafn [collected works], 6 vols, ed. Árni Bjarnarson (Akureyri:
Bókaútgáfan Edda, 1970-82); Stephan G. Stephansson, Andvökur, 6 vols (Reykjavík/
Winnipeg: Nokkrir Íslendingar í Vesturheimi, 1909-1938). For a discussion of the recreation of Icelandic identity in Icelandic-Canadian immigrant writing see Daisy Neijmann,
“In Search of the Canadian Icelander: Writing an Icelandic-Canadian Identity into Canadian
Literature,” ‘The Icelandic Connection’, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Special Issue
(Forthcoming).
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
Laura Goodman Salverson, The Viking Heart, New Canadian Library 116 (Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart, 1975).
See Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies, A History (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1984), 262; and Brydon, “Celebrating Ethnicity.” For a more elaborate discussion on
the reception of Salverson’s work in the Anglo-Canadian and Icelandic-Canadian literary
communities, see Daisy L. Neijmann, “Laura Goodman Salverson, Guttormur J.
Guttormsson, and the Dual World of Second-Generation Canadian Authors,” ScandinavianCanadian Studies 8 (1995) 19-36.
The following writings have been translated and published: Jane Aberson, From the Prairies
With Hope, ed. Robert E. VanderVennen, trans. Aberson (Regina: Canadian Plains Research
Center, University of Regina, 1991); Willem de Gelder, A Dutch Homesteader on the
Prairies, trans. and ed. Herman Ganzevoort (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973);
Herman Ganzevoort, “Canada: The Last Illusion” (part of the letters of Frans Van
Waeterstadt), Canadian Ethnic Studies 11, 1 (1979) 131-40. For a general introduction into
Dutch-Canadian pioneer writing see Herman Ganzevoort, “Dempsey-Tunney and the
Emigration Question: Dutch Immigrant Correspondents in 1920’s Canada,” Canadian
Ethnic Studies 20, 1 (1988) 140-52. On Dutch ethnicity in Canada see René Breugelmans,
“Integratie, taal- en kultuurbewustzijn bij de Nederlands-Vlaamse etnische groep in
Kanada,” Ons Erfdeel 11, 3 (1968) 29-39; Herman Ganzevoort, “The Dutch in Canada: The
Disappearing Ethnic,” in The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement, and Cultural
Change, ed. Robert P. Swierenga (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1985)
224-39; and van den Hoonaard, Silent Ethnicity: The Dutch of New Brunswick.
“Obsessed” is the term used by Aritha van Herk in her introduction to To All Our Children:
The Story of the Postwar Dutch Immigration To Canada, by Albert VanderMey (Jordan
Station, Ont.: Paideia Press, 1983) 11-12.
Maxine Brandis, Land For Our Sons (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1958) 76-77. Brandis’ later
short stories, which were originally published in the Atlantic Advocate and also deal with the
Dutch immigrant experience in Canada, were collected and published together with excerpts
from Land For Our Sons under Brandis’ original name Madzy Brender à Brandis in The
Scent of Spruce (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1984).
Daphne Marlatt, “Entering In: The Immigrant Imagination,” Canadian Literature 100
(Spring, 1984) 219. This is, in our view, exactly opposite to what the multiculturalist policy
would have immigrants do.
Enoch Padolsky, “Canadian Minority Writing and Acculturation Options,” in Literatures of
Lesser Diffusion/Les littératures de moindre diffusion, ed. Joseph Pivato (Edmonton:
Research Institute for Comparative Literature, University of Alberta, 1990), 58. In this
article, Padolsky analyzes the relation of acculturation processes to Canadian minority
writing. His analysis is one of very few that can be successfully applied in interpretations of
Dutch-Canadian literature, since it takes into account several levels, or “options,” of
acculturation as possible underlying dynamics of literary texts, including different levels of
“transition” and “(apparent) assimilation.” According to this analysis, Dutch- and IcelandicCanadian literature in English would both fall under the “transition” and “(apparent)
assimilation” categories, dependent on the various individual authors, with the possible
exception of Kristjana Gunnars (see later in this article), whose writings share certain
characteristics with the “separation” category of writers in exile.
As Padolsky notes: “minority writers and readers, regardless of their positioning in the grid
[outlining acculturation options], are more likely to be aware experientially of the nature of
acculturation for minorities than majority writers and readers. It is this which in my view
contrasts, for example, the sympathetic portrayal of aboriginal situations in the works of
Ryga, Wiebe, Suknaski, Gunnars, Valgardson, etc. with the equally sympathetic (but
majority) portrayals of the aboriginal situation in Laurence or Roy” (62). Along these same
lines, Valgardson has observed that “[t]oo often . . . we acknowledge ethnic influences only
when the subject matter of the art is identifiably about the immigration experience or the
artist is dressed in ethnic clothes. We do not recognize that the truly profound ethnic
influence, like a powerful current under a still surface, is constantly at work. This influence
partially determines at least the following: what kind of art is produced, what is seen, what is
not seen, or, if seen, is or is not acknowledged, what is regarded as worthy subject-matter,
what is not, what the attitude is toward landscape and human activity and what the
227
IJCS / RIÉC
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
228
relationships of the two will be and, particularly, what the underlying judgements will be by
which all of this is evaluated. As artists of our culture, it is important that we acknowledge
this but also move beyond it, not only to enter but to create the possibility of the greater
society . . .,” “An Immigrant Culture: Reconciling Diverse Voices,” Lecture delivered at St.
John’s College (University of Manitoba, November 1987) 1. Although he writes from an
American perspective, Michael Fischer, too, remarks that minority writing is increasingly
concerned with “an insistence on a pluralist, multidimensional, or multi-faceted concept of
self: one can be many different things, and this personal sense can be a crucible for a wider
ethos of pluralism,” in “Ethnicity and the Arts of Memory,” in Writing Culture, eds. J.
Clifford and G.E. Marcus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) 196. This
articulates very well the attitude of many Dutch- and Icelandic-Canadian authors: a close
affinity with a pluralist Canadianism rather than a narrow sense of ethnic self.
Kristine Benson Kristofferson, Tanya (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1950); Vilhjalmur
Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions (New York:
Macmillan, 1943). Stefansson’s contribution to Canadian literature has been acknowledged
by several Canadian critics such as T.D. MacLulich, “Reading the Land: The Wilderness
Tradition in Canadian Letters,” Journal of Canadian Studies 20,2 (1985) 29-44; and W.J.
Keith, who credits Stefansson with having recreated the North in his writings from the point
of view of adaptation rather than of conquest or biased interpretation, “Nature and the
Literary Imagination,” in Nature and the Literary Imagination, Papers from the First
Northern Literary Symposium, ed. Vincent D. Sharman (North Bay: Nipissing University
College, 1984) 28-29.
Marianne Brandis, This Spring’s Sowing (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1970); Peter van
Toorn, In Guildenstern County (Montreal: Delta Canada Press, 1973); and Mountain Tea
and Other Poems (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984); Aritha van Herk, Judith
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978); and No Fixed Address, An Amorous Journey
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986).
This aspect of “ethnic” writing is discussed by Wil M. Verhoeven in a thought-provoking
paper which compares the different acculturative stances of authors Michael Ondaatje and
Bharati Mukherjee, “How Hyphenated Can You Get? A Critique of Pure Ethnicity,” Mosaic,
29, 3 (1996) 97-116. As Verhoeven points out, Mukherjee’s concept of ethnicity is one in
which a self-generated ethnic Self is posed against a dominant Other, a concept which presupposes ethnic conflict. The influence of ethnic origins in Ondaatje’s writing, on the other
hand, can be found in the literary process of self-creation and self-discovery. Ethnicity in
Mukherjee’s work, in other words, is a static, self-evident concept, whereas in Ondaatje it
appears as a constructed, dynamic concept. Verhoeven’s argument recalls Werner Sollors
observation that “by and large, studies tend less to set out to explore [ethnicity’s]
construction than to take it for granted as a relatively fixed or, at least, a known and selfevident category,” “Introduction: The Invention of Ethnicity,” in The Invention of Ethnicity,
ed. Sollors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) xiii.
Daisy L. Neijmann, The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters, Ottawa: Carleton University
Press, 1997.
Van Herk’s fiction is set in the North, the West Coast, Alberta, etc. Part of the explanation for
this difference could also be that Dutch culture, despite its sometimes considerable local
variants, has, at least until very recently, tended to be quite centralized (the importance of
regionalism in Canadian literature always has to be explained to Dutch readers), and that, as
a result, the Dutch perceived a larger, encompassing Canadian identity where many
Canadians do not.
W.D. Valgardson, Bloodflowers (Ottawa: Oberon, 1973); and God is not a Fish Inspector
(Ottawa: Oberon, 1975); See also Red Dust (Ottawa, Oberon, 1978) and Gentle Sinners
(Ottawa: Oberon, 1980); David Arnason, Fifty Stories and a Piece of Advice (Winnipeg:
Turnstone Press, 1982); and Marsh Burning (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1980); Kristjana
Gunnars, The Axe’s Edge (Victoria: Porcépic Press, 1983); and The Nightworkers of
Ragnarök (Victoria: Porcépic Press, 1985); see also Settlement Poems 1 and 2 (Winnipeg:
Turnstone Press, 1980).
Daphne Marlatt, “Entering In: The Immigrant Imagination,” p. 223. For the movement
towards integration in Gunnars’ work see also Judith Owens, “‘Drawing/In’: Wholeness and
Dislocation in the Work of Kristjana Gunnars,” in Kenneth James Hughes, ed.,
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
Contemporary Manitoba Writers: New Critical Studies, (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 1990)
64-78.
Guy Vanderhaeghe, Man Descending (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982). See also The Trouble
With Heroes (Toronto, Macmillan, 1983); and My Present Age (Toronto, Macmillan, 1984).
Valgardson, November 1987. For more elaborate discussions of the binary tensions in
immigrant fiction, particularly those between success and failure, silence and speech, and
death and rebirth, see also Robert Kroetsch, “The Grammar of Silence: Narrative Patterns in
Ethnic Writing,” Canadian Literature 106 (Fall, 1985) 65-74; and Tamara J. Palmer, “The
Fictionalization of the Vertical Mosaic: The Immigrant, Success, and National Mythology,”
in Literatures of Lesser Diffusion, 65-101. For an earlier discussion of ethnic writing as a
literary genre concerned with defining itself see Eli Mandel, “Ethnic Voice in Canadian
Writing,” in Identities: The Impact of Ethnicity on Canadian Society, ed. Wsevolod Isajiw
(Toronto: Peter Martin, 1977) 57-68.
Aritha van Herk, In Visible Ink, Cryptofictions, Writer as Critic Series 3 (Edmonton: NeWest
Press, 1991) 187.
Hugh Cook, Cracked Wheat and Other Stories (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1985).
Maria Jacobs, What Feathers Are For (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1986); Iseult We Are
Barren (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1987); and Precautions Against Death (Oakville,
Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1983). World War II plays an important role in much Dutch-Canadian
literature. The Canadian liberation of the Netherlands forged strong emotional ties on the
part of many Dutch people, and induced many to immigrate to Canada after the War. In
works such as those by Maxine Brandis, her daughter Marianne Brandis (Special Nests,
Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1990), and Maria Jacobs, the war takes on a symbolic meaning
and becomes the legitimation for Dutch immigration to Canada and for the strong urge
among Dutch immigrants to assimilate and contribute to the good of Canadian society.
The series of Dutch-Canadian anthologies, edited by Hendrika Ruger and published by
Netherlandic Press, includes Buffaloberries and Saskatoons: Stories and Poems from
Western Canada by Dutch Canadians (1991); Distant Kin: Dutch-Canadian Stories and
Poems (1987); Dutch Quintet: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories by Dutch Canadians
(1990); Dutch Voices: A Collection of Stories and Poems by Dutch-Canadians (1989); From
A Chosen Land: A Dutch-Canadian Anthology of Poetry and Prose (1986); and
Transplanted Lives: Dutch-Canadian Stories and Poems (1988).
Other new writers introduced by Netherlandic Press include Pleuke Boyce (Dutch Medley:
Poems and Stories, 1986); and Edith van Beek (Points of White, 1988). Cornelia Hoogland
has recently had her first book of poetry published by Turnstone Press (The Wire-Thin Bride,
1990).
John Vardon , “An Interview with Diane Brebner,” The New Quarterly 13.1 (1993) 12-28.
Diane Brebner, Radiant Life Forms (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1990); The Golden Lotus
(Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1993).
Konrad Gross observes: “It seems that anglophone scholars have found it difficult to
accommodate the ethnic factor in their aesthetic approaches, and the impetus for a revision
of long cherished critical practices has come from the regional fringes (and chiefly from the
Canadian West with perhaps the most intense historical exposure to ethnic experience) and
from critics with affiliations to an ethnic community,” “The Burden of Memory: Ethnic
Literature in Multicultural Canada,” in Anglistentag 1991, Proceedings of the Conference of
the German Association of University Professors of English 13, ed. Wilhelm G. Busse
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992) 373. On the relationship between ethnic and mainstream
Canadian literature see, for instance, Tamara Palmer and Beverly J. Rasporich, “Ethnic
Literature,” in The New Canadian Encyclopaedia, 2nd edition, Vol. 1 (Edmonton: Hurtig
Publishers, 1988) 725-28; C.H. Andrusyshen, “Canadian Ethnic Literary and Cultural
Perspectives,” in The Undoing of Babel: Watson Kirkconnell, The Man and His Work, ed.
J.R.C. Perkin (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975) 31-49; Barbara Godard, “The
Discourse of the Other: Canadian Literature and the Question of Ethnicity,” The
Massachusetts Review 31 (1990) 153-84; Francesco Loriggio, “History, Literary History,
and Ethnic Literature,” Literatures of Lesser Diffusion, 21-45; and Hutcheon’s introduction
to Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fictions, eds. Hutcheon and Richmond
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990). The collections A/Part: Papers from the 1984
Ottawa Conference on Language, Culture and Literary Identity in Canada,” Canadian
229
IJCS / RIÉC
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
230
Literature, Supplement 1 (May, 1987); and Identifications: Ethnicity and the Writer in
Canada, ed. Jars Balan (Edmonton: Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies, University of
Alberta, 1982) provide a helpful general idea of the different authorial views on the subject
of ethnicity in writing and its reception in mainstream Canadian literature. For a more
elaborate discussion of the reception of Icelandic-Canadian literature by the Canadian
literary establishment, see Neijmann, “The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters,” and Wolf,
“Icelandic-Canadian Literature: Problems in Generic Classification,” 439-53.
Kristjana Gunnars, “Ethnicity and Canadian Women Writers,” Room of One’s Own 14, 4
(1991) 41, 50.
David Demchuk, “‘Holding Two Ropes’: Interview with Kristjana Gunnars,” Prairie Fire 5,
2-3 (1984) 32.
“Words on Multilingualism,” Prairie Fire 5, 2-3 (1984) 8.
Judith Miller, Interview with W.D. Valgardson, in Other Solitudes: Multicultural Fictions,
eds. Linda Hutcheon and Marion Richmond (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990) 13739. The celebration of the fallacious concept of pure ethnicity as embedded in multicultural
policy has recently come under attack from other writers as well, notably from Neil
Bissoondath, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism (Penguin, 1994).
W.D. Valgardson, The Girl with the Botticelli Face (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas &
McIntyre, 1992); Kristjana Gunnars, The Substance of Forgetting (Red Deer: Red Deer
College Press, 1992); and Zero Hour (Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1991); David
Arnason, The Pagan Wall (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1992); Marion Johnson, The Book of All
Sorts (London, Ont.: Nightwood, 1989); Martha Brooks, Paradise Café and Other Stories
(Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 1988); and Two Moons in August (Vancouver/Toronto:
Groundwood Douglas & McIntyre, 1991).
Making a Difference: Canadian Multicultural Literature, Smaro Kamboureli, ed., (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1996). One author of Netherlandic descent is included in an
anthology that features more than 70 authors in total, and contains, for instance, four authors
of Icelandic descent (Salverson, Valgardson, Arnason and Gunnars).
Gudrun Gudsteinsdottir, Dept. of English, University of Iceland, personal interview, May
1997. Gunnars’ position is demonstrated by her inclusion in the collection Icelandic Writing
Today, Sigurdur A. Magnusson, ed., (Reykjavík: s.n., 1982).
See, for instance, Graa Boomsma, “De Canadese Verbeelding in Opmars: Een Inleiding,”
Bzzletin, 52 (Jan. 1998, special issue on Canadian Literature) 1-17, which does not even
mention the Netherlandic background of Vanderhaeghe and van Herk; Charles Forceville,
“Ik denk dat we iets verloren hebben door het heldendom af te schaffen,” Interview with Guy
Vanderhaeghe, Nieuwe Wereld Tijdschrift (October 1987) 14-18; Geert Lernout, “Sneeuw
en Tranen: Guy Vanderhaeghe,” De Vlaamse Gids 72, 4 (1988) 30-35; A. van den Hoven,
“Aritha van Herk’s novel Judith in English and its Dutch Translation,” Canadian Journal of
Netherlandic Studies, 3, 1-2 (1981-82) 84-86. We were unable to trace evidence of the
reception of Maria Jacobs in the Netherlands. Seeing that her position is similar to that of
Gunnars, it would seem likely that she is regarded as at least partly a Dutch author; she
translated, for instance, her debut collection Precautions against Death into Dutch herself
(Vijfenvijftig Sokken, Amsterdam: De Harmonie, 1986). The translation has been out of print
for several years.
Notable exceptions are the analyses offered by Padolsky, Kroetsch, and Palmer.
Daniel Coleman, “Writing Dislocation: Transculturalism, Gender, Immigrant Families: A
Conversation with Ven Begamudré,” Canadian Literature, 149 (1996) 36-38.
Karol Kròtki & Dave Odynak, “The Emergence of Multiethnicities in the Eighties,” in Shiva
S. Halli, Frank Trovato & Leo Driedger, eds., Ethnic Demography: Canadian Immigrant,
Racial and Cultural Variations (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1990) 383-398.

Time, Space and Place/Le temps, l`espace et le lieu

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