• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Regionalism

Menaud, maître-draveur: a Metaphysical Land

14 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canadian History, French-Canadian Literature, Regionalism

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Clarence Gagnon artist, Félix-Antoine Savard, French-Canadian literature, Menaud maître draveur, Regionalism, Saguenay River, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

Village de Baie-Saint-Paul en hiver (Charlevoix), Clarence Gagnon

Maison à Baie-Saint-Paul, 1924, Clarence Gagnon (La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff)

In 2005, Félix-Antoine Savard‘s 1937’s Menaud, maître-draveur[i] (Master of the River) was selected as one of Canada‘s ‘100 Most Important Books’ by The Literary Review of Canada. The popularity of Savard’s novel is increasing.

Unless otherwise indicated, the artwork featured in this post is used by permission of La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff.
 

Yet, both Maria Chadpelaine and Félix-Antoine Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur, a novel literally intertwined with Maria Chapdelaine, as in a liturgical responsory, express nationalistic sentiments.  But there is legitimate nationalism, attachment to one’s root, and hostile nationalism: nationalism as perceived in indépendantiste ideology.

The Voice of Quebec: Maria Chapdelaine & Menaud

As Maria is trying to decide whether she will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a cultivateur (a farmer) or leave for the United States as Lorenzo Surprenant’s wife, she hears inner voices, one of which is the voice of Quebec. The voix du Québec directs Maria to live as her mother lived.  Jack Warwick has defined this voice as l’appel du Nord, the call of the north.[ii]  The voice Maria hears no doubt resembles the voice her father, Samuel Chapdelaine, also heard when he went north to “make land.”  I should think it is also the voice Menaud is hearing and has always heard.  Menaud is the main character in Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur (1937).

In Maria Chapdelaine, the voice of Quebec is a mélopée (from the Greek melopoia), a recitative and monotone chant, but in Menaud, l’appel du Nord is at times a tearful lament and, at other times, a visceral and angry scream.  Menaud loves the land he has inherited from his forefathers.  He loves its smell, its voice, its ‘wind in the willows,’ its rugged shape, and the majestic Saguenay River.

So Menaud lives up the Saguenay River, as does Samuel Chapdelaine and as did Savard.  Félix-Antoine Savard, an ordained priest, was born in Quebec City (1896), but he was raised in Chicoutimi and died (1982) in Charlevoix, where he had founded the parish of Clermont.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Menaud’s Story: the Plot of the Novel

Menaud is, first and foremost, a draveur, or river driver.  All his life he has driven wood down the river dancing atop the wood boxed in so it is transformed into rather fragile rafts.  But Menaud is also an agriculteur, a voyageur, a coureur de(s) bois and a hunter.  A widower, he lives in his grey house with Marie, his daughter, and Joson, a son he will lose to the river, but not the Saguenay.  Joson, Menaud’s son, drowns in the Malbaie (formerly: Murray Bay).

Le Délié: the first Suitor

However, Menaud and his neighbours in Mainsal (main sale means: dirty hand) are also on the verge of losing access to their mountain, a mountain that has provided them with part of their sustenance since the early days of New France.  The mountain has been rented out to Englishmen by le Délié (the unattached).  Lier is to bind, as in to link.

The same Délié has also made plans to marry Marie when winter comes.  He tells  Menaud that, as his father-in-law, he will be allowed to go to the mountain.  Menaud is therefore mourning his son and knows that his daughter plans to marry le Délié. Having lost his son, he is about to lose his daughter.  Finally, he and his people have lost their mountain, not so much to Englishmen as to le Délié‘s greed and lack of respect for his roots.  The mountain did not belong to anyone in particular, but le Délié will be renting it out to make money. We are witnessing faithlessness from within.

Alexis le Lucon: a second suitor

Fortunately, Alexis le Lucon, who has tried to rescue Joson, finds a place in Marie’s heart.  She chases away le Délié and tells Alexis le Lucon that it might be pleasant to live peacefully “here” (icitte):  “Il y a de la bonne terre, avait-elle dit; ce serait plaisant de vivre icitte tranquille !”  (There is good land, she had said, it would be nice to live here quietly.)

“Je n’ai plus que toi” (I have no one left but you)

Then, as her father enters into a delirium bordering on dementia, Marie tells Alexis that she has no one left but him. “Je n’ai plus que toi[,]” (p. 211) and that, if he loves her (avoir de l’amitié [love as it was then called]), he will continue, as did Joson, as did Menaud. “Alors, si tu as de l’amitié  pour moi tu continueras comme Joson, comme mon père !”   He opened his arms and made himself a refuge, she cried for a long time with her head leaning against his face: “Puis, dans le refuge des bras qu’il ouvrait, longtemps elle pleura contre son visage.” (p. 212)

Félix-Antoine Savard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Félix-Antoine Savard: biographical notes[iii]

Félix-Antoine Savard, OC MSRC (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) was a priest,  a poet, a folklorist and, in 1945, a few years after the publication, in 1937, of Menaud, maître-draveur, he became Professor of Literature at l’Université Laval, in Quebec City, and served as Dean of his Faculty from 1950 to 1957.  He was a member of the Order of Merit of Canada and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Menaud, maître-draveur earned Savard a medal from the French Academy, l’Académie française, an honour he richly deserved given his exceptional command of  the French language and proficiency as a writer.  Consequently, Menaud, maître-draveur changed the course of Savard’s life.  He had been a parish priest, but was transformed into an academic and a very productive poet and novelist.  You may wish to see Wikipedia’s entry on Félix-Antoine Savard for a list of his works and a list of his awards.

Although Félix-Antoine Savard was born in Quebec City, his family moved to Chicoutimi, up the majestic Saguenay River and near Lac Saint-Jean.  That is Maria Chapdelaine‘s country, then filled with raftsmen, whom Savard often visited, lumberjacks, coureurs des bois, men like Maria’s François Paradis.  He was also acquainted with men, cultivateurs (farmers), who tilled tirelessly, an inhospitable cultivateurs (farmers).  In other words, Savard knew the people and the region that led Louis Hémon to write his epochal Maria Chapelaine, published in 1914.  Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur, a novel successfully embedded in Hémon’s poetic Maria Chapdelaine, but further poeticized.

Moreover, as a priest, Father Savard occupied various ecclesiastical positions in Charlevoix and founded a parish in Clermont.  Savard calls Charlevoix, his land, a metaphysical land.  In 1989, it was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.[iv]  You may remember that Du Gua de Monts, under Tonnetuit and Gravé Du Pont, tried to establish a settlement at Tadoussac, now a town located at the confluence of the St Lawrence River and the Saguenay.  Savard died in Charlevoix in 1982, at the age in 1982 at the age of 85.

A Distinct Novel of the Land

Menaud, maître-draveur differs from Patrice Lacombe‘s La Terre paternelle and  Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s Charles Guérin.

First, it is both a novel and a poem.  As a poem, it is a formulaic poème en prose.  It contains a recurring refrain and the refrain is borrowed from the novel’s source, Maria Chapdelaine:  “Nous sommes venus il y a trois cents ans et nous sommes restés.”  (Menaud, p. 31)[v] (We came three hundred years ago and we stayed.)  Menaud has his daughter Marie read passages from Maria Chapdelaine to him and he feels comforted.

Louis Hémon wrote: “Au pays de Québec, rien n’a changé.  Rien ne changera.” (p. 194) (In the land of Quebec, nothing has changed.  Nothing will change.) Louis Hémon also wrote: “Ces gens sont d’une race qui ne sait pas mourir…  Nous sommes un témoignage.” (Maria Chapdelaine, p. 194): “These people belong to a breed that does not know how to die…  We are a testimonial.”

I have translated the word “race” by the word “breed,” which is the word’s meaning in the current context.  A breed of cats is une race de chats.

Second, Menaud is un homme du Nord, a voyageur, a coureur des bois, and, perhaps, an explorer.  He is, at any rate, bigger than life and, therefore a mythic figure.  He has lived dangerously and, by dint of doing so, although he is now an older man, he suddenly feels young again, puts on his snowshoes and starts walking in the in the direction of the Royaume [kingdom] du Saguenay, as that region is often called.  The snow is thick, he gets tired, and he can’t continue.  He takes off his snowshoes and sends Baron, the dog, to fetch help.  Alexis finds him, but Menaud’s legs will no longer take him very far.  So Menaud is not a typical farmer.

But there is a third dimension, a dimension I have introduced: nationalism, but nationalism akin to nostalgia.  But more importantly, there is a French-Canadian, le Délié (the unattached), who has rented the mountain and will collect the rent.  So Menaud, maître-draveur features a new breed of men: the capitalist.  Money is now the motive.  Le Délié is therefore a “vendu,” (a sold man).  Was that mountain for him to rent out?  We are entering a new world in which Menaud’s profound pride in his land and lineage will not be taken into account, no more than ecological issues.  It is the world we live in.

The last words of Savard’s novel are spoken by Alexis: “Ce n’est pas une folie [Menaud’s dementia or madness] comme une autre !  Ça me dit, à moi, que c’est un avertissement.” (It is not just another madness.  What it tells me, what I hear, is a warning.) (p. 231)

Conclusion

I will close my post by quoting the most nationalistic statement contained in Maria Chapdelaine quoting the most nationalistic statement contained in Maria Chapdelaine and repeated in Menaud, maître-draveur.  But I prefer not to comment except to say that “estranged” people are cutting down the rainforest and letting the planet melt.  Not to mention that we can no longer afford to buy the house in which we were brought up.  It’s too expensive:

“Autour de nous des étrangers sont venus, qu’il nous plaît d’appeler des barbares ; ils ont pris presque tout le pouvoir ; ils ont acquis presque tout l’argent ; mais au pays de Québec rien n’a changé.  Rien ne changera.” (Maria Chapdelaine. p. 194; Menaud, maître-draveur, p. 32 and elsewhere.)[vi]  

(Around us, foreigners have come, whom we like to call barbarians! they have taken nearly all the power; they have acquired nearly all the money: but in the land of Quebec nothing has changed. Nothing will change.)

—ooo—

[i] Félix-Antoine Savard, Menaud maître-draveur, (Québec: Librairie Garneau, 1937).  The novel has been translated by Alan Sullivan as Boss/ Master of the River (Toronto, Ryerson Press, 1947).

[ii] Jack Warwick, L’Appel du Nord dans la littérature canadienne-française : essai (Montréal : Hurtubise/HMH, 1972).

[iii] “Canadian literature.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.             <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91950/Canadian-literature>.

[iv] “As early as 1760, Scottish noblemen Malcolm Fraser and John Nairn hosted visitors at their manors.  For much of its history, Charlevoix was home to a thriving summer colony of wealthy Americans, including President William Howard Taft.” (Wikipedia)

[v] All my quotations are from Félix-Antoine Savard, Menaud, maître-draveur (Montréal & Paris: Fides, 1973[1937]).                           

[vi] Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine (Montréal, Bibliothèque québécoise et Fides, 1990 [1914]).

 
 
 
 
Menaud_1937 
© Micheline Walker
June 14, 2012
WordPress
 
revised
January 14, 2014
 
0.000000 0.000000

michelinewalker.com

  • Print
  • Email
  • Tweet
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

07 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

1914, Clarence Gagnon, illustrations, Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, Quebec, Quebec seen by a Frenchman, Regionalism, roman de la terre, roman du terroir

Péribonka

The next step in our examination of regionalism in Quebec literature is Maria Chapdelaine. I have published a short post on Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written by Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913), a Frenchman born in Brest. After studying law and oriental languages in the Sorbonne, Hémon moved to London and, in 1911, to Quebec. In 1912, he spent several months working with cultivateurs, or farmers in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, up the beautiful Saguenay River. He lived in a community called Péribonka and spent the winter of 1913 in that community, writing his novel.

Having completed his manuscript, Hémon sent it to France and started travelling west, probably to Edmonton where French citizens had settled at that time. Hémon was killed in a train accident on July 8, 1913, in Chapleau, Ontario. He did not live to see Maria Chapdelaine become a bestseller.  It has been translated into more than 20 languages in 23 countries and it has been made into three movies.

The plot is simple, but, although Maria Chapdelaine is a roman du terroir, it differs substantially from Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle and Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s  Charles Guérin. Louis Hémon did not feel dispossessed of his ancestral lang and betrayed. And he had not transformed Maria Chapdelaine into an ethnic conflict, which it was not, at least initially.

 

Image result for mcmichael museum logo

The artwork featured in this post are illustrations for Maria Chapdelaine, executed by Clarence Gagnon and housed at the McMichael Museum, in Kleinburg, Ontario.

However, Hémon worked with men like Maria Chapdelaine’s father, Samuel Chapdelaine a name not coincidentally resembling that of the Father of New France, Samuel de Champlain.  These otherwise unemployed men were trying to transform rebellious soil into arable land.  They had gone north, as the colourful curé Labelle (November 24, 1833 – January 4, 1891) advocated, and were “making land” (faire de la terre).[i] Father Labelle preached “colonisation.” That was the “patriotic” alternative to leaving for the New England states.

Maria’s ‘Choices:’ F. Paradis, L. Surprenant & E. Gagnon 

As indicated in my post, Hémon gives Maria Chapdelaine three suitors: François Paradis, Lorenzo Surprenant and Eutrope Gagnon. François dies in a snow storm, which was to be expected. In traditional Quebec society, happiness was viewed not only as impossible, but as dangerous. Lorenzo Surprenant has come north to find a wife and take her down to the United States, but Maria turns him down. She will marry a neighbour, Eutrope Gagnon, and live as her mother lived. The names of the suitors are revealing: Paradis is paradise, Surprenant, surprizing, and Gagnon, close to the verb gagner: to win.

Maria Chapdelaine also differs from La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin in that, unlike Chauveau’s Charles Guérin, it does not feature an ‘ugly’ Englishman: Mr Wagnaër. As for La Terre paternelle, although the novel does not feature an explicit ‘ugly’ Englishman, Jean Chauvin fails where an Englishman would have succeeded.  I believe this is the reason why Lacombe views cities as unhealthy.  

—ooo—

Our next regionalistic novel is Father Félix-Antoine Savard‘s (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) Menaud maître-draveur, 1937 (translated as Boss of the River, or Master of the River by Alan Sullivan (1947).  It earned Savard a Medal from the French Academy.  

To view more illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 
please click on the link below: http://www.archiv.umontreal.ca/exposition/louis_hemon/oeuvre/oeuvre_page2-3.html 
_________________________      

[i] Curé Labelle, a legendary figure, is featured in Claude-Henri Grignon’s (Sainte-Adèle, 8 July 1894 – Québec, 3 April 1976) novel Un homme et son péché (1933). Grignon’s novel was transformed into a very popular serialized radio and television drama and was also made into a movie twice. The second movie is entitled Séraphin: Heart of Stone (2003). Séraphin is a miser and he is cruel to his wife Donalda.

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon 
 
 
 
thedayafterthestorm300© Micheline Walker
7 June 2012
WordPress 
 
Related Posts:
Maria Chapdelaine 
Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle
Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin
 
 
45.409050 -71.934580

michelinewalker.com

  • Print
  • Email
  • Tweet
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre Paternelle

03 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ Comments Off on Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre Paternelle

Tags

Bush, La Terre paternelle, lack of business skills, Patrice Lacombe, Quebec, Regionalism, relevance Northrop Frye, roman de la terre

log-hauling

Log Hauling by Suzor-Coté

The Relevance of Early Unsophisticated Fiction

These regionalistic forerunners are not masterpieces, but they are not to be dismissed or trivialized as they provide valuable insights into the life and times of their authors, times to which, as Northrop Frye writes, we cannot return historically, but can return psychologically:

“Quebec in particular has gone through an exhilarating and, for the most part, emancipating social revolution. Separatism is the reactionary side of this revolution: what it really aims at is a return to the introverted malaise in which it began, when Quebec’s motto was je me souviens and its symbols were those of the habitant rooted to his land with his mother church over his head, and all the rest of the blood-and-soil bit. One cannot go back to the past historically, but the squalid neo-fascism of the FLQ terrorists indicates that one can always do so psychologically.” (The Bush Garden, Preface, about ten paragraphs down)

Now, psychologically, a return to the past is often best achieved by reading the above-mentioned unsophisticated literary forerunners.  In fact, Frye also writes that “the question of Canadian identity, so far as it affects the creative imagination, is not a ‘Canadian’ question at all, but a regional question.”  (The Bush Garden, third paragraph).[i]So let us glimpse at French Canada’s first regionalistic novel, Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle (The Ancestral Land). So let us glimpse at French Canada’s first regionalistic novel, Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle (The Ancestral Land).

Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle  (1846)

La Terre paternelle was first published, anonymously, in 1846 in L’Album littéraire et musical de la Revue canadienne, a periodical. In the 19th century, it was not uncommon to serialize a novel. Readers waited for the next issue of the journal.

In 1848, it was also included in James Huston’s (French entry) Répertoire national, a collection of works by French-speaking Canadian authors. But Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle was not published as a book until 1871. It tells the story of Jean Chauvin and his family who live on their ancestral land, near Rivière-des-Prairies.

Summary of the Plot

One day, the younger of Jean Chauvin’s two sons, Charles, meets voyageurs in an inn. He hears them speak of the pays d’en haut, the countries “above,” and decides to seek employment with the Northwest Company as a voyageur. Charles ‘s father is disappointed and in order not to lose his older son, he lets him have the family farm in exchange for a pension or rente “viagère,” or “for life.” Jean Guérin’s oldest son is not interested in farming and Jean must return to his farm five years later.

In the meantime, however, Jean Chauvin, who has enjoyed a leisurely life for a few years, gets tired of farming, sells the farm and buys a business. He is so deprived of business acumen tht he loses everything. The family lives in abject poverty.

Fortunately, the second son returns from the “countries above” and is able to purchase the farm his father sold. So all is well that ends well. However, what we have seen is the Canadien‘s incompetence as a businessman, at a point in history when the Canadien had to leave the farm and move to the city, despite a lack of qualifications. Jean Chauvin’s failure as a businessman is humiliating, even if Lacombe presents cities as corrupt.

—ooo—

I will pause here but will post the continuation of this drama in my next blog. All the artwork featured in this blog is from artist Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté.

RELATED ARTICLES:

  • Canadiana Updated (30 May 2012)
  • Maria Chapdelaine (26 Jan 2012)
  • The Canadien’s Terroir (27 Jan 2012)
 

Sources and Resources

  • Lacombe, Patrice: La Terre paternelle PDF
_________________________
[i]  The Bush Garden Wikipedia Entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bush_Garden:_Essays_on_the_Canadian_Imagination
 

Photo credit: Wikipedia
and
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff

© Micheline Walker
3 June 2012
WordPress
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
0.000000 0.000000

michelinewalker.com

  • Print
  • Email
  • Tweet
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Maria Chapdelaine

26 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Clarence Gagnon artist, colonisation, Curé Labelle colonisation, exode, Louis Hémon author, Maria Chapdelaine, Regionalism, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, three film adaptations

The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon

The Chapdelaine Farm by Clarence Gagnon

Louis Hémon[i]

French author Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) moved to Canada in 1911. By then he had already published several books. As for his Maria Chapdelaine, he wrote it during the winter of 1912-1913, sent his manuscript to France and started travelling west.

Hémon died in a train accident at Chapleau, Ontario. Had he travelled a little further he would have met the descendants of voyageurs, Métis, and aristocrats referred to as “The French Counts.”[ii] They had settled in the Assiniboia region: Count Henri de Soras, the Marquis de Jumilhac, Viscount Joseph de Langle, Count de Beaulincourt and others.

Church at Peribonka by Clarence Gagnon

Historical Background: two choices

  • L’Exode or Exodus

Louis Hémon came to Quebec during a period of its history when there was very little work for French-speaking Canadians inhabiting Quebec and Acadia. This period of Canadian history is called the Exode. Nearly a million French Canadians and Acadians moved to the United States where they could work in factories.

  • The Curé Labelle: colonisation

This could not be the Church’s best choice. One priest, the famed Curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891), was the chief proponent of colonisation. He urged French-Canadians to settle north and “make land,” faire de la terre, faire du pays, as their ancestors had done. This was their mission.

—ooo—

Making Land: Samuel’s Choice

So making land had been Samuel Chapdelaine’s choice. He had taken his family to the Lac-Saint-Jean area where he and his sons were turning inhospitable land into arable soil. I should think Hémon named Samuel Chapdelaine after Samuel de Champlain, whom we could call the founder of New France.

Louis Hémon in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

When Louis Hémon arrived in Canada, 1910, he lived in Montreal. But two years later he travelled north and stopped at Peribonka, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. At first, he worked as a farmhand, helping “settlers,” but, as noted above, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine.

Hémon had sent his manuscript to France but he never savored the success of his novel. It was serialized in France in 1914 and published by J. A. Lefebvre in Quebec in 1916, with black and white illustrations by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. It was an international bestseller. An English translation, by W. H. Blake, was published in 1921.

Maria Chapdelaine

There is summary of Maria Chapdelaine (just click on the title) on the website of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, housed in Kleinburg, a village just north of Toronto. Clarence Gagnon‘s (8 November 1881 – 5 January 1942) 1933 illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine are part of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Napoléon Laliberté by Clarence Gagnon

A Summary of the Plot

However, I will summarize the summary.

Maria is the daughter of a “settler.” She is a little plump, but beautiful. One Sunday, the day on which parishioners get together and chat, Maria meets François Paradis. François is a sort of coureur des bois, voyageur, canoeman, lumberjack: the mythic fearless pioneer.

When François meets Maria, he is attracted to her and tells her that he will stop by her family’s farm before escorting Belgian travelers who are looking for fur. Maria and François fall in love. They will be married when he returns from the logging camp. However, he dies in a blinding snowstorm attempting to visit with Maria on New Year’s Eve.

Eutrope Gagnon and Lorenzo Surprenant: the other suitors

Maria has two other suitors: Eutrope Gagnon, a settler and neighbour, and Lorenzo Surprenant, who has travelled from the United States to find a bride. What Lorenzo has to offer is an easier life: no blackflies, no back-breaking labour, milder weather, nearness to a Church and to stores. She is genuinely tempted to marry him, despite the fact that she is not in love with him. For Maria, love died the day François died.

However, she rejects Lorenzo. She will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a settler, and will live as her mother lived.  When she is making her decision, she hears voices telling her that in Quebec, nothing must die and nothing must change: « Au pays de Québec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer… »

The names are all symbolic:  Paradis for paradise; Surprenant; for surprising or amazing; and Gagnon for winning.

Beaver Coin

My summary of Maria Chapdelaine may have diminished Maria’s suitors. But Hémon makes them very real and anxious to live their lives, which means taking a wife. Although it is a simple novel, finding a more focused, but somewhat stylized, account of life as it was in 1912 would be difficult. This novel is a jewel. 

Film Adaptations

The novel was an instant, international success. In 1934, Julien Duvivier directed a film adaptation of Maria Chapdelaine starring Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin. A second film, entitled Naked Heart, was produced in 1950 by Marc Allégret, starring Michèle Morgan. In 1983, a third adaptation, entitled Maria Chapdelaine, was produced by Quebec filmmaker Gilles Carle, starring Carole Laure.

pu-logo

Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, Male Choir

Maria Chapdelaine can be read online. It is a Gutenberg Project e-book.
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, FR) [EBook #13585]
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, EN) [EBook #4383]
Maria Chapdelaine PDF
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935
First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated in all the major languages
 
____________________
[i] “Louis Hémon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261010/Louis-Hemon>. 
 
[ii] Ruth Humphrys, “Dr Rudolph Meyer and the French Nobility of Assiniboia,” The Beaver (The Hudson’s Bay Company: Outfit 309:1, Summer 1978), pp. 16-23.
 
Johannes Brahms: Drei Intermezzi, Op 117 No 2

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon

The White Horse by Clarence Gagnon

© Micheline Walker
26 January 2012
WordPress
 
revised
13 January 2014

michelinewalker.com

  • Print
  • Email
  • Tweet
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...
Newer posts →

Europa

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,274 other followers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Merciless Fatality
  • Dom Garcie de Navarre, details
  • Molière’s “Dom Garcie de Navarre ou le Prince jaloux”
  • Belaud (2008 – 2019)
  • More Support for Meghan
  • Le Bourgeois gentilhomme: “Je languis…”
  • Meghan. She’s not OK
  • The Princesse d’Élide’s Récit de l’Aurore
  • Lully’s “Dormez, dormez …”
  • Comments on “La Princesse d’Élide”

Archives

Categories

Calendar

December 2019
M T W T F S S
« Nov    
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

  • michelinewalker

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

Powered by WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: