Although several critics since the nineteenth century have written about the variety of interpretations of the native Indian in English-Canadian literature, no one has yet devoted a full-length study to the way the Indian is depicted in fiction alone. This dissertation thus examines a large cross-section of adult long fiction and investigates the degree to which the modes of romance and realism and the genres of romance and novel have informed these depictions.<p> The dissertation is organized according to four major topics: love, religion, fighting, and community life. Each of these is divided into appropriate sub-topics, organized along roughly chronological lines. The chapter about love is the longest and focuses on fiction in which a white person and an Indian marry or have a love relationship, either potential or consummated. The chapter about religion focuses on fiction about the various kinds of relationships between native religions and Christianity. The chapter about fighting analyzes fiction about inter-tribal fighting, fighting along the frontier, and fighting between modern Indians and white authority. The chapter on community life focuses on fiction describing daily Indian life, from the pre-contact community to the contemporary reserve.<p> Several conclusions emerge. First, the basic attitude to Indians reflects prevailing social attitudes. Second, the choice and use of genre are influenced to a significant degree by literary fashion. But more specific conclusions also emerge. Most importantly, romance is the dominant genre and romantic conventions of primitivism pervade almost all serious fiction on the subject, from variations on the Pastoral and Noble Savage conventions to a recent development approaching fertility myth. Instances of the realistic-novel as such are relatively rare, but realism of a documentary sort is frequent in romances which focus on social issues and is present for verisimilitude or ornamentation in many other romances. Finally,the best romances tend to have a sound basis in observable fact, just as the good novels have the subjective psychological dimension provided by romantic convention.

This is the first scholarly study on the poetry of Saskatchewan writer John V. Hicks, and focuses on the themes of music and spirituality.

This is the first scholarly study on the poetry of Saskatchewan writer John V. Hicks, and focuses on the themes of music and spirituality.

Although several critics since the nineteenth century have written about the variety of interpretations of the native Indian in English-Canadian literature, no one has yet devoted a full-length study to the way the Indian is depicted in fiction alone. This dissertation thus examines a large cross-section of adult long fiction and investigates the degree to which the modes of romance and realism and the genres of romance and novel have informed these depictions.<p> The dissertation is organized according to four major topics: love, religion, fighting, and community life. Each of these is divided into appropriate sub-topics, organized along roughly chronological lines. The chapter about love is the longest and focuses on fiction in which a white person and an Indian marry or have a love relationship, either potential or consummated. The chapter about religion focuses on fiction about the various kinds of relationships between native religions and Christianity. The chapter about fighting analyzes fiction about inter-tribal fighting, fighting along the frontier, and fighting between modern Indians and white authority. The chapter on community life focuses on fiction describing daily Indian life, from the pre-contact community to the contemporary reserve.<p> Several conclusions emerge. First, the basic attitude to Indians reflects prevailing social attitudes. Second, the choice and use of genre are influenced to a significant degree by literary fashion. But more specific conclusions also emerge. Most importantly, romance is the dominant genre and romantic conventions of primitivism pervade almost all serious fiction on the subject, from variations on the Pastoral and Noble Savage conventions to a recent development approaching fertility myth. Instances of the realistic-novel as such are relatively rare, but realism of a documentary sort is frequent in romances which focus on social issues and is present for verisimilitude or ornamentation in many other romances. Finally,the best romances tend to have a sound basis in observable fact, just as the good novels have the subjective psychological dimension provided by romantic convention.

Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (Dept. of French) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Project (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Project (Dept. of History) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University

<p> I argue that Margaret Atwood&rsquo;s work in <i>MaddAddam</i> is about survival; it is about moving beyond preconceived, thoughtless ideology of any form with creative kinship. Cooperation and engagement cannot be planned in advance, and must take the form of something more than pre-established ideology. I will discuss <i>MaddAddam</i> in light of Donna Haraway&rsquo;s recent work in which she argues that multispecies acknowledgement and collaboration are essential if humans are to survive and thrive in the coming centuries. By bringing the two texts into dialogue, one sees that Atwood&rsquo;s novel constitutes the kind of story deemed necessary by Haraway for making kin in the Chthulucene. Various scenes depicting cooperation and interdependence among humans and other animals offer chthonic models of kinship; these relationships, as opposed to ideological and anthropocentric isolation, will serve as the means of surviving and thriving within an ongoing apocalypse.</p><p>

More than poetry and theatre which were traditionally designed for public presentation, the novel is meant for private consumption by a solitary reader. It is also concerned with the stuff of private life, taking the reader to intimate settings, behind closed doors where unclothed or partially clothed bodies are revealed. The novel exposes the privileged space of the boudoir, the deathbed, the bath and the toilet, where scenes of passion, physical suffering, birth and death are played out. Quebec literature, and the novel, in particular, present an interesting site for a corporeally based study because of patriotic and religious roots of this literature. Is the body a taboo subject? When does it emerge as a central concern? It would seem logical to assume that the development of realism would bring with it an increased concern for the body. Indeed, if we look at the writings of nineteenth century early Quebec literature through the post-Quiet Revolution writings of Michel Tremblay, one might argue for a kind of literary striptease across two centuries in which more and more of the body is exposed as yet another layer of inhibitions is lifted. This is not to suggest that the aim of any national literature is titillation, but that a discussion of the body has at its core the ultimate question of identity. Beginning with Angeline de Montbrun (1881), which contains at its dramatic core the staging of a vital corporeal scene, I will demonstrate how Marie Calumet (1904), Bonheur d'occasion (1945), Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel (1965) and La Grosse femme d'a cote est enceinte (1978) depict different moments in the constitution of the body in its movement from object to subject. The variety of approaches I adopt for getting at the body, through discussions of food, clothing, sickness and pregnancy, speak to the body's amazing mutability and its particular usefulness as a means for understanding the novel of French Canada and Quebec.