Since 1960, the first-person narrative form has dominated the Quebec novel. As first-person novels often imitate non-fiction forms (autobiographies, diaries, etc.), it follows that this narrative choice would involve a certain degree of self-revelation. We will see though that this is not the case in the "nouveau roman" of Quebec. In fact, the Quebec narrator employs a number of techniques to distance him or herself from the "I" that is the object of the narrative. / In this work, we will attempt to identify some of the main characteristics of this new face of the Quebec novel. We will start with an exploration of two novels from the pre-1960 period: Maria Chapdelaine and Poussiere sur la ville. We will then study the contemporary era through our choice of four of Quebec's most famous novels: Le Libraire, Prochain episode, Kamouraska and L'Hiver de force. We will see that the "nouveau roman" is not as "personal" as its form suggests and that the distance between the narrator and his or her "self" is not only a constant but is also an evolving characteristic of the Quebec novel. / This work is therefore a study of the contemporary Quebec novel and its narrative properties, and of the distance that the narrator imposes between his or her present and past self.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22453 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Stewart, Daniel |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Département de langue et littérature françaises.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001287772, proquestno: MM74652, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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