[HONOURS] Conclusion (finally!)
Mar. 15th, 2003 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldE. Conclusion
In the final analysis, Thirty Acres, Barometer Rising, and Surfacing all demonstrate the failure of Canada’s internal periphery–the semiperipheral and peripheral human islands of eastern Canada–to break away decisively from central Canada and a broader North American modernity, both of which are often exploitative but always attractive to some degree. In these three novels, the inability of relatively marginal societies to stand up to a more urbanized and cosmopolitan central area, a more materially productive and politically influential core, is painfully demonstrated. In Barometer Rising, a Nova Scotia marked by intense internal regionalism and an ambivalent attachment to the idea of being a self-consciously Canadian territory is eventually assimilated into a consolidated whole; in Thirty Acres, a French Canadian peasant society, organized on principles explicitly antithetical to those of the central Canadian core and led by individuals who planned to challenge the whole idea of modernity, ends by being assimilated to the margins of the North American economy; even in Surfacing, a messianic prophet who realizes the immorality and degradation inherent in the city returns, knowing that only in the city can she convey her epiphany. Canada’s semiperipheral and peripheral societies and regions are just as unable to resist the lure of a dynamic central Canadian core as Canada, in the formulation of Canadian nationalists, is unable to resist the promise of a dynamic and prosperous United States. If Canada is–as some critics would have it–practically a dependency of the United States, then it is a colony that fractally incorporates a large number of internal dependencies in a political and economic hierarchy strongly reflected in the cultural field.
The parallels between the resistance to ideals of North American modernity in these outlying regions of Canada and the general resistance often identified in Canada are striking. In literary studies and elsewhere, both Canadian regionalists and Canadian nationalists have criticized the ways in which modernity has corroded primordial identities dating as far back as the period of settlement. The rural French Canada and the fragmented Nova Scotia that declined in the course of Thirty Acres and Barometer Rising respectively are societies which had existed, in one form or another, since at least the early nineteenth century; their declines coincided with their fuller incorporation into broader Canadian and North American contexts. By the time of Surfacing later in the twentieth century, this marginalization of the periphery has spread, touching areas such as the Canadian Shield which never had the chance to develop distinctive local cultures like rural French Canada and fragmented Nova Scotia; the residents of Canada’s northern frontier in Surfacing have begun and remained as colonials, beginning as an outpost commuynity and subsisting as an inherently limited community incapable of further growth. Harris’ Canadian archipelago might finally have been united–leaving aside the spectre of Québécois separatism present in parts of Surfacing–but in such a way as to allow for little diversity on the parts of semiperipheral and peripheral cultures.
The realization that Canada’s outlying regions and societies have been marginalized in much the same way–indeed, perhaps more thoroughly given the fact of Canadian political unity–as Canada has supposedly been relative to the United States, and that this marginalization is strongly manifested in the literary field, has numerous consequences. Traditionally, Canada has been considered less an actor itself than a society acted upon; the idea that Canada itself might be a subimperial power is relatively novel and is usually limited only to considering subaltern groups (women, racial and ethnic minorities, the working classes). The idea that Canada might possess its own internal organization, its own subimperial structure based upon the economic and cultural domination of outlying areas within Canada by a core region concentrated in central Canada, has less often been considered. Canada, in this light, is a society that has agency directed toward itself.
More interestingly, the willingness–or at least resignation–with which the characters in these three novels embrace the influence of the core and reject their native peripheral cultures to varying degrees in Thirty Acres, Barometer Rising, and even Surfacing has implications for the study of Canadian literature. Canadians, in fact, may not be passive victims who are Americanized against their will, but instead, they might actively accept American influence as a more exciting and entertaining alternative to their own stultifying ways. Proponents of a distinct Candian identity (in literature and elsewhere) might not be adovcating a viable alternative, instead (like the clerical-nationalist elite in the French Canada of Thirty Acres, Geoffrey Wain in Barometer Rising, and Joe and David in Surfacing) simply favouring a reactionary non-response to a modernity that happens to be represented most strongly in North America by Canada’s traditional foil.
In the final analysis, Thirty Acres, Barometer Rising, and Surfacing all demonstrate the failure of Canada’s internal periphery–the semiperipheral and peripheral human islands of eastern Canada–to break away decisively from central Canada and a broader North American modernity, both of which are often exploitative but always attractive to some degree. In these three novels, the inability of relatively marginal societies to stand up to a more urbanized and cosmopolitan central area, a more materially productive and politically influential core, is painfully demonstrated. In Barometer Rising, a Nova Scotia marked by intense internal regionalism and an ambivalent attachment to the idea of being a self-consciously Canadian territory is eventually assimilated into a consolidated whole; in Thirty Acres, a French Canadian peasant society, organized on principles explicitly antithetical to those of the central Canadian core and led by individuals who planned to challenge the whole idea of modernity, ends by being assimilated to the margins of the North American economy; even in Surfacing, a messianic prophet who realizes the immorality and degradation inherent in the city returns, knowing that only in the city can she convey her epiphany. Canada’s semiperipheral and peripheral societies and regions are just as unable to resist the lure of a dynamic central Canadian core as Canada, in the formulation of Canadian nationalists, is unable to resist the promise of a dynamic and prosperous United States. If Canada is–as some critics would have it–practically a dependency of the United States, then it is a colony that fractally incorporates a large number of internal dependencies in a political and economic hierarchy strongly reflected in the cultural field.
The parallels between the resistance to ideals of North American modernity in these outlying regions of Canada and the general resistance often identified in Canada are striking. In literary studies and elsewhere, both Canadian regionalists and Canadian nationalists have criticized the ways in which modernity has corroded primordial identities dating as far back as the period of settlement. The rural French Canada and the fragmented Nova Scotia that declined in the course of Thirty Acres and Barometer Rising respectively are societies which had existed, in one form or another, since at least the early nineteenth century; their declines coincided with their fuller incorporation into broader Canadian and North American contexts. By the time of Surfacing later in the twentieth century, this marginalization of the periphery has spread, touching areas such as the Canadian Shield which never had the chance to develop distinctive local cultures like rural French Canada and fragmented Nova Scotia; the residents of Canada’s northern frontier in Surfacing have begun and remained as colonials, beginning as an outpost commuynity and subsisting as an inherently limited community incapable of further growth. Harris’ Canadian archipelago might finally have been united–leaving aside the spectre of Québécois separatism present in parts of Surfacing–but in such a way as to allow for little diversity on the parts of semiperipheral and peripheral cultures.
The realization that Canada’s outlying regions and societies have been marginalized in much the same way–indeed, perhaps more thoroughly given the fact of Canadian political unity–as Canada has supposedly been relative to the United States, and that this marginalization is strongly manifested in the literary field, has numerous consequences. Traditionally, Canada has been considered less an actor itself than a society acted upon; the idea that Canada itself might be a subimperial power is relatively novel and is usually limited only to considering subaltern groups (women, racial and ethnic minorities, the working classes). The idea that Canada might possess its own internal organization, its own subimperial structure based upon the economic and cultural domination of outlying areas within Canada by a core region concentrated in central Canada, has less often been considered. Canada, in this light, is a society that has agency directed toward itself.
More interestingly, the willingness–or at least resignation–with which the characters in these three novels embrace the influence of the core and reject their native peripheral cultures to varying degrees in Thirty Acres, Barometer Rising, and even Surfacing has implications for the study of Canadian literature. Canadians, in fact, may not be passive victims who are Americanized against their will, but instead, they might actively accept American influence as a more exciting and entertaining alternative to their own stultifying ways. Proponents of a distinct Candian identity (in literature and elsewhere) might not be adovcating a viable alternative, instead (like the clerical-nationalist elite in the French Canada of Thirty Acres, Geoffrey Wain in Barometer Rising, and Joe and David in Surfacing) simply favouring a reactionary non-response to a modernity that happens to be represented most strongly in North America by Canada’s traditional foil.
