Academic literature on the topic 'Gabrielle Sieglinde Criticism and interpretation'

This thesis is a comparative analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries du promeneur solitaire and Gabrielle Roy's autobiography (La Detresse et l'Enchantement and Le temps qui m'a manque) and establishes that these two works are testamentary autobiographies, that is, autobiographies written with the awareness of approaching death. We first show that both Rousseau and Roy link their ultimate autobiographical desire to the imminence of their own death. We then show that their autobiographical activity is not only motivated by death, but, moreover, that it allows them in a certain sense to live it already, since what this activity allows them to do is, for them, similar to what they long to do in the afterlife. We suggest, finally, that this activity, which allows them to bequeath an ideal picture of themselves that will survive them, gives them a hold on their immortality.

This thesis studies the works of Gabrielle Roy in an attempt to bring to light both the continuity and the evolution that characterize the novelist's writing. To do so, her works have been divided into four groupings. The first, composed of Bonheur d'occasion, La Petite Poule d'Eau and Alexandre Chenevert, identifies the poles of a paradox around which all of Roy's subsequent novels are articulated: disenchanted realism and idyllic chronicle are bridged, in an ironic mode, through the story of the Montreal bank teller.
The second grouping, also governed by this principle of alternation whereby each book seems to be the contrary of the one that precedes it, examines works of autobiographical inspiration (Rue Deschambault and La Route d'Altamont) and allegorical, almost didactic narratives (La Montagne secrete, La Riviere sans repos).
The novels that form the third grouping no longer oppose each other but rather bear the signs of a reconciliation that will only be realised fully in Roy's autobiography, La Detresse et l'Enchantement. Cet ete qui chantait, Un jardin au bout du monde, Ces enfants de ma vie and De quoi t'ennuies-tu, Eveline? combine work of autobiographical inspiration and third-person narratives, eliminating the barriers between the realistic, ironic and idyllic universes.
To each distinct form chosen by the author correpond a particular voice and a specific style of writing, which, although differing from book to book, nonetheless share common elements: doubt and hesitation, oppositions, questionings and interrogations. These are indicative of a new paradox, lodged in the writing itself, and which reveals itself through the co-presence of opposing perspectives. The different voices and the points of views they express reappear in La Detresse et l'Enchantement and Le temps qui m'a manque, which make up the fourth and final grouping. In her autobiography, Roy integrates these voices in order not to merge them into one, but to allow them to express themselves in a first-person plural narrative.

This thesis offers a critical study of Gabrielle Roy's presence in Jacques Poulin's works. Roy is a character, a reference and an inspiration; her books and her brilliant green eyes enthral Poulin and his protagonists. She is present through intertextual references---the mention of her name, her books, her characters or her quotes---but also, in a more abstract sense, through influence. In order to study the relationship between the two authors, a set of themes common to their literary works are analysed: their North-American identity (americanite), and their ambiguous treatment of sexuality.

This thesis attempts to demonstrate the importance of the "autobiography of childhood" in Gabrielle Roy's first-person narratives through a narratological analysis of the most representative of these texts--the pseudo-autobiographical Rue Deschambault and La Route d'Altamont as well as the autobiographical texts La Detresse et l'Enchantement, "Ma petite rue qui m'a menee autour du monde", "Mes etudes a Saint-Boniface", "Souvenirs du Manitoba" and "Mon heritage du Manitoba". Our purpose is to identify recurrent structures and to interpret the similarities and differences in the light of contemporary theories on the autobiographical genre. This allows us in turn to examine the functioning and meaning of childhood writing in Gabrielle Roy's first-person narratives.

Gabrielle Roy's novels are filled with images of childhood and aging, of family, of rural and urban French-Canadian settings, and of Roy's experiences as a young, impressionable teacher. The generation gaps present themselves in many human relationships and thread themselves throughout Roy's works. For this thesis, the generation gaps will be studied in three important relationships. Part One presents largely the relationships within the microcosm of the family. It explores the gap between mothers and daughters. La Rue Deschambault, La Route d'Altamont, and Bonheur d'Occasion are included. The relationship between the father and child in La Rue Deschambault, Bonheur d'Occasion, and Alexandre Chenevert will then be explored. Important elements of these relationships are: the circle of life, the inevitable resemblances between parent and child, and their reversal of roles as the parent ages. Part Two focuses on bridging the gap between teacher and student in Gabrielle Roy's works. This relationship is studied extensively in both La Petite Poule d'Eau and Ces Enfants de Ma Vie. The teachers in Roy's works represent the link from the family to the outside world, as education empowers students to progress. Part Two also presents the elderly as teachers of the children in their lives. This special relationship is seen in La Route d'Altamont. Part Three studies the relationship between life and nature. Roy's urban novels, Bonheur d'Occasion and Alexandre Chenevert, in which the author draws contrasts between rural and urban life, are explored. The gap between the urban dweller and nature is focused on in Alexandre Chenevert. The bond that links humankind and animals is studied in La Montagne Secrete. There is an important contrast between the inherent need for solitude and humankind's communion. The artist's place within the universe is shown to be unique. In this macro setting of humankind and the universe, all human relation ships take their places within these interwoven, circular patterns.

A thematic and formal analysis of Jean-Aubert Loranger's poetic tale "Le Passeur" [1920], and of Gabrielle Roy's novel La Montagne secrete [1962], shows that the construction of the two heroes' respective identity is directly related to the representation of small and large rivers in the two stories. Considering the generic difference between the two texts, these similarities---which are shaped up in a four steps "organizing scheme"---suggest the existence of a real structure in the construction of the modern identity (quebecoise). La Grande traversee, an historical novel about the massive Irish emigration of 1847, narrates the quest of identity of Seamus Doyle, while following the same four steps of this particular movement.

Les récits autobiographiques modernes se distinguent par leur hétérogénéité non seulement entre eux rnais à l’intérieur de chaque texte. Trois textes, de facture autobiographique équivoque, ont été choisis comme objets de cette étude parce qu’ils illustrent cette hétérogénéité inter/intra-textuelle. La Détresse et l’enchantement, de Gabrielle Roy, représente le récit autobiographique supposérnent conventionnel, garantissant la ‘véracité’ de son discours narratif par un certain pacte de lecture; pourtant ce texte révèle une dimension romanesque. Les Mots pour le dire, par contre, récit à saveur de confidence de Marie Cardinal, est ambivalent dès le départ quant à son statut: ii bascule entre des éléments romancés et les souvenirs vérifiables, “événements vécus”, selon l’auteure. Enfin, Les Samourals, roman à clefs de Julia Kristeva, s’éloigne du récit-mémoires, rnais est lu comme une autobiographie à peine voilée à cause des éléments correspondant à la vie de l’auteure. La juxtaposition de ces trois récits montre que chaque texte se situe à un point mobile sur un spectrum entre deux pôles également impossibles à circonscrire—la fiction ou la ‘vérité’ pure. La fonction plutôt que la structure ou le style du texte importe ici; esthétique dans le cas de Roy, thérapeutique chez Cardinal et critique pour Kristeva. L’autobiographie romancée, genre hybride ou “métissé”, est privilégiée par ces écrivaines, toutes les trois déplacées géographiquement et linguistiquement, ayant vécu un “métissage” culturel. Le déplacement, associé à l’étrangeté, intervient dans le récit et dans la narration pour engendrer un rnouvement discursif où la différence entre le même et l’autre, entre l’ici et l’ailleurs, étoffe la structure du texte. Les trois écrivaines choisissent d’écrire en français, mais se considèrent étrangères à la France. Pour ces femmes, leur ‘féminité’ (aussi bien que leur exil) entre en jeu dans leur projet autobiographique, cette double altérité se prolongeant dans l’aliénation du moi/elle que produit la dimension fictive du récit. L’analyse de ces trois récits montrera d’abord comment la fiction s’immisce nécessairement dans le discours du ‘moi’ dédoublé et finit par imposer une texture/un métissage inhérent et essentiel à sa facture. Par ailleurs, l’altérité, envisagée sous le jour de l’étrangeté des autres et de soi—même, prend une importance capitale dans le projet identitaire de ces auteures expatriées. Enfin, l’écriture de ces trois femrnes conscientes de leur féminité s’avère aussi individuelle que celle des autobiographes masculins. Les trois parlent de leur rapport à la mère/la maternité, mais leurs récits révélent des divergences marquées par leur milieu, leur contexte socio—historique et leur relation à la psychanalyse. Le passé qu’elles évoquent est simple, imparfait ou composé, selon la fonction gui prime dans le texte. Ce que les trois auteures partagent, cest un désir de se raconter et une foi dans le texte écrit comme moyen d’atteindre l’autre à travers soi—même et soi—même à travers l’autre.

On January 8th, 2011 tragedy struck in Tucson, Arizona. A gunman opened fire on Representative Gabrielle Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event, wounding thirteen and killing six ("Arizona Shooting"). Four days later, President Obama spoke to a grieving crowd at the University of Arizona's McKale Memorial Center. This study seeks to demonstrate how the dramatistic process and the pentad provide insight into how Obama guides the nation through the process of relieving the guilt. Specifically, Obama's call for mortification instead of scapegoating as the means for victimage is examined in light of the context and organizational structure of the speech. In addition, a pentadic analysis of the speech is conducted, showing Obama's stress on the agent-agency ratio and a corresponding idealist-pragmatist outlook. Finally, conclusions are drawn about what this study adds to the academic literature on national eulogies, the presidency, and rhetorical studies at large.
Graduation date: 2012

This study analyzes the experience of alienation from family and culture as portrayed in the personal narratives of francophone women. The authors appearing in this study are Assia Djebar and Marie Cardinal, from Algeria, Mariama Bâ and Ken Bugul, from Senegal, Marguerite Duras and Kim Lefèvre, from Vietnam, Calixthe Beyala, from Cameroon, Gabrielle Roy, from Canada, and Maryse Condé, from Guadeloupe. Alienation is deconstructed into the domains of blood, money, land, religion, education and history. The authors’ experiences of alienation in each domain are classified according to severity and cultural normativity. The study seeks to determine the manner in which alienation manifests in each domain, and to identify factors which aid or hinder recovery. Alienation in the domain of blood occurs as a result of warfare, illness, racism, ancestral trauma, and the rites of passage of menarche, loss of virginity, and menopause. Money-related alienation is linked to endemic classism, often caused by colonial influence. The authors experienced varying degrees of economic vulnerability to men, depending upon cultural and familial norms. Colonialism, warfare and environmental depending upon cultural and familial norms. Colonialism, warfare and environmental degradation all contribute to alienation in the domain of land. Women were found to be more susceptible to alienation in the domain of religion due to patriarchal religious constructs. In the domain of education, it was found that some alienation is inevitable for all students. Despite its inherent drawbacks, education provides tools for empowerment which are crucial for overcoming alienation. Alienation in the domain of history was found to hinder recovery due to infiltration of past trauma into the present, while empowerment in this domain fosters optimism and future-oriented thinking. Each domain offers opportunities for empowerment, and it is necessary to work within the domains to create a safe haven for recovery. Eight of the nine authors experienced at least a partial recovery from alienation. This was accomplished via cathartic release of negative emotions. Catharsis is achieved by shedding tears, talking, or writing about the negative experiences. The personal narrative was found to be especially helpful in promoting healing both for the author and the reading audience.
Classics and World Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (French)