Open Collections

Forme romanesque et contestation de l’histoire dans La fille de Christophe Colomb de Réjean Ducharme

University of British Columbia

La Fille de Christophe Colomb (Paris: Gallirnard, 1969) is a novel written by Rejean Ducharme in rhyming verse resembling an epic poem In this thesis, it will be shown that the form of the novel serves to emphasize the contestation of History evident in the novel's content. While this novel is certainly unusual in Ducharme's work it fits into the ambiant literary discourse of Quebec in the 1960's, where the theories of decolonisation influenced writers and critics alike. In particular, History was seen to be imposed on Quebec from the outside; Quebec must necessarily reject this History and begin to make its own. This underlying assumption for the analysis proposed in this thesis will be demonstrated in Chapter One through reflections by Ducharme's contemporaries, existing criticism of La Fille de' Christophe Colomb, and by current theories of postcolonial writing. In Chapter Two, the epic form of the novel will be studied in detail. On the surface, the author appears to respect the "rules" of the genre, but a close reading of the text will show that this respect is only superficial, and that the rules are subverted to create tension between literary norms and Ducharme's writing. It is the narrative structure of the novel, however, that proves to be the most subversive deviation from the norms of the epic poem: although the majority of the novel is narrated in the third person, a substantial fragmentation of the narrative voice occurs which will be demonstrated in Chapter Three. The net impact of this fragmentation is to produce a conflict between the codes of the epic poem and the novel. At the end of the analysis of the relationship between literary form and contestation of History in La Fille de Christophe Colomb, it will be shown that the form, as an element separate from the content, conveys a problematic relationship between this text and History. The novel contributes to the contestation of History as practised in the literature of Quebec in the 1960's by subverting the literary code, thereby linking literary history to History as colonizing factors that are questioned in this novel.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-01-16

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/3699

French

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace