Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
DOUBLE
TCA L n I
ESSAYS ON VERBAL
AND VISUAL IRONIES
IN CANADIAN
CONTEMPORA RY ART
AN D LITERATURE
EDITED BY
LINDA HUTCHEON
PUBLISHED BY
ECWV PRESS
DOUBLE
TCALHING
CANADIAN CATALOGUING, IN
Main entry
under
Double
Includes bibliographical
ISBN
r.
3 . Canadian
Irony
in
literature
PUBLICATION
title:
talking
references
i -55022-
literature.
DATA
and
index.
i39-6
2.
Irony
in
art.
and
(English) - History
criticism.
C810.9 18
C91-095013-x
1980 Queen
M4L
IJ2
TABLE OFCONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
*APPENDIX I - 'Speaking Canadian': The Ironies of Canadian
Art and Literature
*APPENDIX 2 - The Core Concepts of Irony: The 'Received
Wisdom
.
.
.
.
Linda Hutcheon
1
jamie Dopp
2
POSTMODERNISM
39
Ironies of Memory
Mark
A. Cheetham .
3
DOUBLE
54
Ironic Reading
Manina
jones
4
I06
15
Karen Smythe
6
74
I 34
I45
IRONIES OF COLOUR
I58
10 BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN:
Ironic Voice and the Politics of Location in Timothy Findley's
Famous Last Words
Richard Dellamora
.
.
12
Works Cited
2or
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
P RE FAC E
This book owes its existence to the Robarts Centre for Canadian
Studies at York University. In I9g 8 8-89, this research facility offered
the context in which several colloquia and a regular faculty/graduate student seminar took place around the topic of irony in Canadian
art and culture. For its hospitality, its intellectually stimulating
environment, and its gracious "enabling" assistance, I should like to
offer our collective gratitude. Special thanks goes to Sharon Harrison for her assistance with preparing the initial manuscript and to
Susan Houston, then director of the Centre.
We should also like to extend our thanks to the editors and
editorial staff of ECW PRESs,
INTRODUCTION
LINDA HUTCHEON
...
ARE
...
WE
...
..
LIVING
***
through
***
an
***
Universityof
Toronto
12
INTRODUCTION
Jameson;
just
of
LINDA HUTCHEON
13
14
INTRODUCTION
LINDA
HUTCHEON
15
premodernist
I6
lNTRODUCTION
pleasure of
LINDA
HUTCHEON
17
or acsthetic. But we should always keep in mind that to have fun with
something is not necessarily to trivialize it; the serious and the
solemn are not synonymous.
Since the examples in the other essays here are from literature
and the visual arts in Canada, I would like to discuss this deconstructively constructive kind of irony in a few examples from other
art forms, in order both to broaden the scope of the collection as a
whole and to combat any inferred suggestion that the role of ironies
discussed in it are limited to the literary and the visual. Despite all
the fine work done on the theory of "dramatic irony" (see Bolen;
Sedgewick; Sharpe; States; T[hirwall].; Thompson), actual performance - both theatrical and musical - is still a much neglected
area in irony studies, but potentially a rich one, in Canada as
elsewhere. For example, television and video have made possible
such provocative
sing
(to atonal music): "slap shot,"> "body check," "ten seconds to go,"
"Lover the blue line" and so on, building up to the final crescendo of
"He scores! . .. Great shot!" Weinzweig believes that "music has
national roots"> and that, through the medium of video/television,
he can bring together, with provocative but constructive ironic
incongruities, Canada's favourite sport and atonal modern music for
voice in such a way as to resist our received notions of both "high"
art and popular entertainment and sport.
no oxymoron intended. So too was
This is serious fun -
18
INTRODUCTION
reworking
effectively
even
Hugo's
to
irony
musical
of
into
black
mark
and
however,
made
so
description
to
skin
is
the
cause
of
made
of
underline
"<the
of
the
the
modern
social
anger.
opera's
appears
similarities.
toadies"
parallel
The
present-day
But
the
here
as
characters.
both
transformed
rock
an
ironic
and
Afro-American:
both
the
differences
physical
all
courtiers
is
The
roll
'n
hunchbacked
of
this
using
in
is
Rigoletto,
Mantuan
but
ways,
sixteenth-century
equivalent
These
libretto,
differences,
Duke,
manager.
opera
the
brainless
of
his
the
jester
its
speak,
becomes
to
into
with
years.
musical
Piave's
complex
the
as
well
in
that
of
This
music,
Roi s'amuise)
over
court,
jester-figure
bitter
(Le
as
terms,
Mantua's
Rigoletto
star;
his
social
Verdi's
similarities
the
up
point
"court,"
the
play
original
and
Duke
deconstructs
Rich-
Brian
version
RiSoletto.
opera
nineteenth-century
Italian
canonical
parodic
Taylor's
Deanne
and
of
production
I989
Muraille's
Horsburgh,
Don
mond,
and
Passe
Theatre
Toronto's
not
modern
an
work,
may
be
inaccurate
plot
does
take certain liberties with the original text(s). For example, it makes
the female figures more active and independent, as may well befit
our times. But the essential emotional dynamics of lust, envy, anger,
revenge, and pain remain the same, in spite of the many changes of
detail. The most radical and ironic of these changes is the musical
one. The frequently heard claim that the emotional power of Verdi's
opera - or any opera - lies in the music alone gets ironized by
the complex transcodings of this reworked version of it. The Duke's
music is all rock, and when he sings, a drummer plays, suspended
above the stage, signaling his position as a central member of any
rock band. The black Rigoletto sings the blues - literally. Only
Gilda, the closest thing to a female protagonist, sings the Verdian
operatic score. And only Gilda sings without a microphone: the
others ostentatiously pick one up and walk with it, as they sing,
leaving stage hands to run around, equally ostentatiously untangling
LNDA
HUTCHEON
19
cords. This deliberate stage(d) awkwardness foregrounds the conventions of popular rock and blues music performances, but it also
implicitly unmasks the "naturalized" conventions of grand opera: it
may use no (visible) microphones but that does not mean that opera
is any less an artifice, any less an un-"natural" dramatic representation.
Another example of the unmasking of convention through irony
would be the I 990 performance by the Esprit Orchestra in Toronto
of John Beckwith's piece, Peregrine. In this work, Beckwith plays
ironically with our (often unnoticed) expectations about how
positioned
spatially - and where they usually stay put. His title gives a hint of
the major site of this ironic play: the peregrine or wandering pilgrim
here turns out to be the viola soloist. Before the piece begins, the
orchestras behave on stage, about where players are
20
INTRODUCTION
and
LNDA
HUTCHEON
21
of them that follow in this collection, though many of both are more
overtly political in their contestations than are any of my examples
here. There is, however, a common set of concerns and a common
vocabulary of termin ology and allusion that unites these discussions.
In an attempt to combat the customary diffuseness of essay collections, all were written in response to a short statement entitled
"' 'Speaking Canadian': The Ironies of Canadian Art and Literature "
(reprinted here as Appendix I of the introduction) which I offered
simply as a starting point for this volume's investigation of the study
of irony in contemporary Canadian art and literature. Instead of
incorporating the general ideas of that piece into the body of this
introduction, I have chosen to leave it in the form of a separate
statement at the end, largely because several of the articles cite it
and its separate printing should make for more ease of reference.
For the readers' interest, I have also reproduced (Appendix 2) the
general terminological "guidelines" - actually simply an overview
that each author
of the "received wisdom" on the topic of irony
for
some
of the shared
documents
account
a
base.
These
two
used as
linguistic and theoretical contexts that unite these articles.
Jamie Dopp's opening volley, " Who Says Canadian Culture Is
Ironic?", is a fittingly self-questioning way to begin a collection on
this topic. In his essay, Dopp examines the underlying assumptions
of the very
22
lNTRODUCTION
can
Janice
media pieces by
Gurney, and a number of photographs by
Stan Denniston. In the analyses of these works, Cheetham addresses
that historical issue raised by Umberto Eco - the role of irony in
memory, in the recovery of the past in art today. The particular past
invoked here is not simply the aesthetic one (of modernism or
figuration or abstraction), it includes memories that are at once
social and political.
Cheetham's focus on the parodic work of art and on the artistic
LINDA
HUTCHEON
23
Jones's
investigation of the
24
INTRODUCTION
LiNDA HUTCHEON
25
generic question -
gothic
given the
26
INTRODUCTION
new questions about both the power and limits of irony as a tactical
weapon deployed by and from the margins. However - and this is
the provocative focus of Waring's study - it also questions the
validity (and the politics) of even wanting to circumscribe the
variety of such responses under the heading of irony.
Related issues are brought to the fore in Arun Mukherjee's
"Ironies of Colour in the Great White North: The Discursive
Strategies of Some Hyphenated Canadians." This essay expands
outward from its own ironic title to a study of the role of irony in
the articulation of racial difference in Canadian literature. In opposition to both universalizing humanist notions of "man" and official
multicultural definitions of Canada's paradoxical "unity," Mukherjee
presents the ironic, critical voices of non-white Canadian writers
such as Himani Bannerji, Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta, Dionne
Brand, Claire Harris, Joy KogawNa, Marlene Philip, and Maria Campbell, all the while foregrounding her own ironic - and often bitter
- experiences as a non-white woman working in a white, Eurocentric political and academic context.
Obviously, however, it is not only women or non-whites who
have turned to irony as a way of speaking to a culture, from within
LINDA
HUTCHEON
27
its values, without being utterly co-opted by it. Many other groups
within Canadian society have felt marginalized in some way and have
also used irony as one possible discursive
opposition. Richard Dellamora's "Becoming-Homosexual /Becoming Canadian: Ironic Voice and the Politics of Location in Timothy
Findley's Famous Last Words" addresses
two of these groups and their
complex interrclations and problematizes, in so doing, the veryi
concepts of place and ethnicity in Canada. Traditionally those Canadians ofBritish background have rarely been designated as " ethnic,"
since it is the associations of foreign-ness and otherness that usually
come into play in the usage of that word. British roots are, if
anything, the colonial norm against which ethnicity has been defined
as difference. It is against this norm and its normality that this essay
positions a new and perhaps unexpected articulation of homosexual
aesthetic discourse, one that speaks with the forked tongue of a
(silently negating) irony, addressing both all Canadians and gay
readers too. Dellamora's analysis of Findley's historical novel,
Famouls Last Words, raises a number of interconnected questions
concerning national, ethnic, aesthetic, and sexual politics.
The many and complex functions of irony within contemporary
Canadian art and literature are by no means exhausted by the
analyses of these ten essays. But this is a start. Whether we want to
talk about postmodernism or not, there seems little doubt that irony
is very much in the air today, and not only in Spy magazine (which,
I am told, is run by expatriate Canadians). It is not that irony is
suddenly back in fashion; it never went out of style. It has simply
been retooled or "refunctioned" as a rhetorical and structural
strategy, particularly useful for marginalized artists who want to
speak to what they see as the centre, who want to be listened to as
well as merely heard. Irony is by no means the only weapon in their
formidable arsenal, but it seems to be a significant one. Without
28
having
lNTRODUCTION
or
(Smythe)
Vis-a-vis
the
of
a paradigm
universe
to
irony
elevate
to
criticism
and
temporary
Canadian
it
(Kierkegaard),
mode
provocative
important
(Lang)
art
and
literature.
of
is
poetics
contemporary
of
keystone
or
still
double-talking
stance
a philosophical
possible
to
in
see
much
it
as
con-
an
LNDA
HUTCHEON
29
APPEN DIX
"SPEAKING CANADIAN":
THE IRONIES
OF CANADIAN
maybe? Would you settle for Norman Bethune, John A. and J.S.
Woodsworth?" (D6). The verbal markers of irony here - the
repeated "you want" and the understatement of "would you settle
for . .. ?" - make what might be taken for straight nationalistic
defense into something else too: an implied attack on the very need
to ask what "being Canadian" might mean. Irony of this kind is
clearly not the evasive expression of fence-sitting: it involves taking
30
lNTRODUCTION
LINDA
"~whence
(97).
IronY
opens
up
where
new
things
ings,
Irony
has
become
of
configurations
novel
space
new
spaces,
can
one
of
literally
and
ideas
between
31
HUTCHEON
relations
opposing
may
arise"
mean-
happen.
the
major
strategic
rhetorical
practices
32
INTRODUCTION
APPENDIX 2
THE CORE CONCEPTS OF IRONY:
THE "RECEIVED WISDOM"
simulated ignorance]
. YERAlL IRONY
LINDA
praise
of
Inter-
New
Third
(Webster's
meant"
is
blame
where
used
are
33
expressions
when
as
. ..
sarcasm
light
or
ridicule,
"humor,
e.g.
HUTCHEON
national)
can
be
no
fixed
(intended,
STABLE
COVeTt, fiXed,
standpoint
which
is
not
finite)
or
undercut
uNSTABLE
by
further
(with
ironies)
(Booth)
to
*related
for
as
nal
related
(T.S.
to
to
use
sustained
narrator)
doubled
of
the
is
(Cleanth
incongruities"
as
Richards);
"inter-
of
irony
of
question
what
"way
the
of
writing
meaning
literal
of
deferment
perpetual
as
significance"
I).
to
making
Socratic
enticing
their
of
by
in
order
meaning
(Abrams
privileged
those
or
hero
90).
audience
involved
opponent
Socrates's
to
into
them
errors
to
an
perceived
Irony
learn)
to
generalized
of
nave
only;
(from
root
only
meaning
dissimulation).
or
by
duplicity
by
(e.g.,
feature
structural
is perceived
pretence
others
tage
is
meaning
related
some
produce
meaning
willingness
of
to
overt
term
STRUlCTURAL IRONY
2.
general
most
(I.A.
sense
open
of
"our
Eliot)
there
Irony
(Muecke,
leave
signify:
as
irony
oppositions
postmodernism's
designed
might
of
equilibrium
equilibrium"
of
recognition
that
indicating
Brooks);
use
Criticism's
New
(by
in
debate"
(Holman
ignorance
(and
or
knowledge
supposed
adroit
for
ignorance
"assuming
of
provoke
or
of
a display
conspicuous
pose
confound
confute
and
questioning).
the
502).
sake
of
taking
advan-
34
INTRODUCTION
3. SITUlATIONAL IRONY
- a state of affairs in which events or circumstances, desirable in
themselves, are either perversely ill-timed or turn out in a contradictorymanner to what might be expected.
* as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things (OED).
* related to Irony of Fate -
LINDA
in
407),
(P>rinceton
philosophy
German
nineteenth-century
early
and
eighteenth-
late
its
(absolute/rela-
polarities
post-Kantian
of
subjective/objective)
tive,
of
emblematic
therefore
and
taneously
35
HUTCHEON
to
phrase
33).
(Holman
paradox
ambiguity:
"~the
feelings"
Smetaphor:
"a
allegory:
contrived
level
of
pun:
of
agents,
play
to
on
words
which
an
or
complexity,
or
images,
ideas,
other
more
image,
idea,
of
breadth
490).
in
make
the
which
coherent
and
also
and
events"
signification,
concepts,
or
one
vividness,
in
narrative
both
of
enhanced
in
relation
presence
(P)rinceton
implication"
verbal
the
be
symbols,
8).
condensed
by
may,
more
attitudes
diverse
more
or
two
express
to
or
or
two
signify
to
expression
or
a word
of
(Abrams
"a
symbol
or
use
references,
distinct
or
significance>>
real
its
to
opposite
exactly
idea
an
convey
or
a word
of
use
humorous
or
satirical
"the
contrast:
or
antiphrasis
STRUCTUR~E
OF
SIMILAIUTIES
A)
that
different in meaning.
are
sense
to
on
'literal'
a second,
signify
or
or
..
are
primary
order
correlated
4).
(Abrams
(more
the
action
and
agents
less)
identical
in
sound
but
36
INTRODUCTiON
* lie
hoax
(Abrams 9 I); "a form of verbal neoNY, in which, under the guise
of praise a caustic and bitter expression of strong and personal
disapproval is given. Sarcasm is personal, jeering, intended to hurt,
and is intended as a sneering taunt" (Holman 472).
* innuendo: insinuation or indirect suggestion, usually with harmful
intent.
* charientism:joke
* chleulasm: mockery
* mycterism: sneer
* wit: quickness of intellect and
LNDA
HUTCHEON
by ironic inversion;
37
repetition
in order to inten-
38
INTRODUCTION
juxtapositioning
****
University of Victoria
* * *** *** * *
40
WHO
CULTURE
iS
IRONIC?
"internal
continuity,"
of
attitude
imitated
the
English
have
usually
span,
and
described
"a
"never
defined
Bailey.
as
life,"
no
its
limited
and
vital
Frye's
Canada
in
this
has
per
cent
be
lack
of
the
illustrated
the
menthe
between
by
of
"gar-
Canadian
difference
contrasting
the
became
"Washington
capitals.
47).
This
of
the
has
Canadian";
formulation
Frye,
largely
Canada
way"> (Divisions
"hundred
feature
can
which
advance,"
famous
respective
complex
self-confidence.
determining
their
a revolutionary
inferiority
linear
certain
For
of
States,
society
to
the
and
behind
rationales
which
form
lack
cultural
and
of
"Conclusion").
States
heights:
out
to
Canada's
United
a unified
central
mentality">
Uniited
as
lack
is
(see
same
living
each
others
the
the
way
self-confidence
of
progressive
"Canadian
Canadians
tality
effect
Unlike
of
result
rison
sac,
with
perpetuate
itself
is no
a
the
to
sense
enjoyed
There
Frye,
been
by
de
the
developments
prompted
culs
have
artists
to
in
(184).
to
has
be
rise
has
which
Country"
to
together
flow
to
stream"
tradition
failed
"an
maintained
English-Canadian
have
to
out
failing
According
have
impulses
turned
continuous
growth.
but
creative
Mother
the
cultural
their
"Successive
as
upon
dependence
stunted
effect
have
English-Canadians
of
a measure
established
have
who
division"
and
dispersion
discontinuity,
French-Canadians,
Unlike
8 3).
(I
of
measure
to
subject
41
DOPP
JAMIE
capital because it was the logical place for one, between the north
and
the
south:
or
Kingston.
that
its
was
name
of
Both
is
perhaps
nant
in
social
which
because
a capital
commentator,
sardonic
obviously
derived
conceptions
have
it
in
writing
from
was
not
remarks
1868,
awa,'
'Hoot
Montreal
or
out
of
the
48).
(Divisions
way"
became
Ottawa
these
the
way
relations.
definitions
Like
of
this
cultural
sort
wide
matters
have
what
Less
currency.
to
worked
have
they
which
in
had
domi-
reproduce
generally,
some
obvious
there
Marxists
is
would
a sense
call
42
CANADIAN
CULTURE
IS
IRONIC?
John
JAMIE
DOPP
43
irony":
General Irony lies in those contradictions, apparently fundamental and irremediable, that confront men when they speculate upon such topics as the origin and purpose of the universe,
free will and determinism, reason and instinct. . .. Most of
these, it may be said, are reducible to one great incongruity, the
appearance of free and self-valued but temporally finite egos in
a universe that seems to be utterly alien, utterly
purposeless,
in
formulation
has
culates
ideology
the
most
often
the
the
in
by
his
of
Davey,
language.
out
its
because
to
but
role
is
at
McGregor
adjective
critics
is
dominant
probably
ideology
are
essay
the
least
year
(the
r974
"Sur-
approach
dominant
his
of
the
plot
to
but
"national
being,"
particular
" [a]
sort
outline;
a
to
Canadian
ideasand
language,
to
form,
or
called
something
and
Frye
by
in
Moss
by
life,"
criticism
novel
poem
to
catch-words
"identity
phenomena
their
attend
of
in
The
(2)
ultimately
of
expression
imaginative
for
this
the
"our
history."
of
to
is
not
employed
a tool
. ..
literature
Rock
on
for
not
of
Survival
peculiarly
cultural
the
Davey,
until
qualities
Isolation
culture
a
to
single
groundbreaking
Davey's
works
literature
and
Canadian
Gaile
"the
by
of
criticism]
"cultural
singles
themes
explain
of
Garden
Davey
Perhaps
of
Butterdly
in
Patterns
accounts
define
critic's
individual
Jones
Bush
Frank
kind
intrinsic
own
to
to
mentality"
that
According
this
The
even
allusions
connect
Canadian.
writes
dominant
"thematic":
[in
Language
visions.
the
"garrison
literature
literature
been
its
the
to
she
Canadian
Paraphrase."
has
to
assumptions
English-Canadian
essay)
with
not
hard
arti-
Atwood
x9).
encapsulated
viving
the
of
to
is
or
when
epistemological
nicely
for
Canada
heart
applied
" (4
The
of
connection
this
<ironic'
to
at
irony
to
It
Atwood's
of
irony
general
synonymous
ways
criticism.
status
colonial
refers
many
Canadian
of
general
in
become
the
Indeed
particular.
influence
tremendous
the
explain
to
helps
congruity
This
Frye.
and
Bailey
by
presumed
assumptions
epistemological
IS IRONIC?
CULTURE
CANADIAN
THAT
WHO SAYS
44
are
failure
its
or
account
in
its
declared
."
psychosis"
for
Attempts
(3).
which
according
the
mediations
In
declared
themes;
from
reductive,
essay.
his
to
reduced
. .
inevitably
to
is
the
to
to
to
of
of
view
D.
garrison
culture"
affirmative
of
.
community
language
. Our
recover
anti-hero.
of
hero
of
culture
the
tural
limits,
rnethod
different
as
briefly
to
be
attention
of
kind
of'
to
reluctance
to
the
an
Canadian
the
with
to
that
apply
literature.
Davey,
thematic
x 2).
the
Not
not
Davey
be
descrip-
needs
his
a
an
on
writing,"
through
criticism
a telling
this
characterized
texts
of
is
for
criticism
makes
cul-
our
argues
explain
principles
only
criticism.
thematic
as
"writing
does
tradition
overcome
the
could
within
different
contrast,
method
on
emphasis
(
to
of
by
the
Atwood's
thematic
to
of
limit
counter
of
Davey,
This
history
to
for
adequacy
limits.
determinism
cultural
Frye's
theories
literary
the
largely
remain
strategics
According
by
the
self-reliant
old
the
the
tries
argument
offering
criticism.
"formalist."
countered
? And
of
order
old
to
they
Mathews
accept
of
outline
becoming
Paraphrase,"
70s is that
I 9
his
in
those
out
a tradition
celebration
the
assumptions
explicitly
sets
that
tion
the
culture,
Jones,
and
Magazine,
to
was
similar
fact
the
methodological
Suitherland
the
power
Revo]lution
or
outcast
replacing
in
This
for
der
for
Hero
the
is
the
new,
"<re-creat[e]
attempted
Surren
New
in
account
Mathews
Though
Canadian
to
Li terature:
The
of
to
review
failing
"Surviving
paradigm.
accepts
for
because
experience,
a polemical
Sutherland,
of
counter-formulations
of
our
(r o).
(I6).
in
suggests
reading
In
hero"
"new
thematic
I ).
in"
wilderness
Jones
defence
effective
" only
the
Atwood.
later
and
the
resist
to
attempts
Frye,
for
literature,
Sutherland's
the
define
in
Canadian
Davey
that
literature.
new.
As
and
to
American
Rock
"<let the
Canadian
According
hero
new
possible
argued
Sutherland
Ronald
Bailey,
Suirvival
in
tradition
other
to
was
Canadian
in
struggle
this
was
attacked
Mathews
on
(r
vision"
cultural
Robin
of
to
by
offered
Butterfly
in
argued
of
a number
were
there
culture
Canadian
G.Jones
for
I 970s,
the
During
45
DOPP
JAMIE
own
refusal
critical
to
treat
46
WHO
SAYS THAT
CANADIAN
CULTURE
IS
IRONIC?
dian literature is "incapable of sustaining analytic, phenomenological, or archetypal inquiry - of sustaining any kind of criticism
whose existence is not also supported by the ruse of sociological
r-eSearch">(7).
When Robert Kroetsch speaks of the "<total ambiguity that is so
essentially Canadian" he also resists the dominant ideology of
Canadian culture, but his resistance takes the form of a peculiar use/
abuse of that ideology (Kroetsch and Bessai 2 I S). In many ways the
positing of a "total ambiguity" echoes the cultural history articulated by Frye and Bailey. It could be another way of suggesting "a
measure of discontinuity" or a general irony at the heart of the
Canadian. Yet Kroetsch's work in general is a critique of the totalizing gestures that make such assertions possible. In "Unhiiding the
Hidden" he writes that the problem with the received myths is that
they can never be more than an inauthentic set of images. If we
perpetuate them we simply submit to someone else's truths.
"Offered the consolation and pride of the old names," he writes, we
need to "<decline to be christened" (Essays 2 I). Kroetsch's suspicion
of myth is akin to Davey's suspicion of thematic criticism: both myth
and thematic criticism offer metanarratives to explain/reduce texts
to a stable configuration of meaning(s). The assertion of a "<total
ambiguity" undercuts the relevance of any such explanatory metanarrative in regard to Canadian culture.
Though Kroetsch's formulations do not mention <<irony>>explicitly, they implicitly reassert the ironic as central to Canadian
culture. At the same time they contain a critique ofthe way in which
irony has been asserted within the dominant ideology. In good
postmodernist fashion, then, Kroetsch opens the way for a
reinstallation of the historical (the dominant ideology) while shifting contexts in order to subvert its traditional authority.
The postmodern character of Kroetsch's formulation can be seen
JAMIE
DOPP
47
in the way it both reasserts and subverts elements from the dominant ideology. In "Surviving the Paraphrase" Davey describes the
attempt to explain literature in terms of sociology as a "ruse"; by
contrast, Kroetsch, while sharing in many ways Davey's formalist
concerns with language, rather than rejecting, takes advantage of (in
both senses) the "sociological ruse." In another place he elaborates
on the "total ambiguity" that is Canadian as follows:
To make a long story disunited, let me assert here that I'm
suggesting that Canadians cannot agree on what their
metanarrative is. I am also suggesting that, in some perverse
way, this very falling apart of our story is what holds our story
Sand us - together . .. . Lyotard [in The Postmodern Condition] writes: "<Simplifyingto the extreme, I define postmodern as
incredulitytoward metanarratives. . . ." I am suggesting that by
Lyotard's definition,
("<Disunity"> I-2)
Canada is a postmodern
country.
For Kroetsch, total ambiguity comes not from outside of the traditional Canadian metanarrative - not from an ahistorical or formalistic position free of the dominant ideology - but rather from
within it. As a new " master theme," total ambiguity bears interesting
congruencies with the ideology it seeks to unsettle; at the same
time, Kroetsch offers this new "master theme" within a context that
paradoxically asserts the necessity of incredulity towards all such
metanarratives.
One way to understand the effect of Kroetsch's assertion is to see
how it shifts the context of the ironic in Canadian culture. The shift
is analogous to Derrida's work to articulate the structurality of
structure. In "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the
Human Sciences" Derrida defines a traditional structure as one
48
WHO
CULTURE
IS
IRONIC?
Once balance is
achieved, once the chasm which embodies the "necessity for wr.cstling with discrepancy"> disappears, irony, for McGregor, disappears
(423).
Kroetsch's formulation implicitly points to an irony in
McGregor's formulation. From the point of view of total ambiguity,
"<balance">is itselfa "<counteringideal." To acknowledlge the impossibility of countering ideals, then, would be to acknowledge the
impossibility of balance, thereby deepening rather than resolving
the condition of irony. If balance is itself an ideal, then it is ironic to
suggest that acknowledging the impossibility of balance (a countering ideal) is a way to achieve balance. Total ambiguity suggests that
there is no resolution to the " irony at the heart of the Canadian," no
balance that can be achieved as a stabilizing centre. Total ambiguity
suggests that the "chasm within " is in fact constitutive of experience
and in particular, in Kroetsch's formulation, of Canadian experience.
49
JAMIE DOPP
In
of
Poetics
formulation
its
by
represented
argues
Hutcheon
of
contemporary
the
most
help
over
for
the
apt
ironies
mode
and
situate
and
of
so
of
ideology
Kroetsch's
metanarraculture.
Canadian
of
appropriateness
in
of
for
what
Kroetsch,
Like
as
"postmodernism"
culture:
Canadian
contradictions
the
within
assertions
definitions.
in
fiction
English-Canadian
Kroetsch's
in
Canadian"'
the
with
"curi-
involved
essentially
complicity
cultural
expression
of
language
is
that
elements
important
engaging
Perhaps
the
of
struggle
Canadian
way
dominant
Postmodern
Canadian
The
the
readings
Hutcheon's
of
critique
is
that
critical"
the
the
describes
Hutcheon
essentializing
ambiguity
"total
the
both
to
points
tive
The
(20I).
postmodernism
and
complicitous
the
of
mixture
ous
Linda
Pstmodernism,
postmodernism
Kroetsch
are
has
called
50
As
writing.
Kroetsch,
Labyrinths
But
broadly
of
more
a dominant
by
those
Given
teaching.
of
the
guarantee
Sfor
production
the
groups
in
culturally
list
read
of
been
Derrida
not
as
images
of
of
struggle
value)
institutional
of
host
any
whole.
the
on
promotion
or
margin-
historically
gays -
minorities,
an
throws
to
be
repre-
read
before
tells
us,
postmodern
in
are
quite
the
of
most
elements
the
unpostmodern
mark
opposites,"
indeterminacy
of
the
on
light
interesting
for
meanings,
new
"Jungian
"<two solitudes,">
thought:
be
have
as
Dualities,
surplus
selection
the
beings
human
ways.
clements
generation
postmodern
the
of
the
racial
positive
list
Hutcheon's
on
women,
to
pedagogy
effect
also
They
professors.
sented
of
methods
from
practices,
that
relations
of
effect
an
on
effect
an
have
of
have
would
canon
the
in
Changes
appropriation
relations
those
in
change
and
justify/
that
machines,
(in
ways
certain
a set
capital,
of
case
relations
of
set
assumptions
resources
physical
in
and
formulation,
but
is
what
preserving
Marx's
objects
beyond
on
worth
objects
interpretive
the
in
of
use
the
of
be
in
those
of
a set
selection;
the
perpetuate
of
collection
canon,
to
and
canon
the
"capital"
like
employment
the
case
alized
power
canon,
within
on
is
cultural
only
guaranteeing
of
with
implications
effect
direct
that
not
involves
has
redefinition
The
stake.
at
also
are
issues
always
most
The
considered
the
I09q-I 8).
political
ideology
academy.
the
(see
myths
of
power
explanatory
the
in
interested
naturally
quite
the
than
rather
"generative"
is
he
writer
IS IRONIC?
CULTURE
CANADIAN
SAYS THAT
WHO
ways.
"metaphysical"
could
"doubles"
but
as
all
specular
JAMIE
DOPP
51
grammar
proceeds by understatement; at
times it seems (almost) really to be a guidebook, even offering
world" (3).
52
WHO
CULTURE
IS IRONIC?
JAMlE
Jameson,
debate
ambiguity"
the
limit
is
has
others,
amongst
might
as
likely
be
to
argued.
illustrated
lead
to
In
context
the
simply:
quietism,
the
to
lead
of
assertion
literally
53
DOPP
the
Canadian
of
"<total
nowhere
fast, as it is to encourage political struggle. And yet, for all that, the
postmodern use/abuse of the dominant ideology is, it seems to me,
a useful step. The Canadian reassertions of irony make it impossible
to accept the comfort of the old names, with all that the old names
exclude. In so doing they produce a space for new names, and for
new meanings. Nothing is for certain, but with the possibility ofnew
meanings there is still the possibility of a better way.
POSTMODERNISM
IN RECENT
CANADIAN ART:
IRONIES OF MEMORY
MARK A. CH EETHAM
.. . .. .. . ..
REASON
FOR
. ** *
LOOK ING
group exhibition
MARK A.
CHEETHAM
55
history, both
and political
social
frequently effects telling
to not forget-
56
POSTMODERNISM
and early '7os.4 Most importantly, all four use memory explicitly and ironically, and I think the
resulting work is prime
1960s
postmodernism.
Allyson Clay's Lure is an installation of four small abstract paintings and four texts that was first exhibited at the Artspeak Gallery
in Vancouver in June, 1 98 8. The paintings were hung in a horizontal
line on one wall, they faced the similarly displayed texts over a gap
of about twelve feet. One type of comparison made possible by this
spatial arrangement can be seen in the final pair, called Eye to Eye.
The painting is a simple alternation of black and white vertical
bands, each of equal width. Lure speaks directly to and within the
tradition of abstract painting, a tradition that is frequently seen as
representative ofmodernism in general. The parallel text describes,
in apparently neutral terms, how to make the painting we see. Clay
begins: "Using either cedar, hemlock, pine or fir, build a stretcher
with bevelled edges r3" square and I V/4" deep. Over this stretch a
medium weight linen . .. ."s The descriptive voice on the one side
of the verbal/visual comparison is, we might say, echoed by the
materialization on the other. But this doubleness is anything but a
neat opposition. Clay intervenes in the textual component of Eye to
Eye with two other voices that run vertically on either side of the
MARK A.
seemingly
straightforward
gendered:
strongly
on
contemporary
over
charge
of
surface
face
at
but
into
to
the
Lure
this
to
me
as
to
instructions
puirity
in
which
dis-members
and
methods.
past
and
The
Lulre,
its
questioning,
both
in
within
the
critique
numerous
in
inevitably
its
to
offer
then,
and
opened
theorists
puts
by
-uses
this
set
to
double
such
are
not
what
are
abstraction
the
images
of
and
reductive
But
modernism
maleness
she
can
also
of
this
use
this
assumptions
painting:
of
paint
a
without
its
modernist
naturalized
thus
be
a spatial
By
work
must
conventions.
as
Clay
metaphor
irony.
she
construed
movement.
potent
demonstrating
tradition,"
of
of
critique.
patriarchal
can
which
hierarchical
its
some
Rhetoric.)
the
embodies
"<how
this
context
up
for
painting
of
but
of
gesture
it,
without
postmodern
emblem
claim
re-member
aura,
of
to
of
in
its
catalogue
reveal
Cheetham,
to
not
to
tradition
order
look
understand
to
simplicity
(See
a critique
Clay's
values
tries
implicated
an
of
formalist
authority,
is
able
face
mouth
yes
the
be
between
your
tradition
process
painting's
with
complicity
set
She
potential
she
to
The
trained.
by
of
as
order
was
inscribes
always
necessary
alternative
was
postmodern
doubleness
is
masculinist
too
is
lured
reference
of
point
in
within
this
She
tradition
"it
he
a relation
her
penetration
accompanying
painting."
Clay
of
prove
Clay
" Itouch
myth
patriarchy."
back
left,
like
canvas:
writes:
decidedly
the
to
on
dominance
and
the
are
based
of
him
more
statement
an
work
differently.
and
for
passage
inspired
On
wet
hierarchy
"'take
their
within
of
order
she
In
Clay
defined
premises
in
to."
to
57
voices
discourse
mutilation
and
artist
territory
primarily
the
eye
art
seems
what
wet
historical
viable
that
These
text,
the
strokes."
of
mind
the
occasional
gentle
exhibition,
implicit
read
between
than
breath
of
abstraction.
reveals
it: required
evocation
people
two
right
"I
with
erotic
gently
to
if
for
manual
medium:
even
the
the
painting
a passive
in
recipe
CHEETHAM
Irony
that
space
herself
when
she
for
like
speaks
58
POSTMODERNISM
MARK A.
CHEETHAM
59
Just as film
is projected
Quinn
in which
the "Indians" "won." In one sense, then, the rip is a spatial metaphor
for the growing political activism of native Canadians, which
"became impossible to ignore."> But the irony is that
just as in the
film, the Indians are not in Wiens's piece the agents of their own
actions, of their own social commentary. "The rip," in the sense of
cultural difference, also "continued to grow."> Wiens's reconstructed
memory here evolves from his self-understanding as "white" to a
statement about social and political disenfranchisement. As viewers
of this work, we approach bo>th the outside and the inside of his
60
POSTMODERNlSM
IN
RECENT
watt
lights,1i.2 x .g
CANADIAN
Rip (1986;
ART
wood, glass,
MARK A.
memory-cinema,
just as
CHEETHAM
6 I
Whitehorse
Janice Gurney's I986 mixed media piece called Screen also works
initially as a mnemonic and, again, there is an explicitly filmic
construction of a sense of the subject. It is built on ironic displacements and replacements. The work has three parts: on the left, a
dark background holds a text (from the Marguerite Duras poem
"<The Lover") that reads: "At that time she'd / thirty-eight. And the
/ ten. And now, when / she's sixteen." The centre image is a
haunting still of a young woman holding a baby, taken from Erich
von Stroheim's film Foolish Wives. On the right, the text continues:
"time she'd just turned / And the child was / now, when she
remembers / she's sixteen." These texts do not "<read"> normally
from top to bottom, but when we scan them from left to right
(across the body of the young woman and child), they gel into a
more conventional narrative:
At that time she'd / time she'd
just turned
photo-
graphic blowup of canvas, and it suggests another set of displacements and replacements. Painting is already displaced by photography, which in turn is replaced by references to film made by the title
and by the sense we have of a film strip. The central
image of the woman and child is a photograph of a photograph of a
-
screen -
62
POSTMODERNISM
IN
RECENT
CANADIAN
ART
in)
Wyic
TukGley
oo.
MARK
A.
CHEETHAM
63
film still. Memory explicitly constructs the sense of self that the
woman/narrator has in the present as she reflects on her past both in
language and with the image we see. Ambiguities and ironies abound
when we try to hold onto this subj ectivity, however. The repetitions
as we read the text from left to right mimic and blur the two subjects
denoted as "she." We look through the screen of memory, ours and
hers, and that screen perpetually changes what we see. We also look
through plexiglass, which Gurney uses precisely because it reflects
our own image and those of other people and objects. The experience is again mnemonic (both personally and socially) in a way that
is quintessentially postmodern.
Janice Gurney's The DamaSe Is Done (1986) provides another
excellent example through which to consider the mutual infiltration
of art-historical recall, the construction of a subject as source for a
work, and the social and political ramifications of these memories.
This complex painting - or should it be called an assemblage?
has lost none of its ability to shock its viewers into reflections on the
notion of artistic ownership (by the artist and commercially), of a
work's "integrity," and of claims to originalityin light of which the
term "appropriation" can assume damning connotations. These and
related issues are as topical in 1990 as they were in I986, despite
Gurney's attempts with this (and many works in which she employs
another artist's image as a "support," like Portrait of Me as My
Grandmother's Fauilts [ x98 2 ] - using an Andy Patton canvas - or
lool Detailsfrom "'Genre" [ I988], which works on a painting by Will
Gorlitz called "Genre") to have us re-examine the premises according to which we might feel distress at her actions. Her art-historical
reflection is literalized by the underlying layer of this work, which
is (or should we say "was" ?) a painting by Joanne Tod called The Upper
Room. Gurney asked Tod for a support of the right size, without
specifying what might be on it, and then proceeded to enact on this
64
POSTMODERNISM
RECENT
IN
jan
Gurney,
ce
The
oncna,4
Damageis
6I n.) I
CANADIAN
oe
veColcon
186
ART
MARK A.
surface
what
memory
materially):
of
and
famous
consulted
Those
The
the
that
Gurney's
and
career:
the
the
and
the
and
as
Yet
a work.
it
The
there
hs Done
within
work
source
of
landscapes
signatures
person
Gurney
anonymous
art
here.
because
(which,
but
which
who
herself),
portrait
have
sold
the
to
back
of
them,
the
Tod
painting,
the
the
right
a
pan-
store.
frames
the
not
at
spatially,
least
have
damaged
of
it,
state,
art
who
which
in
the
painted
Tod's
nature
clip
is
an
origin
Just
research.
in
to
find
so
either
an
potential
Each
four
Screen,
"<signature"
the
anonymous
appear
without
antique
shop
and
them,
Christ,
Saltzman
is
Is Done,
Stroheim
this
her
originality,
artist
us
we
in
the
of
artist.
are
the
on
subject
essential
person
more
for
for
as
Damage
an
rubric
valued
The
von
which
look
understands
paths
the
we
veils
status
original
their
been
already
three
she
focuses
there
work
is
the
with
in
an
re-doubled:
If we
what
though
impossible
or
layers
collaborative
different
the
it
was
Tod
antique
of
even
sense
cases
and
nineteenth-century
us
images
essential,
a board-
done."
artistic
no
of
and
investigate
both
reproduced
attached
Gurney
which
the
less
moment
has
a Vancouver
political
makes
its
and
is doubled
works
is
of
somewhat
and
is in
that
Damage
essential
the
Memory
appears
too
top
"actual"
Screen,
in
of
painting
more
has
reminds
works
uniqueness
Tod
is
Screen,
both
no
is
in
potentially
with
subject.
are
by
back
and
friends
the
bought
represent
photographic
the
for
look
to
physical
putative
the
right
layering
pieces
are
Gurney
"<the damage
which
two
these
Done
executed
physical
through
hs
potent
she
background
the
Tod
On
and
was
title:
unambiguous
and
and
found
panel
centre
in
65
usually
a once
it:
Christ
"original."
left
she
(though
cites
appropriation,
on
landscapes
of
Damage
Tod's
art-historical
els.
itself
Gurney
The
was
effects
re-contextualizes
Although
than
double
image
image
initially,
work
always
radically
Saltzman
scene.
room
of
Tod's
change.
history
art's
the
itself
CHEETHAM
but
and
not
Tod's.
by
by
the
66
POSTMODERNISM
IN
RECENT CANADIAN
ART
MARK A.
CHEETHAM
67
(I4.). This statement has the "correct" political ring, but it assumes
much of that which The Damage Is Done contests with its overlapping
memories. Who is "the individual involved" when we reflect on the
unstable postmodern subject? What is "the object"? These are not
the merely "theoretical" quibbles Paul Smith warns against, since if
Alexander's law were enacted, Gurney would be guilty of violating
integrity - though it becomes quite impossible to say whose, since
we would then become trapped in the infinite regress of originality
relayed above. In these complexities, we can perceive the social and
political implications of The Damage Is Done.
"LDamage,">
as Gurney here presents it, is not entirely negative or
avoidable. As a re-using, a re-contextualizing, her version of damage
is nothing other than the process of memory itself, a process without
which art cannot exist. Works "damaged" in this way maintain their
sentimental and economic value. And The Damage Is Done dramatizes
the productive
68
POSTMODERNISM
IN
RECENT
CANADIAN
ART
MARK A.
Remnder#20
StanDennston
silvrprnts,42.x
locm..
1979
Arists
Colecion
CHEETHAM
tw
69
70
POSTMODERNISM
IN
RECENT CANADIAN
ART
MARK A.
work
to
graphically
is
Kent
his
of
memories
meant
to
Kent
State.
of
be
Kent
State
and
images
and
in
associated
his
Kent
is
of
of
course
activism
graphs
of
the
about
even
if
exploration
version,
is
will
say
involved
in
of
his
through
the
once
at
own
his
parallels
protest
more
marches
recently
of
political
guarded
his
after
own
the
personal
though
radical
political
early
1990s.
altered
trigger
he
photo'80os.
early
the
in
for
made
his
this
brutal
circulation
in
an
and
see
back
own
overlay
clearly
cannot
drawn
and
This
of
work,
and
wide
we
an
vision
placed
explicit
possibility
work.
event,
images
was
social
of
has
What
the
a time
their
Denniston
of
conversation,
in
U.
own
the
at
a recreation
artist's
Toronto
these
from
memory.
that
assertion
alive
memories
being
lus
fact
potential
positive
ton
of
the
from
glean
of
seen
has
1980s
recently
addition
them
State
Kent
makes
intricate
The
in
is
replacement
the
has
indeed
only
effect,
his
late
raids
yet
recognize
don't
on
the
was
had
"original"
on
on
of
event
State,
visible.
we
press
this
only
Denniston
Bathhouse
Kent
associations
point
he
a triple-mnemonic
only
not
here
Denniston
have
centrally
images,
that
the
this
specific
punning
and
not
but
notorious
discovered
now
and
vantage
after
by
with
what
in
mentioned,
we
State,
State
the
thoughts
of
Kent
Kent
was,
reflection
important,
from
the
Over
He
triple
so
by
displacement
As
piece,
State,
recollections
this
ideas.
r98
coloured
of
the
years
many
jarring
course
went
associated
amusing
Denniston
photographs
take
triggered
than
Canada
of
now
photomontage
politically
reworked
were
to
were
which
that
sense
that
Canada
to
resulting
the
events
political
poignant
more
The
ironic
the
returned
then
and
sites,
of
impressions
memories
place,
of
gathered
State,
own
in
"re-collective"
71
CHEETHAM
the
even
more
but
might
to
his
1982
memorialization,
agency
in
Bathhouse
keeping
Dennis-
optimism,
sense
the
of
pleasure
raids,
at
the
72
POSTMODERNISM
IN
RECENT
CANADIAN
ART
MARK A.
73
CHEETHAM
NOTES
I
to
I am
not
extend our
Museum
modernism,
and
"<Memory
2,
and
The
For
the
of
the
(see
Impulses
Art
and
in
thiough
discourse
Gerhard
artist
Merz
of high
characteristic
"Purity").
Canadian
Historical
19g8 5New
of postmodern
amnesia
elsewhere
attempts
The
Loss of History,
German
a menacing
length
The
nature
the
that
memory.
Art."
Museums.
Curated
I
5 Dec.
by
I
990-3
Feb.
the
with
here
Mark
publisher.
works" exhibition
itself
is much
more
of artistic
representative
Canada.
a discussion of the
important
factors
generational
in
the
of
development
see Huyssen.
postmodernism,
& Quotations
Regional
connection
or
of Memory /
essay on
Passages from
" Memory
Vancouver,
at
particular
with
engage
Postmodern
London
across
not
argued
gracious permission
practices
The Art
ofMtemory) typifies
Art
this
postmodernism
Campbell's
Works:
touring.
of
catalogue
does
as I have
Cheetham.
r 99
discussion
of either
extent.
(Mnemosyne or the
A.
any
challenging,
a significant
of
exhibition
extremely
to
aware
understanding
are
from
the
catalogue
to
the
exhibition,
Artspeak
Gallery,
1988, n.pag.
To my knowledge,
spatial metaphor.
Alice A.
Jardine is one
of
the
few critics
to
thematize
this
DOUBLE EXPOSURES:
THE FOUND POEM
AND IRONIC READING
MANINA JONES
.... ......
...
...
...
Jsus.
To
see this as ironical one need only be (unlike him who named it)
sensitive to the incompatible connotations of 'impasse' and
'Jsus', but the irony is enhanced if one recalls the Gospel of
St. John: 'Jesus saith unto him, I am the way . .. no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me' (John I4.:6). (42)
Muecke's
example
ironic
contrasts,
the
ple,
but
of
the
literary
the
Parisian
form
"poetry
a
from
an
that
nate,
text
"traffic
poem,
through
text
as
as
which
the
be
within
point
of
is
semantic
in
results
example,
jam"
Handwerk
embedded
given
prose
text
which
the
reader
its
of
typical
no
can
can
of
is
to
say,
traditional
of
form
kinds
of
meanings
of
translation
the
the
conventions
the
foregrounds
the
of
intersection
of
cites
"an
poem
a point
similarly
might
readings
given
Gary
that
the
that
between
by
ambi-
definition
found,
the
its
another.
as
meanings"
transcribing
to
to
facilitated
found
the
readings.
poem
Muecke's
is
in
in
and
of
definition
Stanzel's
printed
and
to
the
fact,
importance
the
functions
competing
contrasting
the
the
but
reading,
context
"original"
found
doubles
attention
a poet
a contrast
perception
example,
conflicting
the
at
hints
one
from
by
of
Muecke's
between
written
"literary"
This
text
Like
example
In
Franz
context
I),
and
produces.
"<found">
simply
and
to
our
poet.
recuperation
"<non-literary">
each
has
"Jsus"
his
poem.
drawing
found
not
(9
and
perception
on
between
central
are
found
in
non-literary
poetry"
of
format
the
and
as
acts
poetry,
taken
as
sign,
Muecke
found
of
known
street
guities,
that
strategies
interpretive
in
recreates
Muecke
reading
ironic
The
already
draws
that
Muecke
etc.).
is
exam-
for
definition
discourse
a dissonance
which
irony
since,
by
is
life,
shaping
interpreting
itself,
"Jsus"
eternal
and
produced.
is
"(im1passe"
or
a religious
to
by
seeing
"seeing")
(or
within
process
stages,
"'shaping">
world
truth,
(to
the
articulated
of
the
position
access
of
figures
act
of
its
on
two
reading
significance
predicated
kind
the
ironic
from
inseparable
of
distinguishes
75
JONES
MANlNA
identifying
the
longer
travel,
of
be
seen
rather
of
sense
keeping
a kind
poem.
but
in
(I);
awareness
The
another.
"impasse,"
found
irony
a
by
intersection,
own
alter-
incompatibility
trait
characterized
one
fact
of
as
Read
simply
becomes
with
linguistic
as
found
passage
a
place
76
DOUBLE
EXPOSURiES
MANINA JONES
77
(2'7
I,
emphasis added).
78
DOUBLE
EXPOSURES
the power to entertain widely divergent possible interpretations [may be used] to provoke the reader into seeing that there
is a radical uncertainty surrounding the processes by which
meanings
The found poem, like irony, "provokes" us into wilfully and radically
"mllisinterpreting">
texts whose meaning is, superficially at least,
obvious.
John
which
to
seem
still
in
both
encompasses
79
level
of
changes
post-glacial
JONES
certain
for
except
MANINA
be
progress.">
"<Canada">
Britannica
Encyclopaedia
Edition)
(Eleventh
1910
Volume
Page
conflicts
and
context.
poem
reading.
"Encyclopaedia
provided
connote
and
suggest
locus.
reference
and
comment
poems,
cal
sources
of
on
"accurate."
of
word
in
this
and
the
Another
"Canada,"
a number
cites
ironically
detail
case,
is
merely
permits
read
be
of
also
as
dismantling
in
an
be
ironic
found
Colombo's
of
geo-
a shift
might
realize,
may
"<truth">
(pre)historically
however,
we
own
its
" and
and
poem
of
bibliographical
geologically
development.
Etymologies,"
the
as
prosaic
text's
level"
the
"knowledge
empirical
"Canada,"
entity,
lack
text
the
in
the
presentation,
convention.
its
and
"Canada"
poetic
The
"Canada:
for
the
poem
"change
Britannica"
political
and
of
the
identifying
suggests
a discourse
and
graphical
of
"footnote"
thus
a reading
referential
cultural
the
with
The
(45)
143
presentation
poetic
"stratified"
histori-
alternate
the
notion
presenting it as a historical-
80
DOUBLE
EXPOSURES
clearly true for many other ironies. Muecke's analysis, for example,
hinges to some degree on the present reader of the street sign being
self-consciously "unlike him who named it" in his awareness of its
"<incomlpatible connotations."> Meaning, as the found poem indicates, is located and relocated depending, not on the prior intention
of a speaking subject or on an essential meaning contained in the
words, but on the nature of the verbal transaction.
Another of Colombo's
found
fore appropriate to both its legal status as a business and to the aim
of its business, which is to close off unforeseen possibilities, making
the future -
MANINA JONES
8 I
. . (This letter
is in general distribution. Should
it reach any home in which there is illness,
it is completely unintentional). (I5)
This post-script involves an attempt to limit significance, to refine
precisely what the cited text means. It might, therefore, be seen as
a kind ofmemorial to the letter's absent scriptors, testifying to their
intentions, but irrevocably marking their inability to enforce them.
The poem postulates both the literal death of the reader and the
figurative "death" of the author. In his famous essay on the latter
topic, Roland Barthes comments on Mallarm's groundbreaking
recognition of
the necessity to substitute language itself for the person who
until then had been supposed to be its owner. For him, for us
too, it is language which speaks, not the author, to write is,
through a prerequisite impersonality . .. to reach that point
where only language acts, "performs," and not "<me."~ (I43)
Because the letter (and this, as Barthes's comments make clear,
applies to the condition of letters in general as well as to correspondence) is "in general circulation," its context and therefore its
reading is always varied and variable, necessarily beyond the control
of its authors, from whom it is, as Derrida would have it, "separated
at birth" ("Signature" I8I). Each reading constitutes a different
instance of quotation, and a reading of the letter by a member of a
household in which there were illness would change its frame of
reference in such a way as to violate its otherwise "decorous"
character(s). The inclusion of the letter in Colombo's volume
Translationsfrom the EnSlish is another route in the circulation of the
letter beyond its appointed rounds.
82
DOUBLE
EXPOSURES
MANlNA
then,
nevertheless,
yet,
in
spite
of
certainly,
surely,
probably,
anyway,
at
all
events,
consequence
the
foregoing,
(Toronto,
indicating
by
in
any
of
the
already
stated.
footnote
Write
on
the
all
to
96
that
other
I),
this
the
hand,
same
on
time,
the
perhaps,
in
probability,
contrary
possibly,
all
likelihood,
thus,
as
case
accordingly,
this,
as
might
preceding,
be
as
a result,
expected
previously
mentioned
(94)
poem
the
Ernest
at
indeed,
consequently,
in
as
that,
however,
doubtless,
in
therefore,
still,
83
jONES
H.
Winter
P.
1 56>
passage
reads:
"Transition
(Second
The
(94).
is
both
Table
Revised
footnote
a quotation
from
Edition)
acts
taken
as
Learning
to
Macmillan
a kind
from a
of
index,
reference
84
DOUBLE
EXPOSURES
duction ("<first, in the first place . . .") to reinforcement by reiteration ("'again, also .. ."), comparison (". .. similarly .. ."), anticipation of objections ("then, nevertheless . . ."), and summing up
("therefore, consequently .. ."). The final line, ironically, gestures
toward the reinforcement of a statement that has never been made.
The
2).
Signals of the poetic context of the work include its division into
lines, position in a volume specifically identified as poetry, and the
signature of the known poet "Eli Mandel." These sanction a selfreflexive reading which attempts to recuperate the passage's inconsistencies at yet another level of irony. In this context, the poem is
a "Second, Revised Edition" of a previous text. Its interpretation is
also
it is necessarilyaware of
presents
MANINA
JONES
85
itemized list). One cannot, then, simply "table" a text as "<documentary evidence," since the very locus of presentation is itself in transit,
un(s)table.
Louis Dudek refers to the found poem as "really a piece of
realistic literature" (3), r.eferring, presumably, to its strategy of
merely excerpting writing that "really exists" in the world. If we are
to accept this view, however, "reality" itself must be read as a found
text, a space of intersecting discourses, open to the possibility of
(re)interpretation. Martha Rosler stresses that it is through irony
that the act of quotation (found poetry's central gesture) can be
critically forceful: "One speaks with two voices, establishing a kind
of triangulation -
Ningaram
+)
(HIS MARK)
We
The undersigned Chiefs and Warriors
On behalf of the people
Of the Newash Band
Of Chippewa Indians
Residing at Owen Sound
Send greeting.
86
DOUBLE
EXPOSURES
portions
presumably, on
MANINA
"literal"
of
reading
the
land,
but
contract,
one
The
date
Canada's
also
puts
ment
a certain
what
both
Scott's
"Indians
gesture
much
peoples,
a
of
Canadian
both
"<Indians">
to,
subordinate
and
a nation-
symbolic
a pat
is
of
by
in
possessed
the
celebrated
them
by,
or
makes
Canada"
of
Native
construct-
taking
really
first
"Canada."
by
dilemma
"Indians
seriously.
since
of
sense,
the
docu-
"other"
the
tokens
without
the
reading,
negotiations,
mere
of
emergence
one
treaty
as
ironic
an
historical
complex
them
claims
a legal
significantly,
of
marginalized
in
"mosaic,"
aboriginal
their
in
celebration
presentation
the
actually
involves
multi-cultural
words:
psychologically,
Pavillion,"
for
space
stable
67
marks
but
which
ownership
is,
and
invitmng
and
the
of
quotation
revival
Expo
itself
simplifies
that
of
question,
Canada
just
not
sense
Expo
time
the
within
of
the
legally
both
erodes,
apparently
Expo's
in
implies
87
says.
and
celebration
that
nations
one
year,
history
that
that
proprietary
However,
centennial
hood
document
means
of
history.
ing
the
centennial
nation's
the
of
JONES
Canadian
the
nation.
The
ironic
quoting
of
the
historical
document
is
one
way
of
breaks a verbal contract because it puts words to uses for which they
were not "<originally" intended. In so doing, the citation fore grounds
the element of betrayal in the contract itself, exposing both its
supposedly "dated" terms (both the terms of agreement and the
language in which they are stated) and the extent to which the
subsequent treatment of Native groups in Canadian history in fact
continues to fulfil those terms. The very trope of the "familiar"
relation of benevolent parent and submissive child ( "our kind Father
the Governor General") is, in its contemporary context, de-familiarized and read ironically as paternalistic in a negative sense. The
88
EXPOSURES
DOUBLE
verbal
related
incongruities,
sideration
. .
We
is
ironic
the
."
might
note
in
participate
that
is,
and
framed
in
its
poem
Gazette,
July
I I
"the
By
Expo
that
contracts
in
of
which
so
bitter
with
what
is
of
citation
exclusion
of
exclusion
both
that
itself
Native
by
and
I854
the
Native
structure
peoples
and
who
to
historical
can
to
engage
an
the
Montreal
to
speak
them
(I
I)
to
readers
the
contract
as
the
that:
its
At
do
by
claims
consider
beliefs.
ironically,
functions,
letter
for
allows
line
Indians
Misrepresents
missionaries."
the
current
emphasized
done
being
treaty
the
is
concluding
voices,
to
since
Europeans
opening
missionary
Indians,"
Government
the
of
a Catholic
aren't
the
"Pavillion
Trouvailles,
not
do
literally,
ironic,
irony
as
brackets
by
of
is
transcription
Canadian
happy
document
porary
I967,
in
participate
"We"
The
in
"Treaty"
Indians
They're
treaty.
Wabuminguam
imported
then,
con-
literally
not
do
The
break),
historical
majority
"<Most
culture.
is
and
explained
Wabuminguam
they
"surren-
examples.
Ningaram
a language
line
poem
significant
and
and
language,
Scott's
This
of
because
their
the
are
The
mature
after
have
"We
symbols
Ningaram
contract
follows
Outlook."
of
(lo).
written
in
by
and
confidence"
fullest
signature
for
by
that
the
the
within
speak
for
children"
that
the
(emphasized
The
"Indian
and
MARK)>
"<(HIS
for
between
substituted
absent,
not
contrast
positions.
compromising
the
"Having
to
attention
draws
quotation
the
exposing
between
contradiction
der,"> or
of
context
written
manifestly
and
the
enunciation
subversively
"listen">
significance
the
same
ongoing
time,
by
with
the
contemits
lan-
MANINA
JONES
89
i.e., marginally --
DOUBLE
90
cultural
may
signification.
irony,
of
The
may
reality
drawvs
and
asks
take
to
attention
us
to
look
strategies
in
ambiguity
(
place"
seems
and
Io
central
2).
think
" obvious
again.
to
The
found
we
habitually
" or
found
poetry
experimental
that
so
reality
where
places
meaning
where
signification,
reading
the
"recognize
us
help
analysis
cent,"
EXPOSURES
poem,
"natural"
then,1like
on
foreclose
or
"inno-
tragic
Where
all
***.**
MADONNA
and
with
careless pose,
in
her
face,
and
glows;
ancient foes,
And closer in
the
He
burdened
breast,
nation's doom,
stains
father's woes.
will not
rest.
University ofSaskatchewan
92
THE
WRiTING
ON THE WALL
"Ozymandias" says about the ironies brought about by the simultaneous presence of past and present, included and excluded significations.)
Lothar Baumgarten's work, Monument for the Native Peoples of
OntariTo, has been on my mind on and off since I first saw it fIve years
JUUIE
BEDDOES
93
guilt-tripper.
94
THE WRITING
Court,
square,
is
and
ence
was
can
had
storey
lunch
is
arches
underlining,
in
black
is
of
map
at
red
Neutral,
by
designed
monuments
In
of
Rome
there
On
the
description
from
Rome,
and
is a monument
commemorate
lus
in
black
painted
corner,
the
at
eye
and
work
of
tribes
the
The
held.
once
Ojibwa,
typeface
in
the
on
forms
letter
called
over
with
Algonkin,
the
central
are
names
painted
Perpetua.
erected
victories
the
red
one
they
native
once
and
of
are
developed
ancient
corners
land
secondLothar
over
in
Huron,
They
at
tribes
the
the
COnfer-
painter,
painted
for
collected
court,
are
wall
G7
the
the
eight
inscribed
of
Ottawa.
Gill,
of
the
Nipissing,
Petun,
Eric
are
used
the
German
and
locations
the
are
with
which
on
Ontario
Iroquois,
to
plaque
of
names
around
underlining.
approximately
names
go
more
plastic
cloister
cloister,
occasionally
I988,
names
four
or
Renaissance.
(When
by
the
the
is
walls
the
Ontario;
of
the
summer
On
of
colonnade
Florentine
parties.
installation
side
with
level,
in
there.)
four
of
space
Toronto
called
each
of
style
The
consists
now
is
the
for
this
It
Baumgarten.
by
rented
be
in
level,
what
in
skylight.
held
notables
to
surrounded
arches
ceiling
concerts
THE WALL
tall,
semi-circular
The
ON
by
the
the
emperor
Traj
and
Dacians
an
the
Parthians.
The
AGO
installation's
first
doubleness
is
unironic:
it
is
both
JULIE
BEDDOES
95
96
THE
WRITING
ON THE
WALL
for
I have
the
problematizing
post-modern
of
tion
that
I can
never
of
translations
as
living
in
the
questionably
names.
as
To
in
lost
to
which
in
languages
exist
once
others
with
so
do
into
back
tribes
those
than
tradition
cultural
European
the
did
I am
the
except
Baumgarten's
they
a white,
write
I know
Neutrals
as
As
to
attempting
Canadian
use
from
irony
is,
culture);
to
the
minorities;
postmodern
Appendix
of
our
of
that
to
identical
not
is
Introduction
the
consider
French
both
American
general
repeat
that
pasts,
visible
tradition
to
of
self-positionings:
relation
this
need
we
perhaps
of
the
I know
loss.
their
situated
in
cousins.
European
ical
or
representational
irremovably
situation
our
the
Petun
never
can
facts
installation.
But
here,
the
Nonetheless,
other
no
having
are
this
of
situation
but
of
grieve
and
ironic
which
is
as
beings
history,
knowledge
their
texts
through
as
have
which
textuality.
of
medium
the
through
except
us
to
present
be
juxtaposievents
and
things
these
evokes
uneasy
existed,
which
that
realization
our
with
happened,
the
history:
of
things
as
history
of
notion
the
which
work
Baumgarten's
of
a reading
here
offered
97
BEDDOES
JULIE
central;
in
relation
a series
and
English,
the
positions
to
by
taken
any
In
..
notion
polit-
our
(in
terms
in
regional
the
(female;
'minoritarian'
of
self-defining
present
our
and
gay, etc.)
questioning
of
response
in
position
our
and
native;
to
the
ethnic;
light
of
of
the
coherent,
presumption?) of
98
THE
WRITlNG
ON THE
WALL
JULIE
BEDDOES
99
100
THE WRITlNG
ON
THlE WALL
to poeticize both the form and the inspiration for the form. The
frieze, conceived as a 'Monument for the Indian Nations of
South America,' is a litany of tribal names
painted on the
JULIE
BEDDOES
101
Yet Gill's beautiful letter forms and the sensuous urucu red
conjoin so harmoniously with the architecture that all appears
decoratively correct and emotionally inevitable. There is in the
magical resonance of Baumgarten's contrived coincidences
something akin to the theme expressed in Robinson Jeffers'
poem "Hands," which tells of a visit to a cave in Tassajara where
a nameless tribe once inscribed the ceiling with their handprints. The poem ends with the following epitaph, which, I
think, gracefully parallels Baumgarten's program:
Look, we also were human; we had hands not
paws.
All hail.
You people with the cleverer hands, our supplanters
In the beautiful country; enjoy her a season,
her beauty, and come down
And be supplanted; for you also are human. (Flood)
This reviewer sees no irony in the fact that Jeffers's poem refers
to an architectural artefact made by the people to whom it becomes
a memorial, whereas in the work to which he finds it comparable,
the translation of the tribal names by and into the medium of the
European alphabet and monumental tradition consigns them to a
ghostly perpetuity on the walls of what became the warehouses of
the conquerors' artefacts. Baumgarten's intended purging of ethnocentrisml is in fact a reminder of the way much of our sentimentalizing and stereotyping of the native cultures we cannot
understand (and perhaps, if we respect their difference, should not
try to understand) results in a purging of elements that cannot be
incorporated decoratively into (or made to "gracefully parallel")
THE WRITING ON
102
our
of
notions
the
poetic
of
the
form
aesthetic.
woman
Onondaga
of
the
THE WALL
sonnet
For
he
and
D.
to
had
the
C.
Scott,
her
write
myth
to
of
the
perceive
into
the
Christian
the
tragedy
Mediterranean
Holy
Family.
But just as his poem turns back on this idea and ironizes it for the
reader in a way that seems not to be present for the writer - the
child is, after all, a half-breed - Baumgarten's installation, as time
passes, is increasingly in dialogue with, and a commentary on,
present struggles for recognition of native rights. It refuses the kind
of sentimentality which, as much as the classical rigor that it hoped
to replace, can be seen as responsible for their plight. As Robinson
eventually
monuconquistadors'
the
AGo,
the
At
Ozymandias.
play the role of
ment to their fantasy of the native peoples, that is, to themselves, is
quite literally the writing on the wall.
A further ironizing situation is created when Baumgarten's work
is juxtaposed with the essay by the curator of The European Iceberg in
the exhibition catalogue. Germano Celant's reading of yet another
history, that of art in Europe and America since the Second World
War, makes the Canadian viewpoint seem highly eccentric, a point
which is itself ironic since Celant, in the early pages of his essay,
argues for the extreme heterogeneity, the elimination of notions of
centre and ex-centre, in recent European art. "North America," he
says, "has followed a straight line and fallen in love with the cube.
These
Celant
asks:
which
ing
Europe
itself
"How
has
"the
can
we
recently
bearer
smash"
succeeded
of
values
" ( I 6)?
the
"perverse
the
United
If
103
BEDDOES
JULIE
mechanism"
States
I understand
in
the
by
proclaim-
paragraphs
Thus,
what
much
Celant
I
claims
interpret
he
Celant's
refers
retrogression.
may
rubric
to
must
(20)
to
have
excluded
Baumgarten's
deny
it,
points
all
be
from
installation
the
out
European
irony
that
of
the
histories;
as
this
the
being.
work's
"histories
show
But
however
inclusion
within
there
precisely
is
under
History"
no
place
he
among
(04
crazy
"the
to
intent
deteriorated
of
the
acts
If
could
he
memory,">
names
of
of
beneath
the
attempts
of
domestic
ble,
an
ber
Trajan's
European
lith
in
he
which
the
nent
monumental
Romantic
of
dealt
has
interpretations
how
walls,
land
past"?
of
Cana-
unrepresentabl
the
which
palimpsest
expiation
suggest
and
into
into
European
universal
the
It
of
like
also
of
the
the
culture
the
a
is
this
native
non-ironic
ethnocentrism
work.
This
remem-
Court
becomes
itself,
escapism,
in
which
native
into
laundered
fantasies,
and
crumbled.
separa-
we
not
Celant's
excluding
peoples
use
inherent
mono-
the
rebuild
installation's
recognition,
its
until
were
Walker
dreams">
aesthetic.
art
or
work
ecstatic
two
with
cognitive
past
the
whether
Baumgarten's
looks
if
history
"new
colonialist
as
like
into
chaotic
juxtaposed
Europe'S
the
essay,
the
words,
that
hold,
history
what
forms
fictional
the
ironizing
with,
could
the
revised
ironizes
see
His
saying
European
claims
constantly
that
been
which
about
generalizations
as
into
the
endlessly
exclude
sentimentalized
notions
must
other.
Celant's
in
about
exhibition
be
to
"collapse
are
peoples
his
Canadian
column.
conservative
an
Baumgarten's
than
raid
a European
neo-classical
"<banal
those
must
have
a context
wall
each
history"
no
opinion
becomes
write
seem
atrocities
and
violence.
to
work,
perspectives
the
especially
slaughtering
Baumgarten's
in
dreams
as
historical
of
Europeans
the
tribes
to
other
on
not
clues
flesh
invisibility
painted
is
on
words,
purgation
Celant
of
native
the
inhab-
verbal
usual
"spoiled
existence
ecstatic
writing
the
memorialized
their
work
into
this
Celant's
and
this
"collapse
reading
of
signifiers
that
assert
proof
of
of
any
about
genocide
aware
translated
of
signifieds
dian
were
of
lack
remarks
some
cultural
of
he
is
for
directions"
unprogrammed
The
Celant's
in
spirit"
work.
in
continents.
other
ironic
go
that
vectors
of
itants
ON THlE WALL
WRITlNG
THE
situation
of
of
this
conti-
traditional
even
in
possible
JULIE
we
accept
the
largely
written
much
of
our
whatever
us
is
the
the
language
work
as
by
the
a reminder
of
in
intentions
the
heirs
so
of
descendants
destruction
of
that
these
it,
the
this
new
the
destroyers.
or
only
history
is
responsible
Europeans
tribes
writing
of
the
far
105
BEDDOES
their
language
cultures,
available
being
for
and,
to
* ***** * *
* ** ** ** *
**
University ofRegina
ironists supreme in Canadian letters. Her fiction is characterized by detached narrators and an ironic tone, producing the effect of what one critic has called "something rather
chilling" (Rooke 26'/). I would argue, however, that Gallant uses
irony not only as a distancing technique for her own voice or as a
subversive strategy that challenges forms and values, but also as a
strategy that invites readers to enter into a participatoryrelation
with the text. It is these latter two uses of irony that make Gallant's
writing both sophisticated and challenging to the reader of Canadian
fiction, as critics are beginning to note. The study of irony in
Gallant's fiction is fast becoming a commonplace. But rather than
try to place Gallant's irony in a Canadian context, I would like to
approach her ironic comments about the critical tendency toward
contextualizing Canadian literature in a nationalistic framework.
Gallant included "An Introduction," twelve pages of paracritical
KAREN
prose,
in
one
of
her
more
recent
books,
Home
Truths:
SMYTHE
Selected
107
Cana-
108
HOME TRUTHS
patrio-
SMYTHE
KAREN
draws
from
made
her
The
itself,
truths"
between
what
is
and
is that
oriented
there
refers
facts,
what
criticism,
should
be
is no
but
the
subversive
86),
she
the
as
to
the
has
some
of
kind
Gallant
may
ironically.
The
constitutes,
are
idiom:
contradiction
subtitle
a collection
of
"home."
what
"Truths"
tyPe
between
of
against
less
only
ironic
of
(Ross
consensus
(much
an
comfort
play
to
to
consisting
presumed
title
story
"Canada,"
Truths,
the
this
a " Canadian"
be
nationally
painful
and
wanted
"<truth">
Home
are
discomfort
have
of
point.
title
"<home
of
discussion
109
precisely,
stories).
"Home"
"Stories,"
may
Canadian
or
otherwise.
Gallant
dian
uses
"who
has
failed
subtext
to
'paint
justify her
to
Canadian'
"
stance
(xii).
as
While
Cana-
preface
her
says
undercut
its
form
that
is as
more
she
if a
offered
herself
Gallant
and
are
In
fact,
fiction
and
of
as
confining
well
as
the
subtextually
the
ridicules
content
authorial
better
(xiii),
refuses
those
to
she
the
expected
of
the
stories
needed
says
confine
readers
of
interpretations
ing
and
ratification"
definition,
ing
employs,
and
for
But
intentions,
to
introduction
prefatory
the
of
of
very
her:
" [i]t
rigid
crisis.
own
genre
the
meets
than
more
of
entirely
" consists
it
the
uses
She
(xii).
eye"
general,
in
fiction
of
herself
her
to
the
or
drawn
her
Truiths
and
identity"
fiction
who
Home
up
"national
introduction
of
be
the
to
seek
such
reassurthe
from
any
author
disappointed.
Gallant
works
against
autobiographical
intention
both
"domestic"
interpretations,
in
criticism
readings
as
of
her
well
work.
as
In
the
the
of
privilegpreface,
her
HOME TRUTHS
is directed to commit
literal readers" (Hancock 5I-52)to the life of the
reference
the biographical fallacy twice: once in
nation, and once in reference to the life of the author. For example,
the kind of information Gallant includes in the preface might seem
"LverY
KAREN SMYTHE
I II
prevent a
J 12
THE
'HOME TRUTH'
ABOUT
HOME
TRUTHS
KAREN
the
of
age
bilingual
ten
by
"hated"
who
because
her
was
she
(xvii).
a tone
Consequently,
about
Canadian
has
the
Dreyfus
the
introduction
Linnet
(it
is
Gallant's
her
as
her
citizenship,
surface
silence
on
the
subj
her
context
with
of
she
identifies
her
the
a man
in
are
interests
Gallant's
who,
case
the
the
a traitor
as
labelled
of
rest
of
with
was
on
focus
explanation
Mentioning
ect,
is
defensive
as
the
she
is
both
of
epigraph
the
the
not
critical
of
the
integrity
indicates:
" Only
her
Despite
Pasternak)."
(Boris
matters
independence
personal
that
"Canadian."
introduction
of
this
midst
that
comments
her
"interrogations")
extreme),
emphasize
defined
and
the
reasons.
political
in
incongruous
understood:
to
serves
In
seem
in
evident
(or
fiction.
located
for
prefatory
work
own
a dangerous
(to
those
to
questions
might
easily
exiled
also
limited
her
is
is
resentfulness
about
which
patriotic
preface
and
case,
unfairly
of
about
stories),
though
and
art
received
she
of
classmates,
her
I 13
SMYTHE
criteria
apparently
2 This
politically.
raises
the
of
question
or
whether
not
then
cognoscenti,
language,
just
as
it
preface
too
is
might
targeting
target
an
an
audience
audience
at
at
the
level
of
the
level
of
I I4
THE 'HOME
TRUTH' ABOUT
HOME
TRUTHS
NOTES
I Gallant's Overhead in7a Balloon is subtitled "Stories of Paris," but does not
include an introduction, nor offer an explanation of the subtitle beyond the fact
that the stories are set in Paris. Not all of the stories in Home Truths are set in Canada;
nor do they deal with "'Canadian"> issues per se. This comparison would reinforce
the interpretation that the preface in Home Truths is being put to ironic ends.
2 It should be noted that Gallant's manuscript as submitted to the editors (now
with her other papers at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of
Toronto) does not differ greatly from the published introduction. Minor changes
in syntax are marked in dark black ink, but there is little evidence that the author's
ideas were either solicited or emended by the Canadian publisher. Thus while the
subtitle may be attributable to Macmillan's staff, it would seem that the preface
itself is a product of Gallant's intention.
IRONIC
TR ANSFORM ATIONS:
THE FEMININE
GOTHIC IN
ARITHA VAN HERK'S
NO FIXED ADDRESS
SUSANNE BECKER
....
... ...
***
***
***
***Uni
versity of Mainz
ll
IRONIC
TRANSFORMATIONS
feminine
the
I
"secret
Attic"
would
like
sation
of
In
plots."
to
gothic
the
feminist
"Lgreat
"re-visions"
literature">
Ellen
women
female
authorship.
term
focus
In
through
be
the
would,
the
present
homosocial
truth
the
realist
Such
fantastic.
subj
and
related
vii)
It
potential
investigate
to
it:
than
for
of
of
the
with/of
traditionally
"subversion,"
mode's
connections
the
the
author.
claim
to
forms
of
raise
en
emphasize
relationship
for
romance,
the
creating
mode's
author,
here
also
would
of
focalisation
foremost
as
the
the
works
examine
"transcendence,"'
would
rather
instead
this
the
for
to
gender
the
side
term
The
mesmerizing
process
investigate
paradigm":
It
on
relationship.
the
Holt)
and
"Gothic's
and
popular
appropriate,
Coherence
would
text
hier-
"critical
only
motivation
and
maternity,
to
Shelley.
Mary
I976
"great"
Victoria
refers
than
the
(Sedgwick,
mode
are
Whitney
ofheterosexuality"
focus
narrative
discussing
the
rather
contest
of
"patriarchal
that
ect,
by
more
of
mother-daughter
"<transgression."3
genres
seems
the
challenge
Gothic"
the
In
for
the
to
about
tradition.
displayed
interest
Feminist
ex-centricity,
further
studies,
effects
example,
implications
the
the
desire
of
body.
gothic"
on
female
for
of
canonical
assumptions
and
these
in
a shift
Radcliffe
Ann
its
writers.
female
anthology
Phyllis
used
"feminine
would
abyrne
of
as
point:
Gothic"
In
Female
(e.g.,
likes
gothic,">
(90).
the
in
it.
celebrating
the
"Female
r 983
of
the
with
side
in
term
Fleenor's
from
women
margin,
what
intertextuali-
traditional
and
mode
authors
"Lfemale
the
the
pluralism
contemporary
of
in
introduces
arise
a case
17
"Madwoman
feminine
that
that
traces
the
of
Juliann
literary
centre
gothic
coined
is
the
plot">
essay:
gothic
paralleled
and
writers
archies,
It
the
the
Moers
"secret
this
challenging
unearthed
to
possibilities
the
"archeologists,"
have
reference
probable
in
and
has
literary
the
as
investigate
marginalization
by
Atwood's
ofThornfield
BECKER
SUSANNE
picaresque,
the
with
nonZ for
with
the
118
lRONIC
gothic
The
Todorov
gothic"
is
evoke
differing
mazes),
an
orderly
overall
impression
typical
the
story
of
narrative
has
"the
getting
in
language
can
be
to
allowed
Horace
"rise
Walpole's
of
readers,
the
ences
of
Abbey
and
of
the
the
I I).
(r
with
became
as
a contemporary
genre-concepts
but
in
Jane
Austen's
by
precisely
the
that
are
Radcliffe's
Atys-
writerS
AND
intertextual
has
in
cen-
examples
refer-
parody,
What
context,
as
"straightforward
Ann
for
origins
premises
female
frame
also
language
its
Standard
and
but
eighteenth
as
both
Shirley.
Bront's
in
764)
function
from
only
(Watt
difficulty
only
mimetic
novel"
the
undecipher-
that
English
to
frequently,
characters
gothic
and
Popular
writing,
Charlotte
supernatural.
Otranto
quickly
women's
gotluc
of
(I794.).
mode
the
of
events"
Castle
Uldolpho
and
aesthetics
ordinary
of
reporting
fixed
legitimate
the
fact
and
beneath
structuring
the
and
90)
"the
letter,
the
the
castle,
Less
7), and
unreal
charac-
lie
of
neo-classicism
hierarchical
its
with
the
that
only
have marked
the
lost
have
(Moers
69).
tale),
not
they
enclosure
discussed:
(the
live-burial
of
features
against
been
told">
Coherence
conceive
these
rebellion
feminine
itself
the
fear
" (Abrams
have
are,
(haunted
of
terrors
mind
for
for
formulaic
scenes
physical
housekeeper's
(Sedgwick,
said
All
teries
the
unspeakable,"
of
tury,
civilized
latter,
they
devices
nightmarish
strategies
manuscript,
of
the
the
the
evoke
"the
The
"phenomena"
stock
setting,
to
of
surface
the
effect
when
extensively:
period
I).
the
standards
literary
the
romantic
the
create
interpreted
(2
and
Gothic
maiden-in-flight),
the
horror,
by
and
Tzvetan
between
aesthetic/stylistic
articulated,
associations.
(villain,
theory"
and
rarely
genres,"
oscillation
abstract
lacking,
are
collected
ters
a continued
and
be
to
seems
"what
be
for
extent,
same
of
definition
"The
. ..
phenomena
of
gothic,
been
"will
the
to
theorized
been
fantastic.
the
writes,
description
able
not
has
as
example,
the
TRANSFORMATIONS
to
happened
a context
opposite,
Northanger
marked
the
blurring
the
not
SUSANNE
of
the
boundaries,
is concerned
Studies
egies
organizing
have
of
obfuscation
feminist
with
of
to
grid
for
female
in
genres,
19
that
a context
"re-visions"?
women's
twentieth-century
referred
discrete
BECKER
the
gothic
as
narrative
"to
remaining
consciousness"
as
Rachel
and
poetic
this
day
Blau
strata
du
major
Plessis
120
IRONIC
TRANSFORMATIONS
SUSANNE
BECKER
121
122
IRONIC
TRANSFORMATlONS
juxtaposed
SUSANNE
I23
BECKER
I)
This is not the voice of a victimized maiden-in-flight but the language of a feminist hero, refusing submission, transgressing strictures. The "quotation" of this gothic motif in No Fixed Address
underlines its importance in the struggle for stability of the female
hero, even if at first seemingly undermining such strength: in an
ironic inversion ofthe procedure, Arachne ASKS Thomas to "turn her
into a respectable woman" (I3 7). She can safely do so knowinig that
the "quiet transformation" is nothing but one of the "covers" she
tries on throughout the plot, another "disguise," as the chapter's title
"Disguise"7 aptly indicates. Thomas knows and understands: he is a
hero, as glamorously idealized as his BYronic predecessors, characterized as "a man too good to be true" s and the obviousness of this
fact uncovers that former idealization of the gothic hero. Moreover,
his ideal response to Arachne's wish of adapting to his world (as well
as to her other wishes) underlines the new power of the gothic
female hero facing the respectability-problem: if she chooses a
commitment to traditional standards, she will determine the extent
of that commitment herself, instead of reacting in self-defense
against the hero's action. Arachne's "self" underneath the new
clothes cannot be touched: it is inescapably bound to the past she
rejects.
The uncanny
124
IRONIC
TRANSFORMATIONS
prominent in modern
BECKER
SUSANNE
Thomas's
ally
household
he
absent,
able"
in
in
this
a house.
In
ending,"
For
of
of
what
To
build
to
fly
has
or
in
the
to
violate
in
do.
"a
enclosure
to
pattern,
seeming
certain
wornen's
for
of
(of
in
escaped.
which
love
for
the
quest's
absence
maxim
is
the
text
and
. .
its
while
describes
or
should
women
. ..
what
be
that
motives
wife
plots:
without
ideology
grammar
in
" happy
a quest
negativit~y,
a heroine
instance,
male
also
gothics
45).
(for
characters:
The
..
female
on
should
hands
an
in
(palms
gothic
"Faustian"
the
insane
masochism
Poe's")
example,
their
of
that
subverts
hero
self-divided
(Thompson
male
the
this
quest
lonely,
Absolute"
such
traditional
is
speaka child
(339)
Arachne's
man:
of
as
the
Arachne's
a marker
"un
as
immobility
romance
hold.
around
face
the
such
maxim,
the
the
immobility
gothic,
the
The
not
found
a narrative
prescribing,
Thus,
quest?
does
the
as
is profession-
horror,
stasis:
becomes
here
her
is
of
she
reversed:
ultimate
is
much
inversion
quest,
are
The
text
as
bliss,
cause
home.
mother,
Miller
context),
to
the
then
the
a stated
the
roles
gothic
a complete
Nancy
not
to
domestic
dominates
sake.
tends
feminine
power
the
traditional
I25
pursuit
and
this
text
up)
signal
passivity
is
of
the
of
transferred
submission;
they mostly react to her initiative; they are objects in her "brutally
honest" reports to Thena; they become victimized by her sexuality
and later by her violence, as she robs one and kills another man in
self-defense."2 In this reversal, men are relegated to the ultimate
stasis: death. This is especially true ofJloseph, Arachne's ninety-yearold lover who is romantically described as a man who has been alive
for a long time. He appears not only as hyperbolic distortion of the
126
lRONIC
TRANSFORMATIONS
There are traces of dread throughout the text, however paradoxical they might appear in a work set in the wild West with a travelling
woman. They start out as almost comical ghostly optical illusions -"a disembodied head floating" (35) in a virtual ghost-town of
gathering -
Queen
SUSANNE
BECKER
127
Anne wing chairs, the demure Princess Mary chairs, they are
whistling at their friends on the mezzanine, dropping their
suitcases and flinging coats and waving keys. They are booking
massages and whipping out their business cards and demanding
suites with
and the location of the swimming pool.
jacuzzis
Writers">
I8), is no less
less
comic:
coming from the B.C. panorama, the first sight of the prairie fills
Arachne with "cautious horror," ironically recalling Emily's first
encounter of Alpine sublime. Yet it is exactly this bare landscape,
perceived as "mournfully gothic" world (I64), that she is magically
drawn to explore. Such gothic traces thicken throughout the text,
as indicated by chapter titles and other allusions. They point towards
the last section, where "report" and nightmare are blurred together
into the surrealistic,
128
IRONIC TRANSFORMATIONS
ness, Solitude and Silence" (7 I)'s - the West coast mountains, the
blue glacier. Even Burke's shipwreck-theme is depicted: in an
imagined encounter with a drowned man (294.). Driving West for
Arachne means going back to the past, back to "<her own escaped
history" (278). It becomes a self-destructive movement marked by
the conscious pain of returning to the repressed'6 and by a record
of her various selves, "dying" one after the other: " She has been back
I08)
in
she is awakened, not by her own scream but by her own snoring!
Claustrophobia quickly changes the tone: "Constricted more and
more, she feels herself rising in a scream, a cry beyond darkness and
SUSANNE
BECKER
I29
journey"
130
lRONIC
TRANSFORMATIONS
be told. The ironic double voice allows for such a "re-vised" renewal
gothic tradition; on the contrary, through the displaced "quotation" of decisive gothic motifs
without discontinuing the feminine
NOTES
i The potential for transcendence, for example, has been denied by Fleenor:
"The Female Gothic is not a transcendent form as the Romantic novel has been
described. Transcendence is not possible. The Female Gothic is historically defined
by the culture in which it has existed and continues to exist. The thread of continuity
established in all gothics is that they all represent an androcentric culture" (16).
"Although the Gothicis not transcendent for either females or males, in the Female
Gothic it is even more limited . . .. It is a metaphor for female experience" (2 y).
2 As emphasized by Rosemary Jackson: "[Mary Shelley's] writings open an
alternative 'tradition,' of 'female Gothic.' They fantasize a violent attack upon the
symbolic order and it is no accident that so many writers of a Gothic tradition are
women: Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Christina Rossetti, Isak
Dinesen, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, Angela Carter, all of whom have
employed the fantastic to subvert patriarchalsociety - the symbolic order of
modern culture" (in Mary Eagleton r8).
x
3 Allison Light has used the term transgression to characterize the possibilities
of the related romance plot by the example of the feminine gothic Rebecca (in Mary
Eagleton I43). Applied to the concept of the feminine gothic, the term has the
potential to extend the inherent gothic "transgressions" of the natural, the real,
the rational in such a way that they include the feminist critique and subsequent
"transgression" of the limitations of the patriarchal paradigm with its related
cultural codes for language and the body.
4 This phenomenon, usually tied to the publishers "Mills & Boon" in London
and "Harlequin" in Toronto, and interpreted as result of the "Feminine Mystique"
SUSANNE
(Betty
Friedan)
Radway, and
5
a self
writing
While
in
its
Western
societies
of
1950s,
the
has been
131
analyzed by
Mussell,
Modleski.
that
intertext
The
(r962),
in
BECKER
the
comes
example
conscious
1960s
combination
in
connection
with
the
to
mind
of
the
with
gothic in
is
Doris
ultra-realism
the
Lessing's
that
consciousness-raising
feminist
dominated
of
at
first
the
seem
time.
like a
in
132
IRONIC
winter,
"strangely
Lanie
TRANSFORMATiONS
content,
caught
her
she names
queen,
what
is a spider
in
with
the
fairy-tale
which
in
child
a web
after
is the
she identifies:
of quiet"
what
combination
"It
(8
i ), waiting
spider
for
time
the
birth,
within
the
a belly
as
rotund as Lanie's. . .. Lanie saw that the spider had been injured; it had only seven
legs. But that did not hinder her design or ambition " (8 2).The actual naming, with
all its very unromantic implications, then occurs with Gabriel's reflections on
"' 'Arachnid . .. Spiders are rogues' " (83).
io In The Reproduction of Mlothering, Nancy Chodorow explores the dynamics
of the mother-daughter relationship in a patriarchal context, the family conventions of which leave the regulation of childhood to the mother, thus repeating the
same gender structures over and over again: "From the retention of preoedipal
attachments to their mother, growing girls come to define and experience themselves as continuous with others: their experience of self contains more flexible or
permeable ego boundaries. Boys come to define themselves as more separate and
distinct, with a greater sense of rigid ego boundaries and differentiation. Women's
mothering, then, produces asymmetries in the relational experiences of girls and
boys as they grow up, which account for crucial differences in feminine and
masculine personality" (r69). The mother-daughter relationships in feminine
gothic texts often represent or comment upon such constellations.
II Poe stated in "The Philosophy of Composition " that "the most poetical topic
[was] the death of a beautiful woman" (i 97) and explored this topic to the fullest
inhis own gothic tales and poems, such as "Ligeia" and "The Raven.
i2 This murder occurs in the typically gothic situation in which immobility of
the subject evokes violence: see, for example, Sedgwick's discussion of Wuthering
Heights (Coherence 99). The expected pattern of violence triggering horror is here
extended into a reversal where now violence is triggered by horror. This extension
may be another means of the feminine gothic's turn against the patriarchal
paradigm's violations of women's liberty/ mobility which in turn provokes violent
reactions.
13 The scene evokes Atwood's party scene in The Edible Woman as much as
Munro's portrayal of Flats Road women in Lives of Girlsand Women or in "Dance of
the Happy Shades." The grotesque, the monstrous in femininity is distorted to
demonstrate its social construction. Van Herk emphasizes this artificiality: Arachne
doubts her eyes, "overlooking what must surely be a backdrop - there is no real
scenery
like
'4
the
that
That
no
novel,
of her
watches
the
'5
haunts,
imagines
dark
(3
and
around
tourist's
70). The
used
by
the
rides
mermaid
life
most
as "female
herself
big
here
Dorothy
Human
reverses
last
in
Lady
section
of
monster"
her
dark
mafia
only
in
movement
she
has
too,
throughout
paradox
else"
somewhere
(262),
the
is arriving
(I64).
The
helicopter:
final
" She
arrived."
is
Burkean,
resulting
Freudian
in
Lady
in
the
shape
: "The
Little Mermaid
monster,
glasses,
The Mermaid
the
for
pain
example,
and
fear,
thie
lit
. ..
up
and
incomplete
and
the
repressed"
"Fat
rides
her
than
green
glowing
that
Lady."
Joan Foster's
paranoid
larger
hill
the
of the
Oracle, where
female
down
of
"return
Oracle in
as indicating
mermaid
Dinnerstein
Malaise.
is indicated
Her
sublime,
the
anyway, striding
of the
set
darkness
again. . ..
glasses,
image
for
knowing
the
utter
is possible
travel.
r 45)-
the
in
be
her,
Joan Foster
example
leave
of
here
example
For
hero
to
can only
in
(Burke
female
travels
to
below
perception
dilating"
movement
for
i 7
this
is
then,
world
physical
The
for
solution
story,
of darkness
x6
(243)
"Arachne
only
"pupils
terrors
ending
roadless
The
Arachne's
world"
example:
her
sentence
the
static
for
somewhere,
the
in
I33
BECKER
SUSANNE
again,
I thought,
life,
larger
eyes
behind
like
femininity
Minotaur:Sexual
a cat's
has
also
than
her
..
been
Arrangements
JOANNETOD
KAR EN BERNARD
.....................
...... **
orkUlniversity
BERNARD
KAREN
of
is
speech
sive
element
in
so
doing
Silverman,
a
the
with
as
the
ironic
We
know
that
to
voiced
think
discourse,"
battlefield
three
paintings
sense,
the
terms
of
to
what
as
its
that
referential
on
the
to
same
object
referential
of
paintings,
dominant
the
is
topic.
clashes
itself.
referent
irony
and
is
naturalized
used
possi-
" double-
Bakhtin's
becomes
I84,
ras).
is,
In
in
the
general
opposing
can
most
is
intentions
be
in
explicated
polemic":
is
but
oriented
at
the
constructed
the
in
author's
Here
one
with
another
to
toward
same
such
discourse
utterance
its
time
each
way
that,
brings
act,
another
focused
on
speech
another
against
bear
the
It
"speech
of
discourse,
object
the
on
referent
discourse
any
of
sub-
articulating
another.
referent
"hidden
meaning,
attack
assertion
this
author's
is
the
of
speech
parody,
conflict
of
the
about
polemical
turally
The
medium
Tod.
(Bakhtin
here,
discussed
the
identifi-
other
in
of
type
cousin
defines
dimensions
double
intentions"
calls
object,
its
any
meaning
one
feminist
through
or
that
and
as
to
She
useful
like
is
like
person.
polemic
assertion
Tod's
which,
Bakhtin
referential
grounds
in
be
art
valuable
three
very
speech
ironic
these
thing
understandings
hidden
besides
one
female
and
towards
discourse
saying
opposing
for
film,
Kaja
posited
has
subject.
constituted
proves
ironic
is
is
of
politicized
of
which
and
46).
Benveniste,
novel,
who
interplay
in
level:
then,
In
play
to
spoken
speech,
production
at
elementary
ble,
of
The
forces
the
subject
ect
cultural
one
of
identifies,
(Silverman
much
utterance,
the
subj
representation.
jectivity in
owes
that
individual
subjectivity"
discur-
"the
equivalent,
its
discoursing
her
analysis
ideology:
subject
cation
that
or
film
in
of
spoken
In
his
category
critiques
which
whose
third
of
with
finds
or
pronoun
first-person
the
I35
utterance
on
its
the
7)
advance
representations
polemic
against
of
women.
culThe
136
IRONING
OUT
THE DIFFERENCES
essential doubleness of her work is in its reiteration of these dominant representations in one voice, and its contradiction of (or
"speaking against") them in another.
The doubleness of Tod's painting technique is located, initially, in
her loyalty to a high realist tradition. One critic describes precisely
this quality in Tod's work, and some ensuing implications for the
viewer:
These surfaces are rich, elegant,
by Jean-Honor
epitomized
Enlightenment painters,
Fragonard. In keeping with the objectivity of rationalism,
viewers expect a representation of truth. But Tod's visual
discourse is ambiguous. One representation breaks through
another, destroying the unity of the image and its power.
(Andreae 62)
The traditional or inherited aspect of Tod's visual vocabulary is the
realm of the "spoken subject" -
representations of women which appear natural. In the metanarrative of realism throughout art history, women are continually
and already inscribed on the surface of the canvas in particular
shapes and forms. The most familiar of these is the reclining
odalisque, and the most omnipresent characteristic of gendered
representations is the frozen positioning ofwomen as magnet of the
male gaze. The colours of Tod's palette, the eminently recognizable
forms which represent
KAREN BERNARD
I37
x98 2.
The immediate irony of this piece is that its title does not accurately
watershed Monumenta exhibition at YYz Gallery in September
describe it; that is, the artist herself does not resemble the image in
the "self-portrait." The speaking subject cannot possibly match the
subject of speech. One need not be acquainted with the artist's
appearance to affirm this discrepancy, for the female image in the
138
OUT THE
IRONING
Joanne Tod,
55
X 60
Self-Portrait
in.).
DIFFERENCES
as Prostitute
Private collection.
(1983;
Photo by
acryl
Peter
c on canvas,
MacCallum.
KAREN
The
the
title
"says"
Drawing
in
of
irony
from
Teresa
from
de
by
representation,
one:
Woman,
in
ideology,
as
we
historical
centrally
feminist
the
are
our
inside
both
to
that
and
as
know,
theory
caught
persist
governed
gender
must
built
and
that
we
on,
an
not
are
social
is
and
sustained
once
to
continue
as
historical
irreconcilable
at
Althusser's
subj
but
that,
relations,
contradiction
the
its
within
become
very
condition
ect
even
relation
imaginary
real
condition
as
and
gender,
gender
such
and
between
very
the
culture
in
of
male
which
women
motivated
by
-
be
and
are
in
process
slippage
women
that
feminists,
subjects
include
be
we
process
the
in
hand,
That
representation.
continue
ect
outside
and
tracks
constant
other
in
theory
social
institutions:
obj
the
the
relations,"
" real
contradiction
without
and
of
ects
women
and
things.
discourse
subject,
social
what
different
the
Lauretis
by
as
on
two
cultural
gendered
the
tension,
and,
I 39
between
tension
elaborate
De
differently
as
the
of
can
springs.
representation,
logical
"says"
we
of
the
image
the
tension
solicited
subj
by
work,
discrepancy,
beings,
generated
development
construction
Woman
of
what
this
are
the
and
is
Lauretis's
cultural
female
work
a feminist
which
the
this
BERNARD
we
are
whichthat
of
possibility. ( xo)
This process of the cultural construction of women is pictured in
and at the same moment disrupted. If gender
is ideological in Althusser's sense, as de Lauretis claims, then it must
function unnoticed to be most effective. While a reader of a fashion
Tod's Self-Portrait-
140
IRONING
OUT
THE
DIFFERENCES
KAREN
BERNARD
I4
never closed or finished, even when it has hung in a public exhibition. In this way, the processes of identity formation and artistic
production can be seen as analogous in their interminability.
In the second painting, the self-portrait hangs on the wall of an
empty, ordinary dining room. The table is set, and the door is
invitingly open. Tod has remarked that this painting serves as a
warning to herself of the possible commodification of her work,
which may be consumed as quickly and thoughtlessly as the pot of
soup depicted on the table. There is another ironic effect of the
painting, though, one which is not necessarilylinked to the artist's
intention. The only human figure in this second painting is off to the
side, that is, in the reproduction of the first picture which overlooks
the table. According to the conventions of realistic painting, the
most important image in the painting, especially in the case of a
in
the
inner
male
editor
sible
for
tion
in
circles
of
to
invited
to
reply
Tod's
actual
photograph
This
MacKenzie's.
cover
of
of
the
an
issue
banishment
ent
network,
and
presence
both
of
as
world,
art
in
is
not
Tod's
seeming
but
to
an
institution
She
of
this
piece
its
the
with
hers
time
the
logo
at
the
and
linked
the
women
life,
from
C undermines
the
to
top
its
in
literal
solidity
herself
of
exclusion
Their
and
front
emerges
by
an
photo
Tod's
depiction
social
into
from
copied
same
contradicted
sexual
the
friend
simultaneously.
systematic,
perpetuate
in
and
edge
of
of
arts
Toronto
working
the
at
the
visual
words.
own
as
this
spheres
other
accidental
progressiveness,
by
in
is
were
participants
strangers
of
absence
places
the
herself
Paulo.
is
by
respon-
voiced.
heads
doubleness
was
canvas
within
paint
Sao
indicated
this
excluded,
location
as
verisimilitude
underdog,"
events
C,
to
in
the
ironic
from
apparent
the
of
speak
to
capacity
a nightclub
forbidden
The
canvas.
Elizabeth
her
of
were
they
replacing
simply
faithfully,
friend
were
is
which
of
Celebra-
on
nepotism
controversy
this
from
locale
very
of
suspicions
and
biennial,
C,
selection
the
the
a Biennial
factions
time,
year,
in
recognizably
same
the
That
magazine,
nor
Tod
Neither
contested
hotly
community
the
At
art
r 985.
in
participants
pictured
both
world
Canadian
Brazil.
attend.
art
Canadian
the
Canadian
prominent
Paulo,
MacKenzie
the
of
selecting
Sao
THE DIFFERENCES
OUT
IRONING
142
and
are
"the
glorified
its
parallel
In
there.
appargallery
inequity.
At the same time, it seems that Tod is questioning her own desire
for the prestige which patriarchy has to offer, by picturing herself
and her friend as somewhat ill at ease in the
glamorous Brazilian
night life. The two women appear less integrated into the crowd
than the others present, and their bodies appear constrained within
rigid garments of a type obligatory to the formal-occasion fancy
gowns which sculpt the female body forcibly into uniform contours.
The artist here is a subj ect both speaking and spoken, both the agent
KAREN
BERNARD
I 43
painting and the figure constrained by the ball gown and the scene of the fiesta. In this painting,
ignoring of the festivities, and the very presence of the two women
in this scenario has an air of improbability, almost to the extent of
producing a surreal or magical quality. The word "magic" in the title
speaks a double resonance. It may sardonically refer to the naturalizing of a male monopoly of society's power, the exercise of which
can seem mysterious and of obscure origin. On another level, it may
refer to Tod's capabilities as an artist, her ability magically to
represent herself in a scene from which she is excluded.
The necessity to counteract exclusion is, ofcourse, predicated on
the marginality of women, that is, on their placement on the
outskirts of the circles of power. This is the predicament which Tod
recognizes and in which these paintings intervene. The doubled
vision of irony facilitates this critique, as it can both speak the
marginality of women in our historical moment and speak against
it. Thus irony works as a destabilizing force from within the presently existing social order, Canadian as well as global, in which it is
144
IRONlNG
OUT THE
DIFFERENCES
"MOTHER(S) OF
CONFUSION"::
END BRACKET
WiENDY WVARING
** * ** **
* ** ** ** ** ** ** * University of Toronto
146
"MOTHER(S)
OF CONFUSION"
Qubbcois
sard, and Heroine, by lapsed lefty and feminist Gail Scott, have titles
which provide us with thumbnail sketches of ironic discourse in a
feminist mode. The generation of language play in Brossard's L'Amer
offers from the very outset a critique of motherhood as mytholo-
gized in Western societies. Received patriarchal notions ofmotherhood are rendered negative, through an ironic recontextualization
of the verbal mother "la mre" into a visible bitterness "I'amer."
WENDY
Through
of
space
positive
tion
ironic
the
sea,
species
hear
the
working
her
creates
novel
an
novel
is
heroine
security
and
self-referential.
of
does
the
stereotypical
romance
ian
She
discourses
projection
the
patriarchal
title,
the
born
we
forth,
potency
through
the
lesbian
of
mother:
can
both
doubling
see
up
her
bathtub.
The
and
and
then
the
a
of
positive
literary
(although
for
she
challenged
in
may
of
the
seventies
to
how
this
difficulty
from
fictional,
autobiographical,
and
the
antecedents
role
feminist
of
problem
is
on
model
in
heroines
of
them).
are
fairly
write
warmth
melodramatic,
this
a number
of
to
nor
'shadow'
Heroine
the
response
criticism;
Scott
figuratively.The
the
tragic
literary
and
Gail
Montreal
novel
the
writer
literally
a political
contemplates
expectations
novels
the
the
both
contemplating
provide
kind
is
anglophone
of
Astride
not
certain
and
Montreal
flashbacks
disappoints
back
is bathetic,
is
I980.
and
heroine
of
who
in
In
this
space.
which
a series
mer."
with
space
without
"la
Heroine,
irony
a woman
another
liminal
deconstruc-
of
identified
and
traces
swinging
a new
been
the
produces
which
pattern
very
positive
from
hinge
into
'Arner,
one
emerges
ironic
has
matriarchal
mothering
new
of
In
of
women
she
which
turn
the
follow
to
seem
is born
ironic
The
mer."
"la
discourse.
recuperation
In
recontextualization
reconstruction
ironic
by
linguistic
would
space
and
of
this
147
WARING
does
fronts:
the
desires
she
follow
nineteenth-century
The
easy
to
authoritarspot
in
the
I980s
and
what
it
means
to
write
one.
For
both
these
texts,
"MOTHER(S)
148
OF
CO)NFUSION"
liminality, the space of reconstruction, is represented by the emergence from water, a rebirth of the subject, when our heroine finally
gets out of the bath, or in Brossard's text, a species is reborn.
I want to look now at an ironic moment in a short poem by Lenore
Keeshig-Tobias, founding editor of the magazine Sweetgrass and an
Ontario Ojibway poet. It is entitled: "(A found poem)." In it,
sections r r and x2(I) (b) of Chapter I49 of the "Act Respecting
Indians" are quoted and reworked with repetition to create a subtle
yet powerful poem and political commentary:
Section I2 (1)(b)
The following persons are not
not allowed to be registered
registered namely, (b) a woman who married
married a person who is not an Indian,
Indian, unless that woman is subsequently
subsequently the wife or widow of a person
person described in section rr .
The irony in this poem hinges on the doubling meaning of single
words such as "respecting" and "person," and is actualized through
the recontextualization of a piece of legislation into the body ofthis
found poem. This poem uses an altered context to create an irony
which comments on both the sexual oppression produced by a white
European state and the complicity of male Indian band chiefs who
condoned and policed this state's intervention in reservation sexual
politics .
"<Where are the Women?" the woman's and the poet's voice asks:
we reach out into the mist
WENDY WARING
149
(SO
"MOTHER(S)
certain
of
kind
OF CONFUSION"
and
feminism
Marxist-Feminist
"Talkin'
SISTERS
me
It
if
of
sisters!
yourself
call
be
more
theoretical
or
at
a Marxist
accurate
life
in
the
the
to
and
too,
your
inner
anarchist
very
least
yeah
first
a feminist
characterise
as
contradictory,
'cause
point
very
Blues."
now,
you
might
highly
the
structure
that
Hear
Well
makes
cooooooontradictory
you'll
place,
want
to
distinguish
yourself
from
radical
feminism
socialist
feminism
&r even
national
feminism?
well
what
in
piece,
the
to
us/does
the
To
being
even
fear
rape
ain't
no
."
herself
"<some
woman
he's
probably
to
feminist
made
noooaooo
replies,
irony
of
the
ain't
party
no
embroiled
marxist">
who's
to
how
her
in
"sym-
married
articulate
temper
get
comrade
at
male
women
ever
the
sure
nice
struggles
and
bourgeois
Again,
finds
She
that?
(82)
cause/hell
. .
is
Atwood/she
sir
speaker
a woman
her
hell
Margaret
with
dishes
why
which
Thatcher?"
the
feminist
the
pathetic
the
no
conversation
of
call
socialist
a difficult
ficities
feminism
what
you
do
national
Later
national
the
one
speci-
Marxism:
cramps
menstrual
missile
"Well
what
piece
depends
about
on
Margaret
this
phrase
of
question
by
second
she's
beautiful
she's
got
and
a lot
of
claaaaaaaass
her
for
some
you
the
of
is
or
to
you
and
about
difficultly
theorizable
the
left;
to
familiar
hyphen
situation,
"theoretical
perhaps
in
solidarity
piece
of
a kind
text
and
has
itself
as
is
an
the
a new
who
they
involve,
the
new
structure
only
the
space
word
on
the
understanding.
what
understands
a
how
of
shifting
This
alliances.2
of
of
point,
re-emergence
before
and
doubled
radical
some
final
audience
underbelly
questionings
enacts
into
Endres's
us.
what
its
of
discourses
reconstructed
madness
for
works
theoretical
positions,
of
many
the
say
85)
Marxist-feminism,
called
mean,
loyalties
mythical
discourse.
this
are
schizophrenia,"
a liminality,
irony
they
(84.,
are
piece
gonna
you're
know
Thatcher?
space
her
artist
you
sisters,
this
in
an
be
had
never
who
men
say
Margaret
deconstructed
and
mance
dishes
the
of
class
freedom
her
her
to
what
feminism
divided
does
oppression
working
white
turn
But
The
no
who
yes
the
outrageous
beautiful
are
education
What
gorgeous
men
even
and
feminist:
radical
party"
men
Indian
and
but
means
recognition
no
Black
are
sisters
class
struggle
woman
there's
paintings
same
that
analysis
class
all
and
her
at
with
conversation
in
Marxist-feminist
the
even
"maybe
repeated
time
the
hear
We
context.
altered
an
in
text
the
in
later
reappearing
151
WARING
WENDY
an
ironic
kind
of
political
perfor-
political
152
"MOTHER(S)
OF CONFUSION"
"No," said Stork shaking her head sadly, "we ration words, and
I've used mine up for at least three centuries. I must be leaving,"
and left abruptly. (65)
Fox, painfully stereotypical, drafts the conclusions to her research:
"<[T]he average stork utters seventeen words, exactly seventeen, in
every century."
WENDY WARING
I53
The irony in this fable is not directed solely at the more scientistic
urges of researchers. The "conversation" with the progressive Fox
represents the kind of residual "exotification" that is often present
in white feminist organizations, a by-product of tokenism. This
exotification is another variation on the racism that post-colonial
societies continue to produce long after imperial forces have withdrawn. The important thing for us to note here is that the irony is
directed from within at the within, or from the without at the
without, or directed at female minoritarians by female minori-tarians. In fact, if we look at Endres's piece, "Talkin' MarxistFemlinist Blues,"> or at Heroine, we could come to similar conclusions. This is the point where that word "feminist" is going to
create problems.
The difficult moment in this analysis comes when we attempt to
outline what female minoritarian discourse is, and what the nature
of dominant culture is, that presumed and presumptuous centre
which is deconstructed by a female irony. According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, "<irony entails a judgement and always has a
victim."> One must have faith in what the twenty-volume Oxford can
reveal of the truth. The victim of feminist irony would be, I suppose,
something called patriarchy, or male-stream traditions, or even the
capitalist-patriarchal state. And yet I see difficulties in reconciling
this "<target"> with the "victims" of the ironic texts read here.
To begin with, many feminists can (and do) maintain an ironic
stance in relation to more than one "mainstream." A feminist could
use irony in her texts certainly against
154
"MOTHER(S)
OF
CONFUSION"
Qubbcois
context as an anglophone?
The first difficulty, then, is one of homogenization: it becomes
impossible to circumscribe a female position which would stand in
opposition to an equally homogenous dominant victim of irony. If
irony's discourse is one of doubling, of opposition, of the confrontation of two sides, we would need a replication of that doubling
oppositionality to feel justified in isolating irony as a general discursive figure that rules aspects of feminist or even female minoritarian
speech. I think we can see from the assortment ofworks chosen here
that whatever irony emerges from a feminist discursive space would
I55
WENDY WARING
becomes
inadequate.
duced
those
by
into
the
When
whom
margin
a revolving
see
can
cussed
here.
relates
to
this
critique
both
no
longer
to
like
pro-
thrust
need
is
but
its
all
not
back
a hinge,
but
texts
dis-
oshi's
reification,
degree
worth
a certain
to
which
but
also
to
critique
toyed
various
of
self-referentiality
with,
feminist
or
ideological
if we
criticism
look
versions
the
irony
comfortab>le
kind
a certain
critique
feminists.
other
the
against
edge
sharpest
undoes
the
as
Heroine
take
and
at
radical
of
the
self-directed.
is
If we
two
feminist
of
be
the
but
complex,
its
comments
ironic
make
at
of
would
to
may
in
feature
irony
contemplation.
kind
added
uses
Blues"
"Marxist-Feminist
an
once,
interrelated.
and
fable
capitalist
industrial-militarist
in
is
issues.
notion
speakers
piece
performance
at
things
obviously
received
a popularly
offers
political
mother,
fatherly
minoritarian
Namj
patriarchal
are
the
poem)"
native
two
against
all
found
"(A
to
and
separatism
female
of
they
to
lesbian
Similarly,
Endres's
directed
the
closest
in
irony
state
challenges
seems
which
where
we
the
although
text
critique,
being
meanings
would
heterogeneity
patriarchal
degrees,
feminism
is also
stop,
that
text
Brossard's
The
to
burgeoning
The
different
irony
of
culture
dominant
refuses
Keeshig-Tobias's
of
proliferation
door.
We
with.
the
positive
"<Talkin'
of
an
role
Marxist-Feminist
feminism
are
work
of
irony
where
example,
modelling
are
Blues,"
jostling
about,
or if we take finally "The Fox and the Stork,"> where again, feminism
is being challenged by feminism, we do run into a difficulty with
mastery. If we assume that irony needs a clearly articulated authoritative voice as its victim, is the self-referential political irony of
feminists still ironic? Is what Endres dubbed "theoretical
schizophrenia" a step beyond what we can meaningfully call irony?
The advantage of looking at irony as a discursive function which
controls the cultural interplay between centre and margin can be
156
"MOTHER(S) OF CONFUSION"
tions on a theme. Each of these cases comes with its own baggage,
a baggage over which we stumble in attempting to board the train
to somewhere called "female minoritarian discourse." Let's take
mother out of the closet, off the back of the bus, out of the kitchen,
off the reserve. Let's
I57
WENDY WARING
more
of
Mothers
strategies.
End
confusion.
discussion,
more
Babel,
babble,
comes
Then
away.
pull
train
the
ing
bracket.
NOTES
I
incisive,
2
See
her
See the
I Left 'The
essay, "Why
anecdotal
look
essay by
at
Arun
the
problems
Mukherjee
Left'
to
facing
which
Write,"
in Silvera
3-20o for
artist
a Marxist-feminist
follows
in
this
volume.
an
in
ironic,
Canada.
IRONIES OF COLOUR
IN THE GREAT WHIiTE
NORTH: THE DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES OF
SOME HYPHENATED CAN ADIANS
ARUN P. MUKHERJEE
....
....
...
...
....
...
...
York University
phrase "the Great White North,"> an affectionate appellation used by Canadians to denote the long, wintry face of
Canada, creates ironic speech about race. As any perceptive user of
language can see, the title is really a tongue-in-cheek description of
popularly used metaphor about Canadian geography and weather and bending it to suit
my own purposes, I want to create a racial "difference," a racialized
race relations in Canada. By appropriating a
ARUN
P. MUKHERJEE
159
political discourse claims that the visible minorities and the invisible
majority lead a harmonious life, the ironic speech created by the
lRON1ES
160
OF COLOUR
IN
THE
GREAT
WHITE
NORTH
parodic, a
July I,
to
because
the
them
way
specific
a race
Canadians
will
who
do
so
and
victims
Sri
Only
becomes
The
paper
said
The
paper
said
An
american
This
side
of
Shot
20
children
in
meanings
man
a McDonalds
the
border
mexican
and
Restaurant
others
good
in
the
following
example
non-white
Mac
to
Thereof
Attack!"
writing:
how
in
ironies
passage
of
ethnoperspec-
privilege.
carriers
"Big
called
to
from
of
The
into
according
opposed
least
major
become
Boulrgeoisie is
ironic
as
victim-
the
Canadians
them
colour,
at
Day"
of
dividing
codification
poem
1s the
of
is
Chinese
sympathetically
guilt
dividing
Canadians.
Bhaggiyadatta's
carrier
to
colour,
coding
non-white
Minority
a
opposed
is
"Humiliation
the
on
insists
because
colour
of
literature
The
so
in
the
with
respond
Canadians,
and
Krisantha
is
well.
of
modes
The
as
while
marker
major
It
implied
injustice,
then,
as
The
colour
fore,
an
irony
may
non-whites,
non-white
of
the
irony,
diversity.
cultural
tive
of
Canadians
ethnicity.
their
to
race-specific
The
whites
the
as
white
disposed
izer.
respond
them
for
race-specific
be
will
experience
be
course,
the
but
too,
Canadians
of
may,
They
in
experienced
are
that
ironies
white
informed
by
experienced
native
and
home
"our
Canadians.
non-white
by
when
dissonance
parodic
changing
by
patrio-
of
discourse
similar
create
strategies
discursive
Such
the
Day,"
"Humiliation
land."
native
"<our stolen
to
land">
dominant
anthem
national
the
rewrite
they
Day"
the
create
Canadians
Native
tism.
"Canada
desacralize
Canadians
Chinese
naming
By
Act.
Immigration
Chinese
infamous
the
of
anniversary
the
is
day
161
MUKHERJEE
ARUN P.
from
from
colour
I 62
IRONIES
OF
COLOUlR
IN
THE
GREAT WHITE
NORTH
We knew immediately
he wasn't black
There was no large photo (n.pag.)
Another poem in the same collection points out another aspect of
tlus representational racism;
in the last two months
all the black people on
television cop shows
have been criminals (n.pag.)
In both cases irony arises from the fact that non-whites can read
between the lines and foil the strategies of the dominant discourse.
Thus, when we non-white Canadians watch beer commercials, we
never fail to notice our absence there. The happy scene of conviviality, then, is interpreted by us as that of racist exclusion. It is in
this context that all descriptions ofa non-white skin, as in "black is
beautiful," become ironic.
It is ironic to ponder on the fact that non-white writers are always
identified on the back page of their books by their racial difference.
"Dionne Brand is a Toronto Black Poet," we are told on the last page
of her poetry collection Winter Epigrams.White Canadian artists, of
course, do not need to be defined racially. Does it mean that the
white writers are writing for every-body, regardless of race? If so,
then it is interesting to speculate on why writing the body is so
important for non-white writers.
This self-identification by race is an important piece of contextual
knowledge for understanding the work of the non-white writers.
For example, when Dionne Brand entitles her poems Primitive
Ofensive, and the poems happen to be about her journey back to her
ARUN
P. MUKHERJEE
163
164
IRONlES
OF COLOUR
iN
THE
GREAT WHiTE
NORTH
sinister to the other. Feminists here may recall the new readings of
fairy tales to bring out their misogynistic content. The non-white
writers, on the other hand, appropriate fairy tales to comment on
the experience of racism. In Obason,
Joy
Kogawa provides a
In one of Stephen's
ARUN
P. MUKHERJEE
165
I I)
166
lRONlES OF COLOUR
iN
the
movie
Those
who
produced
proprieties
of
is
experienced
I,
as
racism
texts
them
as
becomes
Canadian
Canadian
to
me
(See
participated
who
persp
as
tone
of
me
since
some
I can't
I feel
several
experience
differently
Mukherjee,
The
ective
on
the
under
and
in
irony.
In
Times
that
vis--vis
my
allegiance
my
race-specific
Towards an
to
appreciated
highly
from
Like
Bront's
critics
pay
irony
history.
Charlotte
feminist
the
non-ironic
McClung's
Nellie
Herland
rather
any
wince
Similarly,
literature
experience.
a different
texts
for
WHlTE NORTH
experience
Gilman's
woman.
led
has
of
such
ironic
a non-white
experience
works
of
or
example,
celebratory
the
And
see
for
Perkins
those
and
bring
who
reader,
Charlotte
these
not
do
those
non-white
Eyre.
/one
form
by
"normalized"
These,
its
THE GREAT
the
mainstream
Aesthetic
of
Oppo-
sition.)
It
seems
to
me
that
ironies
based
on
racial
difference
are
always
jus'
girls
ARUN
P.
MUKHERJEE
I 67
I 68
IRONIES
OF
COLOUR
IN
THE
GREAT
WHlTE
NORTH
postmodern tradition
by them in Canada.
one. Very often, in this discourse, the writer uses "we" to stand for
a particular racial /ethnic group, whereas "you " or "they" very often
stands for a white person or persons. This marking out ofdifference,
ARUN
as
I mentioned
earlier,
dominant
is ironic
community
ence,
unless
sions.
For
and
"Your
here
is
example,
people"
of
group
oppressed
tried
to
for
an
an
uses
the
white
and/or
"we"
stand
its
to
racially
the
these
for
of
the
Mtis
relationship
the
of
member
an
have
critics
Feminist
for
divi-
undifferentiated
one
voices
the
audiclass
The
oppressors.
to
of
to
undifferentiated
gender
problematic
some
belonging
community.
with
more
speaking
appropriate
to
169
MUKHERJEE
writers
to
"author"-ity
a
but
speak
Campbell
(9)
that
the
themselves
Maria
listeners,
pupil
to
address
they
not
because
seem
P.
metanarrative
of
because "your
one.
Since
the
has
earth,"
been
can
only
constraining
how
the
as
the
between
addressed
to
total
the
oppressed
full
And
of
because
is so
range
to
allowed
one
without
these
emerged
only
cautions,
under-
the
relationship
conflictual,
any
the
oppressors,
has
is
victimizer
may
the
by
possibility
silences.
the
victimizer
the
Harris's
from the
girl
black
for
the
the
Edmonton
its
newspaper
consider.
understand
as
and
that
only
spoken
have
of
the
where
from
discourse
persuasion
condemnation.
Claire
to
well
victim
set
would
since
wretched
history,
parameters
of
"the
Fanon's
throughout
they
discourse
statements,
and
one
However,
recently,
Fables
oppressed,
muted
the
constraints.
to
the
speculate
within
speak
of
voice
"Policeman
Qularters
Women's
who
was
crime
of
arrested
is
by
jaywalking.
It
it:
the
is
only
then
poem
poet
about
forms
she
she
and
the
the
speak
her
searched
by
title
the
of
items
of
her
quoting
the
poem)
that
the
neglected
board
appeal
can
strip
poem
provides
enforcement
in
Case"
a fifteen-year-old
police
begins
(which
that
Jaywalking
Calgary
Then
law
Alberta
a long
The
reporting.
and
in
the
journal'sheadline
pro-police
Cleared
rage
and
we
IRONIES
170
I must
down to
before
skin and
set
thumb
you
off
safely
and
to
the
walk
to
the
brush
forefinger
Recognize
Observe
sex
all
you
listen
to
this uneasy
this
now
this
edge
stray
to
harsh
stand
to
world
of
this
me
air
carved
full
stripped
with
of white
to
stand
at
your
go
flick
home
her
works
and
say
mine
and therefore
face to
your
me
around
other
and say
female
cliff with
off
words
the
stand
and
was black
child
and
edge
myself
thing
NORTH
swarm
in
years
hundred
three
I signify
child,
Look you,
this thing
WHITE
THE GREAT
IN
COLOUR
OF
peril
do
not
off
an idea
hope
with
comfortably
silent
cries
invisible
or
so
you
see
us
performed by the
people in power and their inability to control the black poet's rage.
males. There are ironies in the "whitewash"
ARUN
non-white
granted,
Canadian
of
non-white
"<Canadian">
people
as
long
to
as
society's
Canadians
culture,
get
"human
skin
non-white
of
image
will
literature,
behaviour
the
continue
and
from
is
norm
caste
remains
to
social
P. MUKHERJEE
the
marker,
"white,"
parody
order.
the
other"
as
the
assumptions
171
is
long
not
as
ironies
of
BECOMINGCHOMOSEXUAL/
BECOMING-C ANADIAN:
IRONIC VOICE AND THE
PO LITICS OF LOCATION
IN TIM OTHY FINDLEY'S
FAMO US LAST WVORDS
R ICH ARD D ELLAMO RA*
.......
......
......
......
Tre
niversity
breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all
that gave one an identity, the end of safety." ' In a series of novels
that deal with the two World Wars: The Wars ( Ig7 7), FamousLast Words
(I 98 I), and The Telling ofLies (I 98 6), Timothy Findley has returned
obsessively to moments of crisis that put in question central values
in Western culture. In Famous Last Words he focuses on the fears of
social catastrophe that prompt H-ugh Selwyn Mauberley, the leading
protagonist of the novel, to invest in the myth of a strong leader who
will rescue the West in the face of challenges both from the Communists and from "the raucous and wilful repudiation of civilization
by industrified America" (67).
RlCHARD
DELLAMORA
173
gather around the King inexorably draw him and men like
Mauberley into the orbit of Nazi Germany. This process shows the
novel to be, in part, a meditation on how anxiety can provoke a need
for order that operatesat the expense of the very "civilization" with
which Mauberley so earnestly identifies himself.
Expressed in these terms, Findley's meditation might well be a
humanist reflection on the dangers of cultural elitism. Precisely by
situating his text at the margin of humanism, however, Findley shifts
the critique to new
174
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
175
Ixo)
Chosen
of
"the
ically
People
in
in
Mauberley,
human
exile.
during
the
the
aggression"
prophet
down-float
precipitation,
literalized
heads
G-CANADIAN
IN
BECO MING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOM
I 76
the
940s
camps.
death
'Jew'
in
of
by
the
Pound
too,
accusations
the
"Ultimate
speaks
demon-
manna,"
release
Ironically
form
himself,
Of insubstantial
homosexual,
which
spite
of
gas
he
of
from
showeragainst
directs
an
affronts
to
"irresponse
to
Human
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
177
of the novel, who is in his twenties during the War, uses silence
differently from survivors in Germany, where silence was interpreted during the I950s as a sign of "extreme [self-] devaluation"
(Lautmann 85). To the contrary, Quinn succeeds in turning the
silence of the closet against his antagonists. Since the I960s,
men
have been able publicly to express a range of gay subjectivities,
absent from a historical novel like Famous Last Words but which is
necessary if the resistance registered in the novel is to become
something that can be spoken today. Findley's novel conciliates
contemporary gays with closeted homosexuals of the interwar years
by providing a possibility of witness -figured in the text by Quinn's
reading of Mauberley's last words.
I. A Resourceful Irony
Writing from a minority subject-position has provided a location
from which, without expatriating himself, Findley can contest the
cultural and sexual politics of anglo-Canadian hegemony, a politics
which as an adolescent and young man he found severely disabling
("My Final Hour"). Since this hegemony is as outmoded and
damaging of national existence today as it has been in relation to the
lives of lesbians and gay men in the past, Findley's critique has
178
BE COM ING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
Quinn
Cold War, such silence is saving choosingsilence, by refusing, paradoxically, to name oneself.
Quinn's
RlCHARD
DELLAMORA
179
.in spite of all the years I might still have to live as me,
despised as I was by people I admired, and looked down upon
as I was by all, or nearly all, of my peers, . .. I smiled. 1 smiled
because I was alive. I still had that. I could smell the bougainvillaea still, and smoke my cigarette and feel the cool white
cloth of my suit against my legs - and I could watch the
Airmen, still, in the marvel of their youth, the brevity of which
they had no inkling of; and I could see them cross the street and
pass into the dark and I could feel their fear, their marvellous,
sensual fear as they went their way to whatever beds they would
find. I still had that. (359-60)
The doubleness of Mauberley's experience permits Findley to pursue irony in terms that are far more extreme than those which
"allow speakers to address and at the same time confront any
'official' discourse, that is, to work within a dominant tradition, but
also to challenge it" (Appendix I to Introduction, 29).
In this further sense, irony is "a self-conscious use of Metaphor in
the interests of verbal self-negation":
The basic figurative tactic of Irony is catachresis (literally
"<misuse"), the manifestly absurd Metaphor designed to inspire
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
I80
ized
or
torical
figure
signals
in
device
in
premise
of
of
of
Ironic
this
sense
that
the
ideal
humanist
terms,
is
be
may
Findley's
of
of
and
As
Hayden
Hour"
ideal
familiar
White
that,
in
. ..
possibility
the
form
inherent
in
of
representations
remarked:
hours
final
the
negates
theoretical
integral
to
36).
takes
has
more
subject
unified
in
he
the
from
"the
14),
(Dollimore
his
stylistic
beginning
mark
924-45
"being-human"
"being-monstrous,"
irony.
"the
ideology"
negation
attractions
wayward
an
as
of
truth
the
favored
because,
Final
"being-human,"
described
in
rheauthor
the
37)
period
("My
bourgeois
or
the
of
in
the
Findley
to
The
which
disbelief
(White
crucial
events
of
contemporary
mode
language.
character-
itself.
considered
be
Civilization"
Western
mad"
could
thing
the
"doubt"),
feigned
or
real
advance
of
nature
characterization
the
(literally
aporia
statements,
own
Irony
of
inadequacy
the
the
about
thoughts
second
Ironic
"In
its
of
"being-
Mauberley's
history
in
the
apprehension
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
181
whether they be bourgeois, aristocratic, royal or a literary modernist scribbling anti-Semitic squibs.
Anger, ambition, and/or indifference turn characters like Pound
and Mauberley and others like Charles Lindbergh and the Duchess
of Windsor into instruments and objects of the anarchy that they
react against. Findley, the structure of whose novel is located both
inside and outside their paranoia, is complicit in an erotics of
apocalypse that is both homophobic and homosexual. Mauberley's
fantasy of fellating a Blackshirt, cited earlier, is only one such
moment of ethical/political failure. There are others too. BY registering Mauberley's incapacity for intimacy, his fascination with
Reinhardt, and his complicity in the conspiracy around which the
novel turns, Findley faces the allegation (and the temptation) that
to be homosexual is to lose one's humanity. Doing so, he aligns the
negation of humanity in the politics of the extreme Right with the
negation of humanity in a sexuality that coincides at times with its
most homophobic representations. At its most ironic, the novel
poses the experience of being not-human, of being-monstrous, in
both political and sexual terms. Yet the aporia thus encountered
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUALIBECOMING-CANADIAN
I 82
one
As
say?
expects
in
the
eyes
In
question.
Mauberley's
last
Quinn,
with
written
also
dian
strike
originally
the
doubt
of
boor
of
from
1912.
the
the
stereotypes
the
self-flattering
who
Further,
United
clear
But
for
Mauberley
like
States.
no
"<All I
(59).
homosexual
clichs
crime
is
to
money
other
many
Since
identity,
of
order
in
anglo-Canato
Reinhardt
Sir
character,
his
is
text:
his
is
writer
there
of
epigraph
of
Canadian
made
the
refuge,
por-
incised
has
Mauberley
last
lies"
a
Lieutenant
to
but
his
the
the
one
confession,"
what
in
writes
Freyberg,
Captain
boots;
x 54).
sole
novel's
violent
"maudlin
of
except
Mauberley's
of
is
true;
a number
culture.
Oakes
he
is
in
are
walls
truth"'
the
. ..
puts
inverts
dispose
gold
here
Findley
the
aporia:
the
from
hunter,
reading
with
on
[t]ell
Nazi
someone's
lick
to
charged
. ..
the
precisely
pencil
silver
to
escape
he
is
who
"<trying
If
words
opportunity
nographic
have
of
this
to
answers
two
are
there
text,
ironic
an
the
Harry
Oakes.
Lake
Kirkland
Canadians,
anglo-Canadian
he
hails
post-
colonial identity depends on contrasting stereotypes of "beingCanadian"> and "being-American," Findley's reminder that the
American exists within the Canadian mosaic is not flattering. Similarly, when Oakes first plants, then bulldozes, hundreds of trees, he
inverts Canadians' environmentally-friendly self-image. In the
words of Mauberley, Oakes is "a walking summary of all that is
crude, contemptible and mean" (33 2). In a final
ation,
gratuitous humili-
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
183
184
ING-CANADIAN
extreme boyishness -
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
185
he is getting your features into his memory for all time, in the
resolve to keep you as a friend . . .. (Newton 9-I0)
The Prince is the focus of a male homosocial
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
I 86
in
part
wall
I945,
in
an
analogy,
the
the
end
the
breezes
an
of
the
prophecy
novel
that
era
War
in
to
a rowboat
has
off
had
Nassau,
learn,
to
" Let
aporia
of
tradition
of
the
precedes
Pater,
the
(1907)
thematic
(1977).
of
around
and
The
the
myth
of
was
Forster
myth,
which
of
Dionysus
he
those
of
of
sits
bobbing
whom
Findley
pre-
that
negation
helpful
structures
The
also
has
provides
World
Findley's
recurred
desire
a
War
prominently
in
that
analyzing
jouirney
Lonest
major
Walter
like
writers
especially
to
recourse
has
male-male
For
modernism.
E.M.
historicizing,
For
World
Since
as
Findley
subjects
Dionysus
desire.g
of
anglo-Canadians
moment
subject,
literary
of
advent
witnessing
Labyrinth
the
by
myth-analysis
myth
masculine
In
In
seen
be
."
post-colonial
the
considering
near
"When
could
does
83).
"becoming-Canadian
II.
In
is
sunset
(3
anglo-
eyes
Duke's
Empire.
Duke
by
is,
to
(384q).
and
the
go"
Baltasar
past,
sunset:
that
need
as
of
the
eyes"
Crown,
Prince,
to
the
addresses,
the
his
the
readers'
reflections
the
in
his
Bahamian
of
writes
reference
in
hat,
setting
in
specific
reflected
his
marks
disinvest
group
especially
and
part
kingdom
watches
of
brim
out
is
I 945
he
Findley
had
n1 this
ludes
of
going
humiliation,
The
fall
the
Mauberley
Since
in
With
when
foretells
wall
becomes
future.
the
stirred
this
Darius.
imperium.
the
Empire
the
of
prophecy
unrealized
British
upon
hands
the
his
yet
as
Canadians,
of
at
kingdom
Baltasar's
on
writing
whose
appears
hand
verse,
biblical
the
In
differently.
prophesy
to
attempt
an
signifies
element,
I novel,
The Wars
in
recent
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
I 87
refers to the legend of Theseus, the Athenian hero, who was charged
with the task of slaying the Minotaur in the labyrinth ordered built
for him by King Minos of Crete. Minos's daughter Ariadne gives
Theseus a ball of thread with which to thread the labyrinth. In
exchange, he promises to marry her, but, after successfully killing
the monster and returning, he abandons her on the island of Naxos,
where Dionysus discovers her and takes her as his lover. Miller's use
of the figure has been interpreted by another Miller, Nancy K., as a
sign of neurotic fixation among heterosexual males. Referring to
what she terms the Ariadne complex, Miller contends that "domesticated female desire becomes the enabling fiction of a male need
for mastery" (Subject 94). Miller argues the importance of the
Ariadne complex in structuring masculine identity, including the
stabilizing ofmale-male desire: "like Theseus rising to the challenge
of the minotaur, the masculist [writer] uses Ariadne to negotiate his
encounter with the woman, perhaps in himself, the monstrous self
the male . .. might meet at the heart ofthe maze ofbeterosexuality"
(I oo, n2 I). Overdependence on a woman enables the man to cope
with the spectre of an internal femininity that has frequently been
characterized as homosexual. The Ariadne complex, then, is a
defense against male sexual panic.
Gay critical theory reads the myth more equivocally. Most
recently, Arthur Evans has argued that Dionysus conflates a number
of deities deriving from different periods of early culture. Dionysus
is a life-affirming, bisexual deity conflated with an earlier Cretan
"god in the form of a bull-man" (46) that existed in a matri-equal
culture widespread in Europe and Western Asia during the Old
Stone Age (46>
Minotaur itself, whose myth refers to a later time "<when Athens was
a tributary subject of Crete and when human sacrifices were performed, that is, when criminals and war captives were executed in
I88
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
a ritual context"> (46). This avatar dates from after the incursions of
Northern invaders, who brought patriarchal culture with them. The
composite myth of Dionysus includes antagonistic elements of both
sorts of culture. In Evans's speculative mythography, then, the
bull-man/minotaur is a figure, an encounter with whom might be
either enabling or murderous. This two-fold aspect is congruent
with Pater's late Victorian evocations of Dionysus as both a subject
of desire and an object of violence.
In Hugh Selwyn Mauiberley Pound, exploiting the same myth,
associates Mauberley with the figure of Ariadne's thread in a way
that emphasizes the context of homosocial desire. In the final poem
of the sequence, "Medallion," Pound describes the female portraiture of Mauberley's finest poem:
Honey-red, closing the face-oval,
a basket-work of braids which seem as if they were
Spun in King Minos' hall
From metal, or intractable amber. (I I2)
Pound re-imagines Ariadne's thread as "a basket-work of braids" as
RICHARD
and
(99),
ambrosial"
member
absent
The
tells.
These
argued
that
(I
7).
24-2
mity
in
Bro
okery
for
the
" the
line,
who
of
terms
the
word"
Eliot's
on
Pound
("I
am
outside
is secondary
to
words
of
poet's
obligation.
To
for
be
Eliot
text
Findley's
with
military
apostrophe
Pound
that
can
be
and
an
Apollo
need
might
I ).Yet
the
a fault,
for
well
of
is
uncannily
be
in
of
the
Waste
r 970s,
the
the
younger
kind)
in
Pound
traits
shared
the
the
great
The
serious
"E.P.":
life,
germ
the
of
Pound
to
akin
While
Apollonian
the
Mauberley,
most
actual
the
contemporary
an
extent
the
from
of
in
den>i
says
observed
enough.
man
manifest
makes
for
(even
not
be
to
the
to
Pound,"
manuscript
clear
chapter
only
Mr
only
as
influence
Selwyn
published
aesthete
played
his
Hugh
Land,
Waste
make
to
hatred
the
II
though
cites
Pound
the
(I06),
to
to
was
Leavis,
that
men,
own")
owe
The
compensates
Mauberley
"<BeauSty"
my
denying
he
opens
may
And
be
verse
" (
of
ofPound's
my
Eliot's
Leavis
like
critic
Mr
poem.
to
Leavis
F.R.
serious
most
that
others
call
and
emendations
secondary,
a
can
before
that
role
crucial
the
" elegy
And
gestures
acknowledgement
Mr
years
Pound's
and
"<Rupert
" E.P.'s
the
"in
castrating
The WasteLand.
of
preferred
with
that
influence
two
poet
[Eliot]
"the
Leavis's
from
its
bisexual.)
was
albeit
the
for
cites
b odies,"
aesthete,"
makes
Eliot's
sure
published
7),
fine
self
nonconfor-
sexual
instance,
I. (Brooke
revising
"whatever
Leavis,
Land
"an
quoting
never
fact:
Pound
as
in
and
War
(I
editor
by
cheeks,
World
greatness
both
Pound
"fair
of
for
French,
A.L.
himself.
have
earlier
an
of
of
taint
the
scent
and
Ruthven
aspects
exorcises
critics
K.K.
like
the
"E.P."~
ties
also
Pound
commentators
Pound
Masculinist
soldiers
sense
that
as
Mauberley
from
Yet
artist.
effete
Mauberley
in
"E.P."
Leavis,
the
so
together
"E.P."
distance
the
of
type
Mauberley
T.S.
to
seem
details
quintessential
is,
x 07).
ambrosia"
"drank
Mauberley
I89
DELLAMORA
thirst
to
attraction
man.
novel
for.
"E.P.'s"
since
the
I 90
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUALIBECOMING-CANADIAN
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
191
work together:
SAGE HOMME
Jewish praise:
192
The
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
Waste
Land.
directions
of
so
the
to
that
"<E.P.">
action
that,
lines
lines
an
The
like
the
Eliot
is
is
onanist
foaming
Has
coated
Or
say
Has
to
code
His
"E.P."
of
by
The
word
and
world.
the
upjut
rendered
his
Last
Words,
such
must
also
of
(8
The
2).'4
Findley
In
the
castration
body
death:
after
was
in
their
flung
for
" One
against
to
men
of
critiques.
as
in
He
is
for
Words,
in
his
the
the
legs
in
atavistic
are
is
gesture
fear
that
element.
alludes
Harry
his
so
Lilith
that
cultural
accompanied
a major
of
the
that
aware
lost
often
posture
that
of
tradition
underneath
caught
was
arm
Findley
and
love-hate
over
at
suits"
linen
altogether
desire
men
synecdochic
order
homosocial
of
go,
of
white
literary
anger
Famous
Mauberley
world
Pound's
the
nostalgia
instance
let
are
Pound's
Last
figure
In
phase
the
trademark.
male
between
sleep
as
a rhetorical
partners.
bear
within
Famous
complex,
other
boys
of
unable
world
Mauberley's
course
the
himself
post-collaborative
subordination
and
which
both
cannot
the
such
of
is
infects
although
homophobia
inhabits
erotics
In
r988,
a dream;
the
prolonged
and
an
that
Mauberley's
symptoms
coherence
with
are
of
both
in
characterizes
collaboration
"Mauberley
bear
man's
neurotic
inadequacy.
time
pachyderm.
Pound,
latter
"E.P."
sperm
literary
him:
place
intimate
of
characterizes
cannot
younger
the
his
anxiety
relationship.
coat
senses
a sexual
reject
sexual
first
also
the
both
cream
The
male
Findley
and
arms,
Land
Mauberley,
of
the
in
2 2)
in
with
sense
works
homosexual):
(Koestenbaum
inscribed
Selwyn
for
abundant
his
that
Insemination
Waste
for
however,
Hugh
published
"Sire"
(a
"queerying,"
haunted
Koestenbaum
who
of
body
often
will
to
the
Oakes's
and
made
come
the
by
in
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
193
the dark with her scissors" (379). Here Lilith, however, is in drag
since the man who arranged Oakes's murder is the same man whose
dead body, if touched, Sergeant Rudecki fears will blow his balls off
(39). At the wedding of Wallis and "the King" (I45), Mauberley
fears that the marriage is a prelude to suicide. This fear, however, is
fear of the Ariadne complex not the castration complex. Findley
sees the King as undone by his inability to find his voice in the
presence of Queen Mary and to say no to Wallis's will to become
Queen. Abject need of a woman is the self-destructive flaw in the
King as in others in the novel, such as Mauberley's father, who, on
page 2, commits suicide after having been abandoned by his wife.
Mauberley says: "What my father had wanted was to have her and
to hold her all the rest of his life. And after the refusal to be joined
the leap into space and the fallen mind . .. . So this was all I could
see as I stood there watching the King and Wallis take their vows"
In mythic terms, this tendency in male heterosexual psychology is suggested by allusions to Icarus, son of Dedalus, fashioner of
the Labyrinth, who fell from the sky. For Mauberley, the former
( x45).
194
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
seems
to
once
fuse,
went
in
to
the
image-repertoire
make
his
drawn
been
but
tilting
of
the
from
Findley
Vertigo
to
steps
Jimmy
of
he
which
in
Sometimes
and
gravity
the
and
be
was
has
was
in
dizziness
bottom
imagined.
there
nothing
forced
to
order
not
was
there
dream
the
Duke
or
seen
there
Maybe
the
and
edgeless
not
could
sat
stairs
fighting
railings,
the
labyrinth
(where
tower
was
bottom.
space.
into
drop
sudden
no
was
there
Perhaps
Hollywood
image
bell
dream
he
which
on
stairs
the
the
the
which
woman:
the
dreamt,
he
the
of
with
on
fear
a duplicitous
by
Everytime
of
name)
with
paralyzed
Stewart,
in
a dream
has
Duke
the
moment,
another
At
cling
to
to
fall.
in
young
the
1),
follow"
(9
Nassau,
which
ever,
ent,
gracmng
in
whom
but
Reinhardt,
belongs
to
existence.
economy
also
the
or
animal-man-god,
the
he
of
phallicized
in
"wanted
the
This
he
power
is
desperately
of
darkness
Minotaur.
rather,
so
guises
various
in
Minotaur
the
encounters
Blackshirt
also
another
within
he
Mauberley,
for
the
creature
the
yet
same
exceeding
to
at
square
is,
but
howdifferit
and
RICHARD
III.
Pillow
DELLAMORA
195
Talk
and,
sometimes, very harshly - that I was not like them; that I was not,
or so it seemed, like anyone. This part of me that others would not
accept and could not cope with was called - by them - an
aberration." In reaction, Findley writes: " I felt the sorrow of the leper
and the rage of the outcast" (7). Findley's exclusion prompted an
inwardly directed homophobia that made him see himself as a
"monster" (9). Not surprisingly, his difference, represented thus to
himself, had a deforming effect:
I was very
I was very
In these lines, Findley testifies to his own Icarian fall not into the sea
but into a labyrinth in which, in a dreamlike conflation of images,
he became his own Minotaur. It would be a mistake to underestimate the extent to which the indictment of humanism in Famous
Last Words is based on Findley's lifelong, justified anger against the
culture in relation to which he found himself termed " an aberration."
Since I 964 Findley and Bill Whitehead have lived just outside the
I96
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
Passage
publication of Findley's novel, however, gay groups found themselves subject to an unusually high level of harassment. In the
mid-1970s and in particular after the slaying of a young boy on
Toronto's Yonge Street strip in July, 1977, police and politicians
attempted a "clean up" which included a December, I977, raid on
the offices of The Body Politic, the leading organ of gay opinion in
RICHARD
Canada.
the
Reaction
against
atmosphere
after
the
during
defeat
of
the
the
gay bathhouses.
of
arrested
in
establishing
the
resulted
in
had
they
ing
the
social
as
were
efforts
towards
the
(7),
ciliation"
ity.
already
Even
relative
cites
included
at
of
is
Trent,
homogeneity
an
back
and
Findley,
is
within
however,
since
expressions
openmindedness
of
the
University's
were
men
met
arrested,
what
reassert--
by
was
instead
widely
The
minority.
a specific
in
subsequent
redirecting
and
towards
prosecu-
bookstores.'6
as
the
where
group
Last Words
only
number
been
authority
the
emphasizing
tolerable
civil
miscalculated:
individuals
publications
risky,
had
had
down,
gay
prosecutors
men
on
attack
on
(286
their
affirm
random
Famous
positions
marginal
the
Shortly
of
raid
that
a marginal
as
address,
recourse
This
to
to
gay
at
difficulty
poisoned
supporter
major
Police
against
arrests
Trent
which
understood
compelled
directed
In
for
effort
an
consensus
and
police
the
visibility
operation
the
of
revulsion.
perceived
represented
tions
offenses
widespread
197
election.
"a
launched
and
gay
municipal
mayor,
scale
night)
of
following
police
The
a single
emergence
incumbent
207),
(Kinsman
rights"
the
DELLAMORA
affirming
need
an
for
as
of
long
its
the
human-
essential
gay subjectivity
insofar
"recon-
like
is
representation
culture.
dominant
benefitted
constituencies,
other
from
the
the
Presi-
which
I 98
safe">
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
Quinn
RICHARD
DELLAMORA
199
NOTES
* For her reflections on the politics of location, I am indebted to Adrienne Rich.
I owe a further obligation to Stephen Barber and Tom Hastings, conversations with
whom have contributed to my understanding of Findley's work.
I Quoted in Rich, Blood i76.
2 I adapt the phrase, "ideological work of gender," from Mary Poovey, who
comments: "Igive the phrase ideological work two different emphases. In one sense,
it means 'the work of ideology': representations of gender . .. were part of the
system of interdependent images in which various ideologies became accessible to
individual men and women. Inanother sense, however, the phrase means 'the work
of making ideology': representations of gender constituted one of the sites on
which ideological systems were simultaneously constructed and contested" (2).
3 I discuss the connection in "Dorianism," a full-length paper delivered at
McGill University in Montral, Qubbec, in January, i99 i.
4 Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness( i899) is only one literary instance of this
loss of confidence, which is a prime element of literary modernism (Eagleton,
Ideology, 3i6-19).
5 I do not mean the modernism of writers like Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein
or H.D. or of the Hart Crane of The Bridge, for reasons which shall be clear shortly.
6 The poem also contains the anti-Semitic section, "Brennbaum" (lo3).
7 This chronology should not be taken literally. Some homosexuals of
Mauberley's generation were not as confused as Mauberley is; similarly, the
closeted homosexual is not, as of 1992, a thing Of the past. Many gay men are
sometimes in, sometimes out of the closet.
8 John Quinn was the name of Pound's literary agent. Notable for his misogyny,
200
he
BECOMING-HOMOSEXUAL/BECOMING-CANADIAN
was
also
the
recipient
(Koestenbaum
number
of
(I876);
Io
Salome
see
On
sexual
see
I2
I4
as one
a measure
16
the
T.S. Eliot's
in
of analyses of homophobia
context
876
and
r s93:
"A
"ApolloinPicardy"(
Study
of
r893).
Foradetailed
Dionysus
9.
(264-65).
Baptist,
slur,
in
more
Timothy
images
Pound
Pater
associates
of male-male
of
woman
(I
12 I and
than
a trace
d'Arch
Smith
desire
Luini with
in
Pater's
drawings
perverse
of
reading
attempts
to
writes
win
independence
argues
among
a number
of
of protection
that
ethnic
against
in
this
inability
to
respond
to
the
07-08).
in
published
at
is a semiotic
Epstein
Mauberley's
Pound's
I8
no.
Letters,
.The
of ressentirnent.
suits
Stephen
Information
speaks
Koestenbaum
white
Wearing
of his
I 5
ch.
Freedberg
of a beautiful
Quoted
bears
13
of
(93).
a similar
invitation
letter
and
In
in
1886);and
John the
of Leonardo
manuscript
between
Dellamora
Luini,
original
myth
published
"Denysl'Auxerrois"(
and
revives the
studies
discussion,
the
2o).
Pater
Walter
of
paragraph
length
sign
from
gays in
North
groups.
police
about
"Uranian"
This
his
poetry.
love
of Mauberley's
father
and
America
are
Pound
development
Kinsman
ch.
Karaskavin -
increasingly
has
"sweeps."
is from
for
I r.
gained
(69).
regarded
gay males
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INDEX
Abbotsford Guide to India, The (Davey)
22, SI
"Big Mac
Abrams,
M.H.
I I8
quoted
Alexander, Lawrence
Blodgett,
66-67
quoted
Louis
Art
38
Janice quoted
Andreae,
ofMemory,
73 n.
The /
I36
Margaret
r r 2,
xI7,
I 28,
I 59
40,
45,
49,
xx
43,
4x,
Mikhail
43
44,
quoted
Bannerji,
Himani
Barbour,
Douglas
Barthes,
Roland
45,
46
r35
26
quoted
r40
83,
quoted
I03,
84
8I,
97-99,
I04quoted
I00
Ironic
Politics
of
Findley's
I 63,
I4-> 5 quoted
i48,
Italo
Location
in
the
Timothy
44
45
i 2
26,
I 69
Etymologies"
45
Carter,
Angela
Castle of
Otranto
Celant,
Germano
r9
xx
(Walpole)
I02,
8,
Julie 23-24
loj
Cheetham,
Mark
Chodorow,
Nancy
Hlne
Clay, Allyson
2 2-2
quoted
2 2,
I 3 2 n.
quoted
56-58,
John Robert
Krisantha
I 20
quoted
I04
xx
I o
5
72
quoted
23,
78
8 i
r 34,
79
(Colombo)
Literature: Surrenderor
Colombo,
27
Emile
44,
57
FamousLast Words"'
(Dellamora)
quoted
I4
76
(Frye)
Maria
Cixous,
Voice and
64
ss
Jack quoted
Calvino,
124
Nicole
Io2,
"Becoming-Homosexual/BecomingCanadian:
25
6 2,
419
I8I
John r 9-20
Beckwith,
Bhaggiyadatta,
Cleanth
Canadian
128
Benveniste,
Brooks,
Revolution? (Mathews)
Susan 25
Beddoes,
Charlotte
"Canada:
172
2 6,
Bront,
Canadian
James quoted
Becker,
Dionne
Campbell,
Baldwin,
roo,
Wayne
Brand,
Bal, Mieke 99
Bear(Engel)
I45 quoted
Booth,
Burnham,
5,
40-4
Bakhtin,
42,
29
I96
Bailey, Alfred
quoted
25,
r 59 quoted
quoted
The
Brossard,
'
Atwood,
" (Bhaggiyadatta)
E.D.
BodyPolitic,
66
Althusser,
Attack!
161--62
52
I40
26
(Mandel)
Culler,
New
82
Jonathan quoted
82, 89
so,
TALKING
DOUBLE
216
" Dance
of the
(Munro)
Frank
44,
45-46
172-I98
47
44-46,
143 quoted
Teresa
Denniston,
Stan
2 2,
I 39
7 1
67, 70-
56,
"First
72
Jacques 47-48>
quoted
di
Peter
Cicco,
Pier
Louis
Plessis,
I80
Found
quoted
23
Eliot,
52
i89,
Galt,
I32 n.
I3
Literature
"Evidence
Colonial"
I 89
40,
159
5i,
41,
quoted
84
John 42, 43
garrison
Godard,
r49,
r5I,
200 n.
Stephen
Gom,
I91
r90,
I55
mentality
41,
quoted
Barbara
43,
44,
quoted
of Culture
Gorlitz,
Will
Gurney,
Janice 22,
Haliburton,
Considered
64
56, 61 -67,
i 65
Thomas
42
Io x, i02
"LHands")(Jeffers)
as
Handwerk,
Hansen,
Harris,
Gary
Tom
Claire
i 3 I n.
Half-Breed (Campbell)
1o2
I87
(Bailey) 40
Leona
5r
xx 6
i5
Italy Today
45,
14
l06-
Mavis
43-44r
41
Evans, Arthur
76
The"> (Namjoshi)
I55
A.L.
Gallant,
i6
Canadian
26,
Germanyand
(Keeshig-Tobias)
Stork,
Northrop
46,
52
Robin
Epstein,
Frye,
40
Jacques quoted
T.S.
Endres,
in
A)"
Jean-Honor I36
French,
EdibleWoman,The (Atwood)
(DuVernet)
78-79
(Colombo)
the
r52-53,
i i9
quoted
quoted
1, 65
80
Fountain (Duchamps)
Fragonard,
22 quoted
Egyptian"Themes
poem,
"Fox and
85
Sylvia 52 quoted
Eco, Umberto
"(found
ioi
loo,
Stroheim)
Michel
Object"
76
quoted
Eagleton, Terry
Poem
(Jones)
quoted
Rachel
quoted
148--49
The
Marguerite
DuVernet,
Richard
"Found
23
Reading"
Marcel
Ehrmann,
Flood,
3 i
(Mandel)
Juliann IIy
Giorgio
I72-99
Speech"
8 2-84
Foucault,
Exposures:
Ironic
Dudek,
Duras,
92
Jonathan quoted
Duchamp,
du
50,
96
Jamie 2I-22,
"Double
and
1,
92
Dollimore,
Dopp,
48,
3 1,
Political
Fleenor,
Derrida,
Dews,
Timothy
Findley,
Lauretis,
I 20
(Jong)
Fear ofFlying
quoted
r 70
I69 quoted
Fanon, Frantz
I3
40,
27,
Shades"
n.
I32
Davey,
de
Happy
67
64-
quoted
77 quoted
26,
I70
75
77
72
INDEX
Heart
of Darkness(Conrad)
Herland
(Gilman)
I99 n.
37,
Heroine (Scott)
i46, i47,
26,
I53,
I7
Victoria
Truth'
Ironic
Gallant's
The:
24
(Smythe)
Io7,
(Gallant)
2,
I 88,
Linda
Hutcheon,
II 6,
I15,
73 n.
Jardine, Alice A.
23
(McClung)
These"
in
Herk's
Aretha
of
"Ironies
the
"Ironing Out
in
Joanne Tod"
(Bernard)
tion,
92,
19-20,
92; Cosmic,
to,
related
44,
46;
I59;
methods
New
IIr 2; ClaSSIC,
forms
and tropes
general,
43,
49,
Io7n
textual
r 5; parody
Lady
40,
5I quoted
46,
46,
47,
47,
48,
48,
sri,
ro8
72
quoted
Milan
'6,
nn.
Candace
Lautmann,
26,
r 27,
'7
26,
I'Amer (Brossard)
Laurence,
and,
r r9,
Oracle(Atwood)
'33
Lang,
38; modernist,
Critical,
Robert
conven-
of
of
i 9 r quoted
I 64--65
Joy 26,
Kogawa,
Kundera,
25
93,
35--36;
implementation,
r 5;
the
deconstructor
as
of
Paintings
Iconography
Irony:
Female
Differences:
r97
quoted
Wayne
Kroetsch,
26
(Mukhejee)
28
i92
I91,
Canadians"
of Some Hyphenated
Gary
Koestenbaum,
Strategies
Discursive
The
North:
White
Great
the
in
Colour
148,
70-7
Soren
Kierkegaard,
Kinsman,
25
26,
Pilgrimage 8tMnemonic
Kent State U. /
(Denniston)
The
Gothic
Feminine
I66
Lenore
r 55
I54,
Pavillion" 87
Transformations:
" Ironic
Canadian
Like
Times
"In
55
I 22--23,
45
quoted
Keeshig-Tobias,
"Indians of
n.
r 66
Jones, Manina
quoted
49-5
40,
n.
I3
5,
loy,
I30
53,
52
Eyre (Bront)
Jones, D. G.
r92
49,
Jane
24,
x89,
98,
quoted
Jameson, Frederic
Ig5
(Wilde)
tion
51;
34-3
3 2-3
JaCkson, Rosemary
I I4
Horizons ofAlssent:Modernis,
Postmodernism, and
I 5-I 6,
Stories
IIr
I09~,
of
role
95;
33-34,
verbal,
los8;
rhetorical
37,
in,
Structural,
92;
I54;
50;
3 6; situational,
and,
satire
Introduction"
HuSh
I5;
in,
postmodernism
Home Truths,
about
political,
15,
used
devices
"' 'Home
xI6;
premodernist,
I55
Holt,
rxI
98,
postmodernist,
I66
217
r46-r47
28
Margaret
Riidiger
II2
quoted
I76,
I77
Leacock,
Leavis,
Stephen
F.R.
42
quoted
TALKING
DOUBLE
218
New
r 89
Women (Munro)
I32
American
Barnardino
Lure (Clay)
Newton,
W.
Douglas
i 86
I88
at
Stphane
Eli
23,
Robin
McGregor,
82
85
9,
I 2 3,
xx
I I8
(Austen)
Limited"
and
(Dinnerstein)
so
the Human
I33 n.
Michael
Details
n.
Minotaur, The:Sexual
Arrangements and
lool
I67
from
78
i 66-
67
49
"Genre" (Gurney)
Association
(Colombo)
the
48
quoted
Twist"> (Philip)
Ondaatje,
44,
I64-6
a Nightingale"> (Keats)
Daniel
"Oliver
45
Gardens
to
O'Hara,
Gaile quoted
"Memory
"Ode
r4x
Mathews,
Mermaid
I 84-
quoted
56-58
Mallarm,
Mandel,
45
I go
I 28,
I 24,
NorthangerAbbey
Obasan (Kogawa)
Magic
r4-r5
Criticism,
63
r r4
"<Ozymandias"> (Shelley)
92
Malaise
Pacey, Desmond
42 quoted
42
INDEX
Ironies
Art:
I64, i 74,
Ezra
I90,
r89,
Pratt,
E.J.
I91,
I75,
I98 quoted
(Brand)
162
84
quoted
(Atwood)
"Surviving
44,
29
quoted
45,
(Denniston)
quoted
Adrienne
the
Paraphrase"
5x
Ronald
59,
6x
Allan
quoted
Constance
Martha
quoted
quoted
I4
D.C.
quoted
9I
Scott,
F.R.
23,
Scott,
Gail I54
87,
(van
I06
Thompson,
G.R.
8s,
88-89
I 84
(F.R.
Victor
quoted
I I 8
x7,
Upper Room,
'37,
'39,
i i 8,
I 24
Duncan
Smith,
Paul
Smith,
Timothy
Aritha
Karen
88 89
x
25
I 24
I 35
67
28
Watt,
r 89,
42,
43
lan quoted
Weinzweig,
Ix
John I7
90,
Elizabeth
42,
200 n.
I3
I 86
I?2,
200 n.
192,
Waterston,
90
d'Arch
quoted
quoted
5x
Miriam
42
24,
30-3
The (Tod) 63
Waddington,
I 6
Kaja quoted
Smith,
85-87,
Wacousta (Richardson)
quoted
A.J.M.
Scott)
quoted
I 40-4I
I I7
Smith,
(Bront)
Villette
'40
Siegle, Robert
I8
x
Pound (Paige)
van Herk,
Shirley (Bront)
I34-44
67,
8i
"Treaty"
I91
Shelley, Mary
I25
quoted
65-66,
65
Self-Portrait (Tod)
82
Tzvetan quoted
Translations
from
6r-63,
Eve
I?2
I65
Herk)
Joanne 25,
Tod,
Turner,
Screen (Gurney)
I 53, I 55
r ,
(Shakespeare)
77
85
Scott,
Smythe,
45
Blues"
150-5
Tempest,The
; 6,
Schlegel, Friedrich
Silverman,
quoted
Todorov,
Sedgwick,
(Davey)
Marxist-Feminist
(Endres)
I6
Rosler,
"Talkin'
i 8-
Rooke,
70
67,
Rigoletto (Verdi)
Rodway,
45
fr7
Ann
Reminders series
Rich,
75
44,
47,
Sutherland,
Radcliff,
of
Literature"
2r
Franz
Survival
Ironies
The
and
(Hutcheon)
Stanzel,
"PSST" (Breton)
Al
Art
Canadian
I98
I6
quoted
Canadian':
'Speaking
76,
52
Primitive Ofe~nse
Purdy,
"
22-23
(Cheetham)
Pound,
Spanos, William
of Memory"
219
43 quoted
220
DOUBLE
White,
Hayden
Whitney,
TALKING
I79-80
quoted
Phyllis
iI
Culture
(Dopp)
Joyce 25
Robert
Alan
22,
56,
"Writing
Ironies
59-6I,
72
I5
Is
on
in
the
x62
176
Les quoted
Wall, The:
The
and of Lothar
Baumgarten's
Monument
Native Peoples of
Ontario,
for
(Beddoes) 23
Wuthering Heights (Bront)
the
I 984-85"
r 20