Woman as a Subaltern in Canadian Literature

Ewa Bodal Nicolaus Copernicus University Woman as a Subaltern in Canadian Literature Abstract: The article takes as its subject the possibility of perceiving women as constituting a distinct subgroup of the subaltern. Following a theoretical introduction to this concept, the article focuses on the practical application of the notion in Canadian literature, discussing the two major female-authored Canadian novels published in the 1970s, that is Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners. Although Atwood’s and Laurence’s novels highlight the influences of the opposite colonial centres, the postcolonial situations and reflections of the main female characters appear quite similar. Indeed, both Atwood’s narrator and Laurence’s Morag Gunn seem to be depicted as doubly colonised: as women, and as Canadians. However, there exists a possibility of reading the protagonists as occasionally acting from a position of superiority towards those subaltern to them, namely the Native population. Key words: Canadian literature, feminism, postcolonialism, subalternity. Even as the exact dimension of Canadian postcolonial status remains the subject of many controversies in the critical discourse (e.g. Bennett, D., 2007), postcolonial theory seems to have become widely applied to the works of the Canadian literature. Moreover, it should be noted that postcolonial reading might pertain to works created by and treating about a large variety of social groups — from the descendants of the First Nations or the Canadians of Scots and Irish origin, to more recent immigrants, as well as, more generally, women. The present article aims to demonstrate the possibility of applying the postcolonial notion of subalternity to the interpretation of these works of Canadian literature that describe women as oppressed members of patriarchal society. The article briefly discusses the concept of subalternity before moving on to analyse two important Canadian novels created by women writers in the 1970s, namely Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners. Finally, having made a case for the novels presenting the female protagonists as doubly subaltern — as women and as colonised Canadians — the article attempts to show that both characters can be nonetheless seen also as members of dominat- 222 Études ing group, partaking in acts of appropriation towards those subaltern to them, that is the Native1 people of Canada. It was Antonio Gramsci who first utilised the military term subaltern, traditionally used to refer to “a junior ranking officer in the British army” (Morton, S., 2003: 48), in order to describe “those groups in society who are subject to the hegemony of the ruling classes” (Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H., 2007: 198). While Gramsci referred in his writing primarily to Southern Italian peasants, the expression “subaltern” was later popularised in the discourse of postcolonial studies by the group of historians concerned with South Asia, who, calling their work “the Subaltern Studies,” focused their attention on groups different from the elites that were most commonly analysed by other historians (Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H., 2007: 199). Yet, possibly the most widely known theoretical work focusing on the term is Gayatri Spivak’s 1985 essay entitled “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (Spivak, G., 2003: 24—28). In this, as well as in her other works of the time, Spivak contests the way the Subaltern Studies use the expression “subaltern,” pointing to the fact that the groups thus referred to seem to have their voices appropriated by the critics and historians, rather than to be given an opportunity to speak for themselves (Spivak, G., 2003: 24—28; Morton, S., 2003: 56—58). The popularity of the expression in the field of postcolonial studies might owe to the fact that “the meaning of the term subaltern is broad and encompasses a range of different social locations” (Morton, S., 2003: 49). Remarkably, it seems especially useful when describing tensions pertaining to power relations between certain groups as based on their unequal statuses in society, which are, however, connected with perceived, rather than actual, discrepancies in their value as people (e.g. men as superior to women). Indeed, the term can be applied to a variety of groups that may be viewed as oppressed or marginalised, and thus “of inferior rank” (Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H., 2007: 198) in terms of, among others, colonial status, nationality, gender, ethnicity, class, or a combination thereof. For example, women can be viewed as inferior within patriarchal society, thus literally corresponding to the definition of the subaltern. Moreover, they may frequently be seen as fulfilling the further requirement of the subaltern through offering “resistance […] to elite domination” (Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H., 2007: 200). Although the Canadian literature created in the decades immediately following the Second World War might not yet be explicitly referred to as postcolonial (Staines, D., 1995: 21, 24), it ought to be noted that it frequently focused on the issues of national consciousness, including the attempts at defining Canada and its citizens against the old and the new colonial centres as It should be noted that throughout the text, the word “Native” is spelled with a capital letter when in reference to the indigenous peoples of Canada. 1 Ewa Bodal: Woman as a Subaltern in Canadian Literature 223 subjects in their own right. At the same time, a number of works of literature could be seen as influenced by the developing second-wave feminism. Thus, in the novels of the late 1960s and 1970s the national and the feminist themes can often be detected side by side (Gault, C., 2008). Moreover, in certain cases the convergence of these concerns seems to result in the possibility of interpreting the protagonist as a female embodiment of the colonised Canada (e.g. Fraser, W., 1991), which might point to Canadianness being viewed as a form of subalternity. While this notion may appear somewhat puzzling given an arguably common association of Canada with a high standard of living, it should be noted that the link between Canadianness and subalternity stems primarily from the international position of Canada as a country located between the (post)colonial influences of the United Kingdom and the neo-colonial domination of the United States.2 Indeed, patriarchal authority seems to be unambiguously linked to colonial power in two female-authored novels of the early 1970s which are perceived as classics of Canadian literature (Woodcock, G., 1978; Woodcock, G., 1990), namely Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing (1972) and Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners (1974). Interestingly, while the books were written by the authors at different stages of their literary careers (Surfacing was only the second novel for Atwood, thus far known primarily as a poet; Laurence did not publish (...truncated)