A influência de The Tin Flute, de Gabrielle Roy, na produção literária de escritoras canadenses

Abstract

Gabrielle Roy's novel The Tin Flute (1945) proves to be a milestone in Canadian literary production, as it addresses the complexities of modern urban life in post-World War II Canada and explores issues regarding the sociopolitical situation of the country and women in particular through the protagonist Florentine Lacasse. The issue revolves around the questioning of social conventions and cultural practices of relationships regarding female domination exercised by men. Thus, I defend the thesis that, from The Tin Flute onwards, Gabrielle Roy influenced the inclusion of other Canadian writers who were also concerned about the country's social organization: Margaret Laurence, Marie-Claire Blais and Anne Hébert. Therefore, my general objective is to offer a sociocritical study from the perspective of feminist literary criticism, addressing the relationship between literature and the condition of women in society, bringing fictional characters as an element. To this end, I set the following specific objectives: to understand the Canadian social context during the twentieth century and its impact on the country's literary production; to elucidate who Gabrielle Roy was as well as to argue how reading The Tin Flute caused reactions in the Canadian literary scene; and to analyze the protagonists of the works of Margaret Laurence, Marie-Claire Blais and Anne Hébert, observing how they dialogue with Gabrielle Roy's novel. To conduct the research, I use as theoretical support the studies of Desmond Morton (1989), Jaques Lacoursière (2009) and Paul-André Linteau (1983; 2013) to address the Canadian sociopolitical field; Scott W. See (2011), Colin Hill (2012), William Herbert New (1989), Ben-Zion Shek (1977), and Linda Clemente (1997) to discuss Canadian literature; Catherine Cleverdon (1974) and Joan Sangster (2021) to address the problems resulting from the social condition of women; and Cecília Toledo (2003) and Silvia Federici (2017; 2019) for class criticism. I also draw on research done at Library and Archives Canada, where I found correspondence and documents that support my thesis. The reflections of the theorists above and the material I collected in Ottawa served as the basis for my conclusion that Roy's power and influence are revealed by the entry of other writers into the literary scene, with the aim of fighting social injustices and giving voice to those who are subjugated by an oppressive sexist system.