The Tin Flute: Examining Societal Struggles and Gender Roles in 1945

This essay provides an analysis of Gabrielle Roy's novel, 'The Tin Flute,' focusing on the struggles and conflicts experienced by the characters, particularly concerning isolation, confinement, and self-identification within the context of 1945 French Canada. It explores the characters' desires and hopes for alternative solutions to spatial anguish, self-recognition, and gendered boundaries. The essay further examines the plight of lower socio-economic status males during times of hardship, highlighting the portrayal of dreams, ambivalence towards family and dwelling, and the use of both fantasized and common spatiality. The narrative centers on Rose-Anna Lacasse and her daughter Florentine, examining feminist perspectives and the impact of warfare on society, and the ways the characters attempted to navigate their challenging circumstances, including the role of men in the lives of women. The essay also provides insight into the societal struggles and intricacies portrayed by the author.

Running head: HISTORY
HISTORY
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1HISTORY
Executive Summary
The paper intends to analyze the struggles and conflict of the characters with isolation,
confinement as well as lack of self-identification of a French Canadian novel called the Tin Flute
in 1945. It further sensationalizes the hopes and desires for the alternatives to control issues of
spatial anguish, pain related to self-recognition as well as sex gendered boundaries. In further to
this, it aims to focus on the status of the males belonging to lower socio economic status during
the times of anguish. The yearning for dreams and thoughts have been explicitly depicted in this
paper further portraying the way the characters explained ambivalence towards their families,
sense of dwelling and a concession through alternative elements namely fanaticized and common
spatiality.

2HISTORY
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

3HISTORY
Introduction
The desire for joy and happiness is human and likely yet the ways to achieve these
pleasures it are equivalent to the world population. During times of agitation such as the Great
Depression of the 1930s, when the majority of the population was jobless and struggling to earn
minimal amenities for their livelihood, contentment was often measured by wealth in order to
purchase things. Conditions like those have been revealed through the French-Canadian piece
‘The Tin Flute’ written by Gabrielle Roy1. The novel explores the moving story of a family
residing in Saint Henri slums located in Montreal and its struggles to conquer scarcity, poverty
and ignorance with its quest for love and compassion. The thesis statement is the impact of the
senselessness of the war on the lives of both men and women. The paper further intends to study
the dreadful influence of warfare had on the society.
Discussion
The story concentrates on the lives of Rose-Anna Lacasse a gentle, tortured, belonging to
a deprived family and her older daughter Florentine. The development of the story consists of a
strong feminist perspective whereby the protagonists are portrayed as devoted and
compassionate generally involved in a mother earth ideal that had to execute several routine
concerns as a mother, sometimes pleasurable and dreadful2. The writing clearly defines the
women as feminist who believes to liberate themselves by condemning the conventional and
long established role of women as mother and wife. However, it does not reflect any causes of
1 Canning, Jennifer M. "The Power of Memory through Object-Metaphors: The Works of Gabrielle Roy." PhD diss.,
2014.
2 Dimitriu, Rodica. "Translation as blockage, propagation and recreation of ethnic images." Interconnecting
Translation Studies and Imagology 119 (2016): 201.

4HISTORY
women’s distress and struggles because of the actions of men. The story portrays how the role of
two male protagonists brought immense suffrage for the two female characters. The primary
intention of this essay was to provide secured ambience for the children and this work consists of
much complexities that the central characters of Roy’s work portrays a poor and deprive image
of the women3. The protagonists entire day used to get engaged in the process of her
accomplishing daily needs and requirements for her family. By this distressful process of her
daily actions eventually transformed her external appearances and beauty whereby, she gets
astonished in seeing herself in a distorted condition. The protagonists experience similar feelings
when she visits her youngest son, Daniel born during the time of hardships who developed a
loving relationship with his nurse possessing beauty and elegance unlike his mother4. This action
from her son made her even more distressful who began to fill shame in her life. This painful and
excruciating condition of French-Canadian woman’s role has been explicitly portrayed in this
writing piece. The major responsibility lying within the French Canadian society is perpetually
pale and of less significance. Not only the women but also Gabrielle clearly narrates the role of
the men in her writings. The essay depicts the way the males belonging to the marginalized or
the lower socio economic status of the society were associated with victimization. Being
fundamentally engaged with warfare and struggles of the nation the males are primarily depicted
as neutral, sympathetic, and often disoriented towards their families5. The story clearly mentions
the story narrates primarily about people believing in their own thoughts and is thus thwarted in
3 Geist, Michael. "The trouble with the TPP’s copyright rules." The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Canada: A
Citizen’s Guide. Edited by Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd (2016): 158-68.
4 Gélinas-Faucher, Claudine. "The Mountain, the Main, and the Monuments: Representations of Montreal in the
Anglo-Quebec Novel, 1945-2014." PhD diss., McGill University Libraries, 2015.
5 Isler, Julia. "Bilinguefact Your Air: Literary Representations of French Canada, 1945-48." PhD diss., McGill
University, Montreal, 2016.

5HISTORY
their own desires and dreams. The varied responses to the War articulated in the story
emphasizing the societal struggles and intricacies been portrayed by the author. The harmonious
and peace loving nature of Rose-Anna sympathizes the women whose loved ones are engaged
into the hardships of the society or with the war6. The males often remain downgraded towards
supportive roles and responsibilities of the family.
Gabrielle Roy’s the Tin Flute depicts the intensity of the strategic accomplishments and
usage of space is an dedication of the fictionalized elements’ desire to alter the daily lives of the
French Canadian society and their deprived conditions. It is the daily struggles which establishes
alternative situations further resulting confrontation of lived liberties towards the fictionalized
subjects7. The author’s writing further provides counter discourse as well as symbolic struggle to
the hegemonic notions of freedom and development of identities. The members of the French
Canadian society shared the experiences of their daily efforts and confrontations, sexual
oppression, belonging. The story of Tin Flute explicitly dramatizes the everyday resistances of
solidarity in the lives of the characters who intend to conserve the little belongings of theirs. The
rewards of Roy’s novel situate in recitation of the two protagonists endurance strategies to
survive and manage their respective as well as mutual efforts and spaces8. The want for
sisterhood and the endeavors in the search of comfort, which are not constructed to provide any
reflection those both public and private domains, are open for transformation. The disobedience
and events of togetherness and events of integration during the struggles and effort provide them
chances to find ease and comfort in a space that they establish by themselves. The author renders
6 Kelly, Darlene. "A Bird Between the Prison Bars: Gabrielle Roy’s Spiritual Calling." Renascence 65, no. 3 (2013):
164-186.
7 Kreiner, Emma. "Master of Arts (Art History)." PhD diss., Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2013.
8 Kubiak, Aubrey Jones. "Care and the Bodily Identity of the Urban besogneuse in Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur
d'occasion." Women in French Studies 23, no. 1 (2015): 39-53.

6HISTORY
the lives of women, which comprises of devotion and affection to enhance the circumstances of
their lives with the help of survival strategies, which are considered as more or less effective
further, depicts a strong union and integration of sisterhood existing between a mother and a
daughter despite of several conflicts9. The fictionalized elements constituted in the story of Tin
Flute embellished the separating aspects of poverty, dearth and patriarchal condition of the
society further influencing the poor and deprived women and further revealed the authoritative
dimension of the women’s mutual association. The communication process that took place
between Florentine and Rose-Anna can be regarded as the sources of expectations and hope
despite the exasperation as well as enragement caused by one other10. The process these two
women interacted and further responded to the social structures has emerged from the
negotiations that emphasized the societal limitations. However, it must be taken in account the
varied perceptions the two protagonists of the story had but at the same time both had expressed
willingness to have association with their family. Several narratives in the story labeled the home
as ‘la maison’ while speaking about a physical space and ‘chez nous’ while describing the
feeling of attachment and belonging11. The form of struggles, which they encountered, had
enabled them to complicit with the oppressive authority. Through such procedures, several other
women like Florentine and Rose-Anne had confronted the obligatory characteristics and identity
whereby seeking ease within both the domain is it public or private. The concern must be taken
into consideration by developing understanding of the home as primitive and primordial.
9 Linz, Rebecca. Maternités et identités: Representations of motherhood and national identity in literary texts of
Quebec. City University of New York, 2013.
10 Pinson, Guillaume. "Towards a History of Reportage in French Canada: From the Beginning of the Twentieth
Century to Gabrielle Roy." Literary Journalism Studies 8, no. 2 (2016).
11 Schellinger, Paul, ed. Encyclopedia of the Novel. Routledge, 2014.

7HISTORY
Conclusion
Roy’s novel aimed to portray the struggling and fraught yet productive areas related to
female subjects who repudiated to sacrifice their thoughts and desires but on the contrary
indulged into acts of fulfilling their dreams. While, the author does not explicitly condemn or
criticize the female protagonists of her writings but they further centers the psychological as well
as precarious circumstances of the French Canadian women. The critical analysis of these
women expressed about the experiences and events they face during their workplaces and the
constant distress prevailing in their family or private spaces. While providing interpretations of
the lives of women struggling with alienation, isolation and frequently trapped in the universal,
everyday patterns of gender oppressions as well as economic conflict. The essay further aimed to
experience the solitude, inability and powerlessness faced by them within the private dominion
as well as problematic affairs of servitude and objectification within the public sphere. The paper
effectively aimed to evaluate the role of gender in the story how both the men and women during
the distressful times of the French Canadian society. The strengths of Roy’s writing chiefly
depicts from the roots of narrative style used to depict the characters and their environment.

8HISTORY
References
Canning, Jennifer M. "The Power of Memory through Object-Metaphors: The Works of
Gabrielle Roy." PhD diss., 2014.
Dimitriu, Rodica. "Translation as blockage, propagation and recreation of ethnic
images." Interconnecting Translation Studies and Imagology 119 (2016): 201.
Geist, Michael. "The trouble with the TPP’s copyright rules." The Trans-Pacific Partnership and
Canada: A Citizen’s Guide. Edited by Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew. Toronto: James Lorimer &
Company Ltd (2016): 158-68.
Gélinas-Faucher, Claudine. "The Mountain, the Main, and the Monuments: Representations of
Montreal in the Anglo-Quebec Novel, 1945-2014." PhD diss., McGill University Libraries,
2015.
Isler, Julia. "Bilinguefact Your Air: Literary Representations of French Canada, 1945-48." PhD
diss., McGill University, Montreal, 2016.
Kelly, Darlene. "A Bird Between the Prison Bars: Gabrielle Roy’s Spiritual
Calling." Renascence 65, no. 3 (2013): 164-186.
Kreiner, Emma. "Master of Arts (Art History)." PhD diss., Concordia University Montreal,
Quebec, Canada, 2013.
Kubiak, Aubrey Jones. "Care and the Bodily Identity of the Urban besogneuse in Gabrielle Roy's
Bonheur d'occasion." Women in French Studies 23, no. 1 (2015): 39-53.

9HISTORY
Linz, Rebecca. Maternités et identités: Representations of motherhood and national identity in
literary texts of Quebec. City University of New York, 2013.
Pinson, Guillaume. "Towards a History of Reportage in French Canada: From the Beginning of
the Twentieth Century to Gabrielle Roy." Literary Journalism Studies 8, no. 2 (2016).
Schellinger, Paul, ed. Encyclopedia of the Novel. Routledge, 2014.