LE3 .A278 2016

2016

Campbell, Wanda

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

English

English & Theatre Studies

Big Little Harbour is an English translation of Bouctouche, the real New Brunswick town, which is the novella's main setting. The central plot event is a fictional division between the French and English communities in Bouctouche, referred to unofficially in the novella as the "Separation." As the bilingual child of a French-speaking Papa and an English-speaking Mama, the ten-year old protagonist, Carole, acts as the intersection between these two divided linguistic communities. Mama and Papa demonstrate the current lack of communication between the two communities, and Carole's interaction with her English Grandma Gallant and her matantes Alphonsine and Albertine explores the historical rivalry between the French and the English. Humour in the vein of Antonine Maillet's La Sagouine and Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town is used throughout the novella to forge connections between characters as Carole explores the flexible nature of Acadian identity.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1584