Maria Chapdelaine

“Perhaps the coming springtime…perhaps another happiness that was stealing toward her now, nameless and unrecognized.”

Maria draws a parallel between her inner world and the landscape around her. Spring is a common symbol of growth, hope, and new life. As spring approaches, Maria feels that she is on the cusp of a transformation, brought on by her budding romance with François.

“‘Make land!’ Rude phrase of the country, summing up in two words all the heartbreaking labour that transforms the incult woods, barren of sustenance, to smiling fields, ploughed and sown.”

The process of making land touches on several of the novel’s key themes. Turning the “incult woods” into habitable land requires tenacity and a deep understanding of nature. No reward is promised except the transformation of the land, but the characters of Maria Chapdelaine view the work of making land as inherently worthy due to its origin in their settler roots.

“A dozen times in the course of the day Maria and her mother opened the window to feel the softness of the air, listen to the tinkle of water running from the last drifts on higher slopes, or hearken to the mighty roar telling that the exulting Peribonka was free, and hurrying to the lake a freight of ice-floes from the remote north.”

Because their lives are governed by the seasons, the Chapdelaines are keenly attuned to even the smallest details of their surroundings. Through Maria’s eyes, Hémon describes the landscape of rural Québec in reverent detail.

“It was the everlasting conflict between the types: pioneer and farmer, the peasant from France who brought to new lands his ideals of ordered life and contented immobility, and that other in whom the vast wilderness awakened distant atavistic instincts for wandering and adventure.”

Here, Hémon contrasts the sedentary lifestyle of a French-Canadian farmer with the “other,” who has an instinct for exploration and freedom. The image of the farmer is directly tied to French identity, while the freedom-seeker is cast as an outsider. This foreshadows Maria’s eventual choice between leaving Québec in pursuit of greater freedom or remaining loyal to her family’s farming lifestyle.

“‘If there is anything,’ said the mother, ‘which would reconcile me to living so far away in the woods, it is seeing my men-folk make a nice bit of land-a nice bit of land that was all trees and stumps and roots, which one beholds in a fortnight as bare as the back of your hand, ready for the plough; surely nothing in the world can be more pleasing or better worth doing.’”

Here, Madame Chapdelaine expresses the idea that clearing and cultivating land is an inherently righteous and worthy task. This conceit underscores the rest of the narrative.

“Lorenzo Surprenant’s smile broadened as he shook his head. ‘No, the idea of settling down on the farm does not tempt me, not in the least. I earn good wages where I am and like the place very well; I am used to the work.’ He checked himself, but it was plain that after the kind of life he had been living and what he had seen of the world, existence on a farm between a humble little village and the forest seemed a thing insupportable.”

Lorenzo Surprenant represents the generations of Québécois who left behind their homeland and agrarian lifestyle in search of new opportunities in industrial centers. The narrative suggests that it is not possible to reverse this process. Once one has seen the wider world, farming life is no longer appealing. This quote suggests that Maria, if she chooses to marry Lorenzo and move away, will never return to her family’s lifestyle.

“When the French Canadian speaks of himself it is invariably and simply as a ‘Canadian’; whereas for all the other races that followed in his footsteps, and peopled the country across to the Pacific, he keeps the name of origin: English, Irish, Polish, Russian; never admitting for a moment that the children of these, albeit born in the country, have an equal tide to be called ‘Canadians.’ Quite naturally, and without thought of offending, he appropriates the name won in the heroic days of his forefathers.”

Hémon highlights the fierce nationalism and pride that the descendants of French settlers feel. However, he also touches on the irony that they do not extend a sense of Canadian identity to any other immigrant groups. At the same time, the sympathetic portrayal of diverse European immigrants ignores the colonial aspects of their migration and makes no mention of Indigenous inhabitants of the land.

“Four hundred miles away, at the far headwaters of the rivers, those Indians who have held aloof from missionaries and traders are squatting around a fire of dry cypress before their lodges, and the world they see about them, as in the earliest days, is filled with dark mysterious powers: the giant Wendigo pursuing the trespassing hunter; strange potions, carrying death or healing, which wise old men know how to distil from roots and leaves; incantations and every magic art.”

This passage exemplifies the narrative’s reduction of Indigenous Canadians to racist stereotypes. Hémon portrays an image of Indigenous people as voiceless and other, focusing elements of mysticism to contrast them with the “rational” white French-Canadians. Indigenous Canadians are never granted agency or voice in the text, relegated to racist depictions that serve to flatter the habitants by contrast.

“Naught very dreadful in the prospect, and, even were it so, what possible but submission; yet all level, dreary and chill as an autumn field.”

This quote describes Maria’s previous conception of farming life as tolerable, yet bleak and uninteresting. The phrase “what possible but submission” embodies one of the novel’s key themes, submission to the higher powers of religion and nature that control the characters’ lives.

“Against the miserly shortness of the summer and the harshness of a climate that shows no mercy they did not rebel, were even without a touch of bitterness.”

This quote embodies the Chapdelaines’ characteristic acceptance of hardship and understanding of nature’s indifference. They feel no bitterness, because their work is driven by a sense of duty rather than the expectation of a reward.

“Throughout these weeks the ruddy brown of mosses, the changeless green of fir and cypress, were no more than a background, a setting only for the ravishing colours of those leaves born with the spring, that perish with the autumn. The wonder of their dying spread over the hills and unrolled itself, an endless riband following the river, ever as beautiful, as rich in shades brilliant and soft, as enrapturing, when they passed into the remoteness of far northern regions and were unseen by the human eye.”

This quote exemplifies one of Hémon’s many detailed descriptions of the landscape, rich in sensory detail. Despite the hardships the climate wreaks on Maria Chapdelaine’s characters, the beauty and majesty of the land are highlighted throughout the novel. This passage hence explores The Hardships and Beauty of Rural Life.

“Life had always been a simple and a straightforward thing for them; severe but inevitable toil, a good understanding between man and wife, obedience alike to the laws of nature and of the Church. Everything was drawn into the same woof; the rites of their religion and the daily routine of existence so woven together that they could not distinguish the devout emotion possessing them from the mute love of each for each.”

This quote describes the lives of Samuel and Maria Chapdelaine. Again, farming life is characterized as flat, devoid of dramatics and glamour; even their love is “mute.” Hémon draws a parallel between the couple’s submission to nature and their submission to the rules of Catholicism.

“‘Some there be who think themselves pretty strong-able to get on without God’s help in their houses and on their lands…but in the bush…’ With solemn voice and slowly-moving head he repeated: ‘We are but little children.’”

After François’s death, Samuel voices his opinion that the fates of all those inhabiting the wilderness are subject to God’s will rather than self-determined. This quote underscores the connection between obedience to nature and obedience to God; Samuel is implying that François’s dying of exposure was an act of God as much as it was a consequence of the climate.

“Country folk do not die for love, nor spend the rest of their days nursing a wound. They are too near to nature, and know too well the stern laws that rule their lives.”

This quote highlights the extreme practicality and resilience shown by the novel’s characters. Even grief cannot stop the daily labor necessary to survive in the wilderness. After François’s death, Maria is expected to pick herself up quickly and choose another man to marry.

“The duty of a girl like you—good-looking, healthy, active withal and a clever housewife—is in the first place to help her old parents, and in good time marry and bring up a Christian family of her own. You have no call to the religious life? No. Then you must give up torturing yourself in this fashion, because it is a sacrilegious thing and unseemly, seeing that the young man was nothing whatever to you. The good God knows what is best for us; we should neither rebel nor complain.”

This advice, given by the cure of St. Henri to a grieving Maria, embodies the role of faith in the characters’ lives and highlights The Importance of Resiliency and Faith. As a young Catholic woman, it is Maria’s “duty” to care for her parents, select a husband, and eventually begin having children. She is not permitted to linger in her grief. The cure’s advice not to rebel against God’s will echoes the topic of submission that pervades the novel.

“There is no man in the world less free than a farmer.”

This quote is spoken by Lorenzo and illustrates the core criticism of habitant life. Those who choose to stay and farm in the unfriendly climate are ruled by nature and have little freedom or control over their own lives. Yet the narrative posits that freedom and control are not as important as duty, tradition, and the preservation of identity.

“But I love you, Maria, I earn a good wage and I never touch a drop. If you will marry me as I ask I will take you off to a country that will open your eyes with astonishment—a fine country, not a bit like this, where we can live in a decent way and be happy for the rest of our days.”

Lorenzo offers Maria the change to escape the harshness of the farm and move to a city, setting up her eventual choice between fulfillment and duty. Lorenzo (perhaps unintentionally) suggests that the Chapdelaines’ current lifestyle is less than decent. This contrasts the Chapdelaine family’s own viewpoint, as they experience their own lives as hard, but ultimately happy and worthy.

“All her life Maria had known this cold, this snow, the land’s death-like sleep, these austere and frowning woods; now was she coming to view them with fear and hate. A paradise surely must it be, this country to the south where March is no longer winter and in April the leaves are green!”

After François’s death, Maria begins to hate the climate and landscape of rural Québec. She dreams of the United States, where nature would not be such an imposing and dangerous force in her life.

“Eutrope Gagnon had just this and no more to offer her: after a year of waiting that she should become his wife, and live as now she was doing in another wooden house on another half-cleared farm.”

When contrasted with Lorenzo, Eutrope is a less exciting suitor for Maria. Where Lorenzo offers the chance at progress and new opportunities, Eutrope can offer only the continuation of Maria’s current lifestyle and fealty to heritage.

“Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys unspeakable of the elect.”

This passage illustrates how Maria’s Catholic faith helps her accept death. She refers to death as a “preferment” or promotion. In death, Madame Chapdelaine is released from her earthly suffering and permitted to the become one of the “elect,” a person chosen by God for salvation.

“In those cities of the States, even if one taught the children how to sing them would they not straightaway forget!”

Here, Maria expresses the fear that moving to the United Sates with Lorenzo would constitute a betrayal of her heritage. She worries that one of her beloved family traditions, the singing of French hymns, would immediately be lost if she moved to an anglophone city. This thought reflects the larger cultural anxiety surrounding the loss of Québécois identity to the influences of industrialization and immigration.

“For it is this that we must abide in that Province where our fathers dwelt, living as they have lived, so to obey the unwritten command that once shaped itself in their hearts, that passed to ours, which we in turn must hand on to descendants innumerable:—In this land of Québec naught shall die and naught shall suffer change.”

As Maria debates her final choice between Lorenzo and Eutrope, the voice of Québec comes to her to speak about the importance of fulfilling her duty to her forefathers. This duty is the “unwritten command,” which she has always felt and ultimately chooses to honor. Notably, the voice says that “naught shall suffer change,” implying that progress has no place in the preservation of Québécois heritage.

“Maria Chapdelaine awaked from her dream to the thought:—‘So I shall stay—shall stay here after all!’ For the voices had spoken commandingly and she knew she could not choose but obey. It was only then that the recollection of other duties came, after she had submitted, and a sigh passed her lips. Alma Rose was still a child; her mother dead, there must be a woman in the house. But in truth it was the voices which had told the way.”

Awakening from her reverie, Maria remembers the more practical duties that bind her. Apart from a desire to honor her ancestors and identity, the expectations of a Catholic woman in a patriarchal society dictate that she should remain at home now that her mother is deceased.