Chapter 5: Antoine

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Let's jump right into Madeleine's character today!

 Are you old enough to remember when we had to wear girdles?  Madeleine has to dress infinery for the Governor’s ball, and begins to chaff under the corselet that she hasn’t had on for months.  This chapter contrasts the casualness of the Indian village with the quasi-court life of Quebec, an area inhabited by 6000 colonials by this time.Madeleine’s anxiety about physical contact with males emerges in this chapter.  She experiences the psychological defense of dissociation, when she describes her mind “entering a tunnel” on p. 44.  What do you think about the Reverend Mother’s explanation for Madeleine’s anxiety?  Demons as the cause?  Could this be true?Madeleine has taken an interest in Antoine and starts questioning marriage. She is still torn between wanting freedom and adventure on one hand and companionship and protection on the other.  But she is shocked to learn that the law barely provides her safety from her own mate.  Divorce was given only if the woman’s life was in danger, or she were mad, or had an STD.  Antoine’s mother tells here that “there is nothing more satisfying than the friendship and partnership of a husband.”  What is your opinion about marriage?  About divorce?  What is your answer to madeleine’s question on p. 49: “Could marriage have a healthy balance of dominance and submission?”

Author’s Tidbit

While I was writing this novel between 2000 and 2010, my marriage took a drastic turn for the worst.   I ended up leaving my husband of 42 years due to his emotional and physical abuse of me. As I wrote about Madeleine, Antoine, La Salle, and the Jenets,   I am sure that my soul searching about marriage was being processed. If you have thoughts about what makes a marriage work, or why people stay in a bad marriage, please send them along.  I’m still trying to understand.