The Pioneer Woman: A Canadian Character Type

Esther Fisher is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and
a former food critic for The Globe & Mail.

This study of what Thompson calls the pioneer character type in Canadian
writings is an important addition to literary scholarship. In it,
Thompson traces the development of self-assured women who adapt to
adverse circumstances, from their portrayal in the works of Catherine
Parr Traill through subsequent transformations in the fiction of Sara
Jeannette Duncan, Ralph Connor, and Margaret Laurence. While
concentrating on the major novelists, she also draws parallels with, for
example, L.M. Montgomery, Ethel Wilson, and Constance Beresford-Howe.

In the two chapters on Traill’s work, Thompson stresses the departure
from the traditional characterization of a “lady.” Instead of using
models of middle- or upper-class women of leisure, Traill
establishes—in Catherine Maxwell of Canadian Crusoes, The Backwoods of
Canada, and The Canadian Settler’s Guide—an ideal of Canadian
womanhood, one who reconciles the sensibility of a “lady” with the
practicality of a pioneer.

Following this lead, but without trying to establish any direct link
with Traill, Thompson shows how Advena of Duncan’s The Imperialist
carries on the tradition of the pioneer woman in her freedom from the
restraints of the established social rules and in her recognition of new
frontiers for women. In Connor’s Glengarry books, Thompson parallels
the Christian and pioneer values of hard work and honesty. But Connor
elevated his female characters to paragons of virtue, intelligence,
courage, and independence, making them mythical types rather than
“real” women.

Finally, in Laurence’s work, the frontier becomes a state of mind
rather than a place—inner conflicts and Grundyism replace the external
wilderness, says Thompson. She shows that Hagar in The Stone Angel,
Rachel in A Jest of God, and Morag in The Diviners each achieve a type
of epiphany, a confrontation with the symbolic frontier, that gives them
a measure of, if not physical, then at least spiritual freedom. In
achieving her release, Morag is guided along the way by, among others,
Catherine Parr Traill.

This well-documented, detailed study, supplemented with notes and
bibliography, requires familiarity with the many works discussed.
Thompson comprehensively traces her thesis that the pioneer woman is a
Canadian character type, but the thesis itself is open to question. In
any work of literature, female characters who are concerned with
freedom, are enterprising, work hard, overcome hardships, or gain
insight could be termed pioneers; look at Hester in Hawthorne’s The
Scarlet Letter. There is nothing exclusively Canadian about the
character type—it is universal. Nevertheless, scholars of Canadian
literature and women’s studies will find helpful the insights and
interpretations in The Pioneer Woman.