Remnants of Nation: On Poverty Narratives by Women

Carol A. Stos is an assistant professor of Spanish Studies at Laurentian
University.

Roxanne Rimstead proposes to recover and/or reread “poverty
narratives” by studying poverty not just as a literary theme but as
the lived realities that shape the text. Her study of class, poverty,
and narrative is foregrounded in female narratives, a relatively
unexplored area of investigation. Juxtaposing oral histories, reportage,
and correspondence with novels, short stories, essays, and
autobiographies, she establishes a deliberately fluid grouping that she
describes as “cross-class, ... cross-genre and gender specific.”

Rimstead calls for “an ethical and aesthetic reassessment of what it
means to keep looking away from the poor in literature.” She also
seeks to disturb the national (read “dominant or centre”)
version/vision of poverty in Canada, which positions the poor in a
marginalized, homogeneous, passive community. She argues for a vision of
the complexity of poverty that valorizes the voices of “the poor, the
once-poor and the non-poor” to include “a wide range of complex
ideological positions, from resistance to domination.”

In decoding textual images, Rimstead examines, critiques, and employs a
wide variety of theories from different disciplines. The richness and
density of the theoretical material, coupled with the author’s
intentional resistance to neat categorization and classification, makes
for a challenging read. At once provoking and engaging, Remnants of
Nation makes a bold and significant contribution to the fields of
women’s studies, cultural and literary studies, sociology, and
anthropology.