Water Imagery in the Novels of Jacques Poulin
Abstract
Water imagery is prevalent in Jacques Poulin's seven novels. Gaston Bachelard's study of water imagery reveals that it is "un être total" and that "l'eau doit suggérer au poète une obligation nouvelle: l'unité d'élément." Poulin's writing is a search for unity, both within the self and beyond, and the omnipresent water imagery expresses that search. Water imagery is a vehicle for transforming reality; it is associated with dreams, a life-force, healer, a purifier, but also potentially threatening. All of Poulin's novels are about a protagonist's quest for the authentic inner self; all are studies of frustrated writers attempted to express themselves; all express searches for a world of peace and harmony which eludes the characters. The unity Poulin seeks for the world and for the self, the search for meaning in life and in death, the place of writing and the role of the writer, are all fundamentally and intricately linked to water imagery.Published
1993-06-06
How to Cite
Socken, P. G. (1993). Water Imagery in the Novels of Jacques Poulin. Studies in Canadian Literature, 18(2). Retrieved from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/8189
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Permissions requests from authors to reprint their work in books or collections authored or edited by the author are granted gratis, with a requirement that acknowledgement of first publication in Studies in Canadian Literature is included in the publication. Permission requests from external sources are charged a fee at the discretion of Studies in Canadian Literature; 50% of this fee is given to the author.