In [Kamouraska], which will one day be recognized as a masterpiece of Quebecois literature, Anne Hébert studies the psychology of an actual historical figure of the period 1840. Having been accused of having had her lover kill her husband, Elizabeth Rolland strives to expiate her guilt by playing the roles of devoted wife and mother (which she detests) to her second husband and their children.

[Critic Albert Le Grand] discovers in Elizabeth Rolland "an ethic of contradiction which opposes … irreducibly the present to the past, good to evil, the angel to the beast", contradictions which the widow of Antoine Tassy tries in vain to resolve in the world of dreams into which she plunges to be aroused or lulled. The critic sees this struggle between good and evil at the individual level and finds that the protagonist spreads bestiality by releasing it in all those who come into...