SOURCE: "The Bible and Myth in Antonine Maillet's Pélagie-la-Charrette," in Studies in Canadian Literature, Vol. 12, No. 2, Summer, 1987, pp. 187-98.

In the following essay, Socken delineates in great detail the mythical elements and biblical parallels in Maillet's Pélagie-la-Charrette.

The parallels between Pélagie's return to Acadia from exile in Georgia and events in the Hebrew Bible are striking and revealing. The story is the Biblical account of the exodus in a modern context enhanced and reinforced by elements of mythology.

The many similarities to the Biblical account are in some cases direct, in others, indirect. I propose to make these parallels clear and to suggest associations with some major motifs of world mythology in order to show how the dominant theme and images confer a larger—possibly universal—meaning on the narrative.

The novel represents the fusion of chronological time (Acadian history) and mythical time (the eternal...