Book Review: The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy

Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute (1945) is a novel heralding many dimensions. Focusing on the hardships of a poverty-ridden family in Montreal during World War II, The Tin Flute can be analyzed through a postcolonial lens that foregrounds place. Such discussion centers on the urban and rural contexts of place that Roy well illustrates throughout the novel and the positionality of the novel's characters in these places. Through positionality, issues of gender, race, and class are evidenced. For example, class differences become clearly defined as Roy describes in detail the homes and neighborhoods of those relegated to the slums and those designated lives of privilege. Even more particularly, the homes and neighborhoods of the Lacasse family and the Letourneau family exemplify very distinctive class markedness.

An interesting aspect of the novel is the stark contrast in how Florentine Lacasse and her mother Rose-Anna Lacasse perceive landscape. Florentine, after she is jilted by Jean Levesque and before she connects with Emmanuel Letourneau's money, remains detached from the landscape. While walking with Florentine, Emmanuel notes, "...she had no interest in the landscape and didn't even see any part of it, missing the unusually clear sky, the movement of the ships and sailboats on the river..." (328). Rose-Anna, on the other hand, is obsessed with the landscapes of her less-burdened past. Roy writes, "For moments at a time she escaped into the past, to scattered memories. She was drifting like a rudderless boat through past years, seeing the landscape as it retreated swiftly..." (361). With changes in their economic stature come changes in their perceptions of place.