La marâtre: Marie-Anne Houde and the Myth of the Wicked Stepmother in Quebec

PETER GOSSAGE La martre: Marie-AnneHoudeandthe Myth of theWickedStepmother in Quebec Thereis a wellknownstoryin Quebec aboutan uglyincidentof child abuse. ThevictimwasAuroreGagnon,a younggirl whowasbattered andneglected byher fatherandstepmother, T•lesphore Gagnonand Marie-Anne Houde. The mistreatment was so severe that the child died,at the ageof ten years,on Iz Februaryi9zo. Bothfatherand stepmother weresoonbrought to publicaccount fortheirrolesin the mortalabuse. Separate trialsin Quebec City'sCourtof King'sBench in April of the sameyearmadeheadlines all overthe province.Both defendants were convicted and sentenced. Gagnon,guilty of manslaughter , wasto beimprisoned forlife.Houde,convicted of murder, wascondemned to hang. In theensuing seventy-five years, thistragic talebecame a classic of French-language popular culture in Quebec. Thedramawasplayed out timeandtime again,firstin thetheatreof the courtroom andin the pages of thepopular press, thenovertheyearsin a series of fictionalizedaccounts , includingplays,novels, a successful film produced in theearlyI95OS, and,mostrecently, a popular television dramatization? Though thedetails varyfromoneinterpretation tothenext,twomotifs always standout:thevictimization of theinnocent child,Aurore,and the shocking cruelty of her stepmother, Marie-AnneHoude. Academic interestin the Gagnontale has focused largelyon the victimin the story,the childAurore,knownuniversally as 'l'enfant martyre,' or the martyred child.Theatrehistorian AlonzoLeblanc, for example, seesin Aurorea political metaphor: 'a symbol of thealienation of the Quebeccollectivity, deprived earlyon of her own mother Thefilm hasbeendescribed asthe'archetype of cinematic melodrama' in Quebec. Christiane Tremblay-Daviault, Uncindma orphelin: Structures mentales etsociales du cindma qudbdcois, •942-•953 {Montreal: Qu•bec/Am•rique x98x ), 224.According to Danielle Tremblay, morerecent treatments of thethemeeveninclude apuppet show.SeeDanielle Tremblay, 'Un casqu•b•cois deparalitt•rature: Aurore l'enfant martyre {x92x-x936 }' (M^thesis, Universit• deSherbrooke x987},x29. TheCanadian Historical Review 76, 4, December x995ooo8-3755/95/ooo4-o563 $øt.25/ø¸ University ofToronto Press Incorporated 564 The Canadian HistoricalReview (France}, andmistreated byher stepmother (England}, underthecompliciteyeofherfather , holderof authority, abetted bytheimpotence of the politicalandreligious powers. '2Film historianHeinz Weinmann, in a similarvein, arguesthat audiences of the •95z film La petite Aurorel'enfant martyre identifiedmassively with the childbecause her sadlife constituted an 'imaginary projection of the historylivedand suffered byFrenchCanadians.' Shewasa 'helpless child,abandoned by her parents, asat onetime Canada hadbeenby France, thenbyEngland . '3Suchpolitical readings, in treatingAurore asa symbol of French Canada's historic'victimization,' side step most of the story'srich social andculturalcontent? Muchmorehelpfulis Danielle Tremblay's suggestion thatthestage show inspired bytheseevents played arolein 'the functioning of popularmorality'in Quebec,that it united'the spontaneity ofthemass phenomenon witha folklore renewed through its contact with the urban world,' and that it found 'its source of inspiration (andthesource of itsaudience} in a recreation of collective mytlqS ? In studiesof the culturalsignificance of the Gagnonstory,the sympathy Quebec audiences felttowards theinnocent 'martyr,' Aurore, hasbeenwellestablished. Less attention hasbeenpaidtothevillainin the piece,Marie-AnneHoude.Justas strongas the pityaroused in audiences bytheplightoftheyouthful, innocent Aurorewastherevulsionandoutrage engendered by Houde.As I will arguehere,the'story of the Fortierville tragedy achieved its enormous popularity at leastin partbecause it drewon andreinforced somedeep-seated misgivings aboutthat mostmistrusted of domestic archetypes, the 'wicked stepmother .' Negative viewsaboutstepmothers arecenturies old.In formertimes they found expression in proverbs, fairy tales,and otherformsof 2 AlonzoLeblanc, Aurore l'enfant martyre: Histoire etprdsentation delapiece deLgon Petitjean etHenriRollin {Montreal: v/.uaditeurx982 }, xxx. Thistranslation froma French-language source is myown,asareall the othertranslations in thisarticle. 3 HeinzWeinmann,Cindrna del'irnaginaire que'bdcois: Delapetite Aurore itJdsus de Montrdal {Montreal: L'Hexagone •99o}, 28 4 I suspect JeanGaudreau, whohasrecently discussed theAuroreGagnon story froma psychological perspective, wouldagreewiththisassessment. In response to Weinmann, whotakes theregimeofabuse endured byAuroreasa symbol ofla grande noirceur ofthe Duplessis years, Gaudreau writes,'Thisinterpretation ... seems fancifuland,whatis more,totally anachronistic.' Jean Gaudreau, 'Aurore, l'enfantmartyre: Essai surla violence faiteauxenfants,'Santg mentab au (•ue'bec •7, • {•992}:64 5 Tremblay, 'Un casquabacois deparalittarature,' x26-9 La maratre565 popular culture? If nothing else, thetalethatgrew uparound MarieAnne Houde certainlyillustrates the persistence of anti-stepmother feelingin twentieth-century Quebec. Morethanthis,I will argue,the popularconstruction of Marie-Anne Houdeasla maratre underscored dominantnotionsof motherhood andfamilylife. Byappearing to subvert a widelyheld ideological construct, maternallove,the Gagnon storyin all itstellings helped to defineandreifyit. My interestin stepmothers, wickedandotherwise, growsout of an ongoing project thatfocuses onremarriage andstepfamily formation in turn-of-the-century Canada. 7 Because of high mortalitylevelsamong youngadultsand frequentremarriage, particularly amongwidowers, this kind of family group,whichwe wouldtodaycall 'blended'or 'reconstituted' precisely because of the negative stereotypes associated with...