L'image de Montréal et des ‘States’ dans l'œuvre d'Antonine Maillet et de Claude LeBouthillier

Given the injustices Acadia and French-speaking Acadians have suffered throughout the course of history at the hands of various groups, including the Quebecois, there is a somewhat bitter-sweet or ambivalent view of Quebec and the Quebecois, and, especially, of Montreal in Antonine Maillet's and Claude LeBouthillier's works. This often paradoxical portrait of Montreal is principally the result of its status, on one hand, as a cultural and literary centre, indeed even as a centre of attraction, second in importance as a French-speaking metropolis after Paris and, on the other hand, of its status as an all-assimilating milieu within the context and the whole of North American or Canadian francophony. In addition to specifying the characteristics upon which Montreal's paradoxical portrait is based, this study will seek to explain the possible reasons for such a portrait of Montreal, as well as of the ‘States’, in Maillet's and LeBouthillier's works by taking into account each author's particular writing style.