Bernadette by Mavis Gallant
"Bernadette" by Mavis Gallant explores the complex dynamics between a couple, Nora and Robbie Knights, and their French-Canadian servant, Bernadette. The narrative begins with Bernadette facing an unplanned pregnancy, stemming from casual encounters during her days off. In contrast to the emotionally detached Knights, who grapple with their own marital troubles, Bernadette is portrayed as simple and unaware of their expectations and intricacies of their lives. The Knights, despite their attempts to uplift Bernadette through literature, are oblivious to her reality, as Nora proudly shares her reading habits without realizing Bernadette's disinterest.
As the story unfolds, Nora's discovery of Bernadette's pregnancy leads to a moment of moral reckoning, ultimately revealing her misconceptions about class and superiority. The Knights' resolution to support Bernadette with her pregnancy reflects their detachment rather than genuine care. The narrative concludes with Bernadette in a theater, embracing the joy of uncomplicated love stories, yet haunted by her own fears of loss and the fragility of life. Through Bernadette's perspective, Gallant highlights themes of class disparity, emotional isolation, and the yearning for connection in an indifferent world.
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Bernadette by Mavis Gallant
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1964 (collected in The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, 1996)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
Nora has discovered her husband, Robbie, in extramarital affairs three times, and each time, like the articulate but emotionally distant couple they are, they have talked the matter out and gone on with their relationship.
Bernadette, their French-Canadian servant, is a simple woman who never quite understands what her terrifying, well-meaning employers want. The story begins with Bernadette’s knowledge that she is pregnant, having had several casual sexual encounters with strangers she met in town on her days off. Bernadette reflects little about life and asks for no more than a place to live and a job to do.
The Knights give Bernadette books by writers such as D. H. Lawrence and André Gide, which she puts in a drawer for a few days and then returns. However, Nora, blithely unaware, brags about Bernadette’s elevated reading habits to guests at a party she gives. When Nora finds out Bernadette is pregnant, she suspects Robbie and is shocked when she realizes she is mistaken, for it undercuts her moral superiority. The Knights remain in their usual emotionally detached state, considering it their responsibility to pay for Bernadette having the baby at a home for unwed mothers in the United States.
The story ends with Bernadette sitting in a movie theater, watching a musical comedy, which she enjoys because she believes in uncomplicated stories of love. When she feels her baby move, she thinks of the child as alive, something to be given a name, to be clothed, fed, and baptized. However, because of her own lower-class background, she feels sure that the baby will die; all she can hope for is an angel of her own to pray for her in heaven.
Bibliography
Canadian Fiction Magazine 28 (1978). Special issue on Mavis Gallant.
Essays in Canadian Writing 42 (Winter, 1990). Special issue on Mavis Gallant.
Gadpaille, Michelle. “Mavis Gallant.” In The Canadian Short Story. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Grant, Judith Skleton. “Mavis Gallant.” In Canadian Writers and Their Works, edited by Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989.
Keith, William John. “Mavis Gallant.” In A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada. Toronto: ECW Press, 1988.
Kulyk Keefer, Janice. Reading Mavis Gallant. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Schaub, Danielle. Mavis Gallant. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Simmons, Diane. “Remittance Men: Exile and Identity in the Short Stories of Mavis Gallant.” In Canadian Women Writing Fiction, edited by Mickey Pearlman. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.
Smythe, Karen. Gallant, Munro, and the Poetics of Elegy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992.