Canadian-American relations by the example of the characters in David French's "Jitters" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Marburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Transatlantic Stereotyping, language: English, abstract: David French is one of Canada's most renowned playwrights of the 20th century. With his play "Jitters", which he wrote in 1979, French turned away from his more serious plays to create his first comedy. The plot is set in the theatrical world of a small Toronto theater, the Leicester Street Play-house, and takes place shortly before, during, and after the performance of the play-within-the-play, "The Care and Treatment of Roses". French uses the characters in his work to illustrate the contradictory attitudes regarding the clash of Canadian and American culture, in this case from the point of view of actors, producers and henchmen of the stage. And even though the play revolves around the institution of theater, French's depiction of its characters also aims at the Canadian people as such. In "Jitters" he gives an insight into the weak Canadian self esteem and the attempt of forming a Canadian identity in competition against the more dominant American culture.
Thus, in this term paper, I would like to elaborate on Canadian-American relations in French's play. In a first step, I will give an overview about the historical development of theater in Canada and to what extent it is intertwined with the question of national identity in that country. With this theoretical knowledge as a basis, I will further go on with an analysis of the people in "Jitters" itself. I will begin that part of the term paper by looking at the minor characters in the play and will then go on characterizing the two protagonists, namely Jessica Logan and Patrick Flanagan. These two are used by French as the strongest opposing forces when it comes to different attitudes regarding the relations between the two north American nations. My analyses will be made against the background of the images which are created of Canada and the United States and the relations between these two countries respectively. Professional theater in Canada is not older than about fifty years. The wish to establish this art form, however, reaches back to the early days of colonization by European settlers. Back then, in the 16th and early 17th centuries, the theater was dominated by the French lan-guage which was because north America had become the battlefield of French and English interests. Thus, the development of a national theater was closely connected to the political and military situation in the young country.