Leaving the church

Abstract

The Quiet Revolution brought with it many changes in the social structure of Quebec. For the first time in centuries, the Catholic Church lost power over the central institutions of the nation, and the resulting liberation manifested itself in Quebecois fiction by women as an explosion of spiritual experimentation, especially through the arenas of Creativity, Sexuality, Maternity and the Occult. These four arenas allow women to enjoy the full spectrum of the human experience, unlike the patriarchal tradition of the Church that has long refused to give women access to the most important arenas. The spiritual journeys of women in Quebecois texts after the Quiet Revolution overwhelmingly reject the overly pure image of the Virgin Mary, instead allowing for a more realistic integration of both light and dark elements.