In The Village Of Viger Chapter Summary

Short story cycles like Duncan Campbell Scott’s In the Village of Viger function by their repetition of running themes. This tendency, as Ingram coins in his work on short story cycles of the twentieth century, is called “recurrent development” (). One of the central themes of Scott’s work of fiction is the inevitability of so-called progress that comes in the form of the big-city that is in pursuit of consuming small town Viger. Despite this inevitability, Viger manages to hold out against the city and maintain intact, if only for a short time. This is illustrated by Madame Laroque, the spiritus loci of the small town, who makes a decisive point that the Little Milliner’s presence “Will not do” () in Viger. The Little Milliner is then effectively removed from Viger, because she is simply not, in a sense, Vigerian. …show more content…
In this sense, the town defines itself by the fact that it resists succumbing to the inevitability of the city’s pursuit. This is emphasized by the recognition of the city’s impending arrival in the first paragraph of the novel, that follows with an assertion that “In the meantime, [Viger will continue to do what it has always done]” (). Building off that, a second recurring theme of the cycle is the mere fact that Viger continuously rejects what is ill-fitting for the Vigerian community. Thus, Viger’s sentience rejects anything that transcends the rigid expectations of the small French-Canadian community. Like metropolitan progress, one recurring generative force is that of the supernatural. Scott repeatedly uses symbols of spirituality and mysticism that threaten to eclipse what is natural in Viger, but in each of these instances, the town or its community reject the supernatural element. Ergo, the presence of the supernatural in Viger is, if not removed by the town,