Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Evangeline is an epic tale of a great collective injustice, which led to the many wanderings of an exiled people, the Acadians, as they sought to put down new roots and rebuild their lives in unfamiliar lands. It is also a story of individual loss and suffering in the form of Evangeline, who is a portrait of ideal womanhood as Longfellow understood it. She embodies loyalty, steadfastness, devotion, faithfulness, virtue, and service.

Part the First

Prelude, Cantos I-III

Following the practice of the traditional epic, Longfellow announces his theme at the beginning of the poem. The main theme is “the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,” as stated in the prelude (Line 17).

Most of the first three cantos are set in the idyllic farming community of Grand-Pré, which is presented as a pastoral heaven. The village lies in a “fruitful valley” (Line 3) on the shores of the Basin of Minas, in Novia Scotia. Meadows, orchards, and fields of flax stretch out east, west, and south, and there are also dikes that hold back the tides. It is a peaceful place in which people live contentedly. They are simple, devout, religious folk, who follow the precepts and participate in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic church, as presented to them by the parish priest, who also serves as the teacher at the school.

Grand-Pré is a patriarchal society in which the different roles of men and women are clearly defined. The men work in the fields while the women and girls work at home at the looms, spinning flax and doing domestic chores and taking care of the men’s needs. Evangeline, for example, is shown taking drinks to the laborers in the fields. Her main occupation is to direct the family household. After Longfellow introduces her, he presents her, in a long description taking up 17 lines, as the embodiment of transcendent beauty in all her being. She glows with “celestial brightness” (Part 1, Canto I, Line 59) when walking home from church and is compared to “exquisite music” (Line 62). Many of the young men in the village are devoted to her, regarding her with religious veneration and happy if they could “touch her hand or the hem of her garment” (Part 1, Canto I, Line 88). The latter is an allusion to the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, in which a sick woman touches the hem of Christ’s garment and is healed. Evangeline is regarded almost as perfection itself, and she enjoys her appointed female role in the community. As a woman, her task as she looks forward to marriage is to bring “delight and abundance” (Part 1, Canto I, Line 127) to her husband’s home, bless it with love, and give birth to children. In the present, during winter, her place is by her father’s side at the fireside, spinning flax for the loom while he relaxes and sings. When Basil joins his friend, it is Evangeline who brings him his pipe. Evangeline also lights the lamp and pours the ale, and she fetches the draughtboard so that the men can play. With the men, such as Benedict and Basil, the emphasis is on their strength and authority, and they speak directly and extensively about the coming crisis. René Leblanc the notary also speaks at some length, while Evangeline, in the first three cantos, says nothing. The most she manages is some whispering with Gabriel, her betrothed. This further confirms that Evangeline is the epitome of the quiet, obedient woman who performs her appointed duties, stays in the background, and is happy to do so. (Evangeline does not speak directly until the end of Canto IV, when she utters just one word, “Gabriel!” [Line 131].) For the 21st-century reader, these may not be the qualities for which a woman is most admired, but it was not so for readers in Longfellow’s day, who likely would not have seen anything outdated in the patriarchal structure of Grand-Pré and the submissiveness of its women.

The lengthy descriptions of this ideal community, in which people live in perfect harmony with one another and with nature, set up the drama that is to follow. It is as if the Acadians are about to be expelled from paradise in a kind of collective version of the fall of man in the book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden, the difference being that the Acadians have committed no sin against God, or anyone.

Cantos IV-V

News of the mass displacement spreads among the Acadians in Canto IV, and after the happy wedding scene in the orchard, the tone changes dramatically. When the men gathered in the church hear the proclamation of the British authorities, they are angry. Basil the blacksmith is ready to fight, but it is the pacifist religious message spoken from the altar by Father Felician that carries the day. He reminds the men that they must practice love and forgiveness, as Christ did. He urges them to forgive the wicked, and they willingly follow his lead. This canto thus reveals the depth of the villagers’ religious belief and faith. They know they are about to suffer a great wrong, but they resolve to endure it and forgive their oppressors.

Like the men, Evangeline also shows a religious conviction. She was not in the church—only the men were summoned to hear the news—but back in the village, she forgets her own cares and comforts others, showing “charity, meekness, love and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!” (Part 1, Canto IV, Line 120). This, obviously, is no Joan of Arc but a woman of quite another order. Her comfort comes not from the priest’s words from the pulpit, which she did not hear, but the story about divine justice told by Leblanc in Canto III. The story was about a society that had turned its back on all notions of justice, as a result of which an orphan girl was hanged for stealing jewels. After a violent storm, the jewels she was convicted of stealing were found in a magpie nest, thus revealing her innocence. The story soothes Evangeline and allows her to sleep. She believes that God is in control of the world.

Thus, as human cruelty and injustice makes itself felt in these cantos, the virtues of love and forgiveness and the concept of divine justice act as a counterpoint, and Longfellow weaves them into the narrative.

Canto V emphasizes the merciless cruelty of the deportation. The British are confiscating all the villagers’ land, houses, and cattle. Even worse, they are showing great callousness in failing to keep families together: “Wives were torn from husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children / Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties” (Part 1, Canto V, Lines 47-48). Basil and his son Gabriel are separated, and Evangeline and her father are left that night on the beach. Thus, the cohesion and togetherness of the Acadian community is utterly broken, and what lies ahead is unknown. When Evangeline’s father dies on the beach that night, she faces an even more devastating situation, which will take all her reserves of strength and fortitude to endure. She is now without close kin, almost alone in the world, although she will almost always find a male protector.

Part the Second

Cantos I-III

Whereas Part the First took place over a period of just a few months, from the summer to the fall of 1755, Part the Second, Canto I takes a much longer view. The first 15 lines describe the dispersal of the Acadians over a long period of time (“many a weary year” [Line 1]) over North America, from the Great Lakes to as far south as Louisiana. It is a tale of collective suffering as they wander “Friendless, homeless, hopeless . . . from city to city” (Line 8). Then the focus shifts from the collective to the individual, to just one of their number, who wanders, “[u]rged by a restless longing” (Line 29). This is of course Evangeline, in her long search for Gabriel.

Sometimes she hears rumors about where he might be found, but others tell her that it is time to stop dreaming and marry someone else. Evangeline will not hear of it. Longfellow does not waver for a moment in presenting Evangeline’s loyalty to Gabriel, to the love she feels in her heart. She is steadfast and true, while everything else about her life is in a state of confusion and uncertainty. Her heart lights the way. Father Felician confirms for her that love is never wasted, and he encourages her to show “patient endurance,” which is a “godlike” quality (Part 1, Canto I, Line 60). Thus Evangeline makes her way as a humble Christian woman, determined not to give in to despair, even in desperate circumstances. Longfellow is at pains to continue his portrait of her as an entirely sympathetic heroine, his idea—perfectly suited to the age in which he lived—of ideal womanhood.

Although the narrator announces at the end of Canto I that he will now describe a few of the journeys Evangeline took on her long quest, most of the emphasis in Canto II is on the collective experience of the Acadians. This particular small “band of exiles” (Line 5), including men, women, and children, travel by rowing boat one May down the Ohio River and into the Mississippi River, as far down as the Bayou of Plaquemine in southern Louisiana, then under Spanish jurisdiction. Evangeline and Father Felician, whom she has adopted as her guide, are just two members of that party.

The narrator does not forget Evangeline, however, and offers a few lines that show her hope, love, and resilience. Toward the end of the canto, Evangeline speaks directly almost for the first time. She tells Father Felician about her feeling that Gabriel is nearby. The dialogue that ensues says much about how Evangeline deals with a male authority figure. Although her intuition is strong, when she talks to the priest she underplays it, asking him whether it is just a “foolish dream” (Part 2, Canto II, Line 106). She speaks with self-deprecation as the woman consulting a man who is no doubt wiser than she: “Alas for my credulous fancy! / Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning” (Lines 108-09). The priest, who refers to her as “daughter” (Line 111), is quick to reassure her that the feelings in her heart are true and should be trusted. Longfellow’s portrait of ideal womanhood therefore includes the notion of being very deferential to the superior judgment of a man.

The mood changes in Canto III. As the canto begins, it almost seems as if the reader is being transported back to those idyllic days in Grand-Pré, as described in the first canto of the poem. Here, at last, is a success story for at least one of the Acadian exiles. A fine house and garden, and many herds of cattle grazing in the meadows. It is soon revealed that the herdsman is none other than Basil the blacksmith. He has adapted to his new circumstances and is flourishing. He has also been reunited with his son Gabriel, from whom he had been separated at the time of exile. At the feast that night, it is as if the joyous days in Grand-Pré have returned, but it is even better than that. Basil tells his guests that life in Louisiana is superior to what it was in the old village: The weather is better; there are no winters or infertile soil, the orange-groves are in blossom all year round, and the king of England has no power to drive them away.

Thus, out of injustice, bitterness, sorrow, and turmoil, something new and wondrous can be born. It is an inspiring message, but it is not the main one. There is still the sorrow of Evangeline, and also the restless unhappiness of Gabriel, who has not forgotten his beloved bride. This is, after all, as the introductory lines of the poem state, “a Tale of Love” (Line 19). The canto therefore concludes with descriptions of Evangeline’s sadness as well as the hope engendered by the journey they begin, following Gabriel’s trail. Evangeline has a new male protector for this, since Father Felician stays behind and the omnicapable Basil takes the reins. True to patriarchal form, Basil refers to Evangeline as “my child” (Part 2, Canto III, Line 57). Indeed, the narrator remarks on Basil’s “patriarchal demeanor” (Part 2, Canto III, Line 84), which everyone admires.

Cantos IV-V

Sadness and frustration mingling with continued hope are the key elements in Canto IV. The pursuit of Gabriel by Basil and Evangeline yields nothing; Gabriel always seems to be just out of reach. When they reach what they think is his camp, all they find are “embers and ashes” (Line 35), for example. Evangeline is not helped by her encounter with the Shawnee woman whose husband was murdered by the Comanches. The two women empathize with each other in their mutual sorrow, but the Shawnee tells Evangeline about the Mowis, “the bridegroom of snow” (Line 63), who married a girl but then in the morning melted away in the sunshine, never to be seen again. She then tells of Lilinau, a woman who was “wooed by a phantom” (Line 68). She followed him into the forest and never returned. The narrator calls the Shawnee’s story a “weird incantation” (Line 67), and Evangeline thinks of her as an “enchantress” (Line 75). The woman likely means well, but her words are certainly much different from anything Evangeline ever heard from Father Felician. This exposure to non-Christian Indigenous folklore is at odds with the message of hope and patience Evangeline has absorbed from her Christian mentors, and it disturbs and even terrifies her. Fortunately for Evangeline, the Shawnee also mentions the nearby Jesuit Mission, and Evangeline’s hopes rise once more. The priest at the mission, who appears to be a French-speaking Indigenous man, welcomes them, and Evangeline, like the good 18th-century Christian woman she is, asks in a “meek and submissive voice” (Part 2, Canto IV, Line 125) if she may stay there, and he consents. Months go by, and the priest does what Evangeline would hope for: He encourages her to have faith and patience.

One incident that takes up only a few lines (Lines 153-61) suggests, however, a milestone in Evangeline’s development. She hears a rumor that Gabriel has a lodge in the Michigan forest by the Saginaw River and decides to make the long trek north to find him. She does not travel with any fellow Acadians or named male protector but only with Indigenous guides. When she arrives, Gabriel is long gone, but the fact that Evangeline made such a long trip without her usual male support shows that she has developed a streak of toughness and independence that up to now had been hidden.

It seems, however, that it is all in vain. The years go by, including the period of the Revolutionary War—Evangeline is depicted as wandering in army camps and battlefields—and Evangeline, now old, eventually ends her search for her beloved.

By Canto V, Evangeline has returned to Philadelphia. She still holds within her heart a timeless image of Gabriel as a young man, and her love endures, but she no longer has any hope that she will see him again. She lives as a Sister of Mercy, offering comfort to the sick. It is when she visits an almshouse during a severe outbreak of yellow fever (which historically took place in 1793) that the astonishing moment comes, and she is reunited with the dying Gabriel, if only for a moment, before he dies. Her reaction is to offer her thanks to God. Much earlier, she had been comforted at the end of Canto IV in Part the First by the story that René Leblanc told about divine justice. Now she has reason to be thankful for the other side of the divine: the mercy of God, which manifests just at the last, when all hope seemed gone.