Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Light is symbolically linked to Evangeline on many occasions, presenting her as a heavenly being. In Grand-Pré, before the calamity, when she walks home from a church service, “a celestial brightness . . . / shone on her face and encircled her form” (Part 1, Canto I, Lines 59-60). When she ascends the staircase at night, the darkness is “[l]ighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the maiden” (Part 1, Canto III, Line 95). In Louisiana, as she continues her search for Gabriel, she dreams, “and the dawn of an opening heaven / Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of things celestial” (Part 2, Canto II, Lines 84-85). A short while later, her heart “[g]lowed with the light of love” (Part 2, Canto II, Line 132). The light that is within her helps to elevate her beyond the troubles she is experiencing. At one point she is even referred to in the village as the “Sunshine of Saint Eulalie,” a reference to a fourth-century Christian martyr: “for that was the sunshine / Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with apples” (Part 1, Canto I, Lines 125-26).