The Deception Of Livvy Higgs Sparknotes

Through my years of learning English in school, I have read a few novels either for assignments or silent readings. I often read novels engaging within the romantic and depressing moments and acting out characters through their dialogues with different speaking tones. Likewise, in the novel, the Deception of Livvy Higgs written by Donna Morrissey, I am again captured by the distinct and interesting characters and their speaking ways. However, paying little attention to what I can actually learn from this novel. Nevertheless, when I finished reading this book, my mind was filled with new knowledge on various historical events. This novel well illustrates Canada’s state and contribution in the Second World War. The French-English relationships

in East Canada, the terror of U-boats in the War of Atlantic, and the chaos during and after World War Two in the Halifax Harbour are taught to the reader in an interesting way.

In the Deception of Livvy Higgs, one of the French characters, Mister Louis, is always in conflict with an English character named Darwin.

Their relationship draws a small picture to the relationship between the French and English Canadians living in Eastern Canada during the wartime periods. Many of the older generations of French and English settlers hold strong discriminations against the other race. The French-Canadians portray the English-Canadians as selfish people who want the sea and fish for themselves while the opposite thinks the French-Canadians are hooligans who are “traitors to their own flag” and “wouldn’t serve the English flag either”, that they cared nothing of the land, just kept the English people “from settling, from making laws” (p.91-92). Even in school, the youngsters are taught the battle between the British and French over the fish and the Newfoundland shores that has continued for hundreds of years because of their different perspective on the usage of the land and its resources. For instance, Livvy’s father and an Englishman, Darwin, complain that the shoreline to the French is simply a “nursery for seamen” and a “cradle for their sailors” (p.93). He strongly despises French-Canadians with this being one of the reasons. Through these few pages of the novel, an image of the conflict between the French and English in Eastern Canada, especially in Newfoundland, is easily drawn. While this conflict strains the atmosphere in East Canada, the threat the

German army holds towards Canada is a topic most Canadians worry about.

This novel explains Canada’s importance in the War of Atlantic in the Second World War and the threat the German U-boats bring to North America, but mostly to the convoys of Canadian merchant ships briefly but easy to visualize. Many deaths are created by the German U-boats. These submarines start bringing terror to Canadians living in Newfoundland when a passenger ferry sailing from Sydney to Newfoundland is torpedoed, drowning a hundred and thirty-five men, women and children. Canadian merchant ships are the major targets for U-boats in this war since they ship foods and weapons to England to support the British troops and the war depends heavily upon them arriving. The narrator, Livvy Higgs has read and listened to the radio for four years about the “formidable work of German U-boats sinking millions of tonnage of ships in the mid-Atlantic” (p.105) and for this reason, before Darwin joins the war with the merchant ships, despite Livvy’s aloof relationship with him, she tries to persuade him saying “it’s safer with the navy than the merchant ships” (p.106). Morrissey uses characters that join the merchant ships in World War Two to illustrate the danger the sailors are facing and some sailors experiencing to the readers. For instance, Henri, after breaking one of his legs, talks to the doctor about the tragedy of his ship being torpedoed. One minute he was riding the waves, then next thing he notices, a blast “flattens [his] ears and sends [him] flying like a bird through smoke and fire”, with a “smoking, hot spear” (p.124) piercing through his leg. The image of this passage strikes me with fear of the danger wars can bring. In this war, Canadian sailors are faced with extreme danger and hardships, however, their importance cannot be neglected. Morrissey’s way of writing allows the reader to be able to picture the struggle Canadian sailors went through in the War of Atlantic in addition to the chaos in Halifax Harbour during the wars.

According to Livvy’s trip to Halifax, the city is in chaos due to the war.

There are ships everywhere, anchored on both sides of the Halifax Harbour with hundreds of men “swarming their decks and hollering over horns and whistles” (p.162). The hilltop is studded with canons and “flapping flags that appear to be saluting the thousands of soldiers roaming the streets” (p.163), who are yelling, cursing or jostling each other as they sing drunkenly. Livvy’s grandmother forbids Livvy from going out of the house because of the confusion in the streets. The air in Halifax is taut with the roar of planes cutting through the skies and the distant but constant boom of cannons, sirens, and ships’ horns moaning from the harbour. Even after the war has ended, the tension still exists. Although the city erupts into joy with thousands of civilians and sailors shouting and cheering and flags unfurling over the windows, there is an “undertow of resentment and scorn that have built up, in sailors and civilians alike, from the four long years of living in cramped, sparse conditions” (p.260) beneath the joyous madness. In the night when the war ends, mobs of sailors, military people, and city folks break into liquor stores and then go on drinking, smashing windows, looting stores, and setting fires. The wars have changed too much on both the soldiers and the civilians’ lives, and have created too much bitterness to be able to be cleared in a short

while.

Through the Deception of Livvy Higgs, I have learned about the dry relationship between English and French Canadians living in Eastern Canada, the terror brought to the Canadians by German U-boats and the sailors’ lives that are lost with the torpedoed merchant ships, and the chaos and damage made in Halifax from the war tensions. These complicated events are well described through the settings of this book and the interesting characters’ dialogues. Furthermore, the vivid language used allows the reader to be able to imagine the events happen directly in front of them. This book does an incredible job explaining the historical events happened in Canada to the readers, and I enjoyed reading this novel while learning about Canada’s role in World War Two.