The Tin Flute

The Tin Flute is a 1945 novel by Gabrielle Roy. First published as Bonheur d’Occasion, or Secondhand Happiness, it follows a poor waitress named Florentine Lacasse who lives in Montreal during World War II. Florentine’s entire family is frequently without work, putting her and her eleven other young siblings in dire straits. Their poverty becomes so severe that several children go without basic necessities like shoes, and cannot attend school. When one of Florentine’s brothers, Daniel, gets leukemia, the family is unable to pay for treatment. Florentine works for pennies in order to help her family subsist. Roy casts the struggle of Florentine’s family against the wider norms of poverty and unjust suffering during World War II, showing how, despite these challenges, individuals strove to make opportunities for themselves to rise into the middle class.

Early in the novel, Florentine meets a man named Jean Levesque at the diner where she works long shifts. Jean takes an interest in Florentine, and impresses her with his ambition to become a great mechanist and thus escape the cycle of poverty of their neighborhood, Saint-Henri. While completing his studies, he works at a factory building war supplies. Success, to Jean, is synonymous with the neighborhood, Westmount, that sits on a hill towering over Saint-Henri. He hopes to one day live there and look down at the place he rose from. Jean decides that he wants to bring Florentine along into this dream, and asks her on a date. Before it happens, he has second thoughts so doesn’t contact Florentine. When Florentine shows up at their meeting place and realizes he has abandoned her, she returns home, feeling dejected and worthless.

That night, Jean reunites with his friend, Emmanuel, who has just returned from war. He tells him that he should meet Florentine. However, he decides to ask Florentine on a date instead. They dine at an expensive restaurant, during which Florentine embarrasses Jean with her obvious lack of dining etiquette. Because he thinks she doesn’t have what it takes to live outside of poverty, Jean decides to cut things off with Florentine. To seal his decision, he brings Emmanuel to Florentine’s diner and introduces the two to each other. Florentine, still infatuated with Jean, is totally uninterested in Emmanuel. However, she pretends to like him to elicit jealousy from Jean. Emmanuel invites Jean to a party at his home. She attends, but only to get another opportunity with Jean, who she believes will be there.



Azarius Lacasse, Florentine’s father, secretly borrows a truck from his company and surprises his family by announcing that they are going on a trip to their old home. Florentine decides to stay behind to court Jean. When the Lacasse family arrives at their old home, Florentine’s mother, Rose-Anna, is disturbed to see how much healthier their extended family looks than her own children. As they make their way back home, Azarius gets the family into a car crash. He is fired for borrowing the truck without permission and then crashing it. Meanwhile, Florentine invites Jean to dinner. Jean exploits Florentine’s desperation and rapes her.

Some weeks later, Florentine learns that she is pregnant with Jean’s child. With nowhere else to go, she resorts to marrying Emmanuel, since he is her and her unborn child’s only shot at being supported financially. She expresses that she wants Emmanuel to propose to her, and he eagerly does. To preserve her reputation, she passes off her baby as Emmanuel’s, never telling him that the baby is not his. At the end of the novel, Florentine is disappointed with the outcome of her life. She realizes that in her desperation to find financial stability and the social security of marriage, she foreclosed other avenues of experience, including the always-dormant possibility of marrying her true love, Jean.