Marie Clement’s “The Unnatural and Accidental Women”

Although the inevitably fragmented nature of a theatrical script makes it difficult for the reader to encapsulate, synthesize or make sense of specific events, Clements’ continual references to nature help to incorporate various forgotten tribal histories in to her present-day narrative.

I argue that these histories appear as ‘forgotten histories’ on account of how they appear in the play. In many cases, when references to the tides, trees or traplines appear in her play, they are often surrounded by the static of a faulty telephone connection, or the ebbing and flowing of entirely different scenes. In doing this, I feel as though Clements is cleverly making reference to Canada’s tendency to wash over a robust history of environmental plunder and racism.

In creating a play that illuminates the lives of many missing and murdered Indigenous women, while illuminating fragments of a forgotten environmental history, Clements enriches my understanding of the missing and murdered Indigenous women phenomena. As a matter of fact, the way Clements subtly draws the fragmented and ‘forgotten’ connections between the women and the environment, asserts that the missing and murdered Indigenous women are in realty far from a phenomena, but rather a manifestation of a history of colonial racism and plunder, and a culture of forgetting, in present day.

What I found most intriguing about Goto’s The Kappa Child, were the ways in which it challenged and re-worked historical Canadian (settler) narratives. It is not far off to say that Little House on the Prairie manifested itself into the thought-process of many Canadians (although it is an American novel, nonetheless), as an image reminiscent of the highly romanticised “good old days”. As the unnamed protagonist in the story continually references scenes from her favorite book, however, she is constantly reminded of how different her families’ seemingly ‘similar’ existence is compared to that of the Ingalls. As a matter of fact, the protagonist’s life is far from ‘good’ as she looks back on her abusive childhood, in a landscape that rarely provided. Canadian narratives provided through such stories as Little House on the Prairie often ignore Canada’s robust history of colonialism and racism. Endearingly, Goto provides a more realistic account of what it is to be an immigrant in Canada, tilling the land, and living the ‘Canadian dream’. This idea becomes exemplified, even more so, when the protagonist wakes up watching the credits for Little House on the Prairie; As Laura Ingalls looks up, grows withered and angry, stressing that the story was re-done, Goto creates a raw image of a fake Canada, one that made me (the reader) realize my complacency in maintaining an unrealistic account of Canada that does not recognize the experience of immigrants and First Nations as integral components of its’ history.

According to Latimer, Juno is arguably the real-life embodiment of Atwood’s satire The Handmaid’s tale. Latimer notes that at the time Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, political conversations regarding women’s rights and the topic of abortion were re-surfacing, creating new and diverse discourses. She points out that at this time, pro-life rhetoric was becoming so pervasive that it oddly began to re-shape pro-choice rhetoric, in that all sides began to frame abortion as a traumatic decision, but a decision (or choice) nonetheless, rather than a liberating decision (or choice).

In Atwood’s satire, the handmaids are subjected to gendered servitude, and act only as fertile vessels for reproduction (mostly reproduction of the state). The handmaids are made to believe that they have freedom from the abominations of the time before (abortion, pornography etc.), when in reality, most handmaids are longing for their old lives.

Latimer notes that this seemingly absurd portrayal of freedom and choice in The Handmaid’s tale is arguably becoming normalized via endearing, charming and popular movies such as Juno. To exemplify this, Latimer notes that although Juno dabbles with the choice of abortion, she ultimately makes the ‘right’ choice by having the child. Juno is therefore reflecting an ‘abortion as traumatic’ rather than liberating discourse. Moreover, the fact that Juno’s decision is considered a choice at all is in need of close analysis. Is it truly a choice if societal pressures coerce you into making the ‘right’ choice?

Critical Reflection:

I don’t think I have ever analyzed freedom and choice as closely as I have after this week’s readings. In Canada, women are made to believe that freedom to choose exists. However, the media is constantly adopting specific politics, politics that profoundly value some ‘choices’ over others. How can this be considered choice? I truly think of it as coercion, where choosing abortion is framed as traumatic (despite scientific evidence that suggests otherwise) whether you are ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’.