Ethics as social perspective: The moral problems inherent in the ethics of feminist research practices being determined by a “discourse of regulation”, with particular attention to the problems raised by this view of ethics when considering methods of feminist ethnographic research

Posted on by under GRSJ 501

In her chapter on “Ethics and Feminist Research”, Linda Bell emphasizes that “ethical issues are embedded within feminist ways of doing research.” While this statement is arguably a truth universally applicable to all forms of research practice, Bell highlights an increased discussion in feminist research on the subject of ethical considerations. This is perhaps traceable to the newer, arguably more reflexive nature of much feminist research, as well as its growth out from under a controlling, hegemonic male viewpoint, allowing issues of governance and control to permeate the very framework of the research itself (Bell, 74). A distinction must be drawn here between morality and ethics, although I will argue that both systems are socially constructed and controlled, and that both can be assessed in collaboration with, or independent of, the other. The issues of ethics are often tied directly to aspects of regulation and control in research, to aspects of governance (Bell, 75). With the rise of Institutional Review Boards and ethics committees, academic and social research has certainly become more regulated, and therefore potentially more ethical. However, there are many problems with this implicit assumption that regulation equals ethical practices. In this critical essay, I will argue that ethics is a socially constructed concept which is used increasingly to regulate research practices, as a means of control in line with a particular set of dominant moral beliefs. I will examine the practice of feminist ethnography with a view to highlighting some of the problems inherent in using a universal, moral model of research ethics for purposes of regulation, as well as the potential problems with abolishing such a model.

Bells makes a distinction between ethics and morality, defining ethics as “a generic term for various ways of understanding and examining the moral life”, and morality as “the identification and practice of what one ought to do” (Bell, 74). By these definitions, morality differs depending on the society which organically constructs it, while ethics is theoretically a regimented artificial construction imposed by a governing body. Bell talks about a “fundamental shift” identified in research ethics, from a moral discourse to a system of regulation, in recent years. This raises questions about the nature of ethics in relation to feminist research perspectives, which are arguably fundamentally concerned with power relations and balances (Bell, 79). Bell suggests that feminist research’s focus on issues of power imbalances as part of its fundamental makeup makes it uniquely suited to examine issues of governance and control in recent ethics reviews and practices. While Bell raises the issue here of different perspectives on ethics, and how feminist perspectives on ethics and research procedures may differ from the views of an ethics committee, the issue of different types of research, outside of mainstream accepted forms of research, and how that research is viewed by normative academic ethical viewpoints, is largely glossed over here. However, if should be noted that Bell discusses issues relating to different types of feminist research which largely fail to meet the accepted model of “ethical research” as defined by the hegemonic, dominant research paradigms which seem to continue to influence the perspectives of ethical definitions and considerations.

To investigate this gap in Bell further, I will now discuss the issue of ethics in relation to feminist ethnography. Ethnography looks at a particular society from a personal perspective on the part of the researcher, using observation and participation, relationships and shared lived experience, to “get an in-depth understanding of how individuals in different subcultures make sense of their lived reality”(Buch et al, 107).

Elsie Clews Parsons

Feminist ethnography was pioneered by Elsie Clews Parsons, and American anthropologist from the early 20th century, while ethnography as a whole found its beginnings in the work of Bronislaw Malinowski during WWI (Buch et al, 110).

Video on Malinowski

Ethnographers “use the self” as an instrument of knowing to conduct research, which raises issues of both bias, inability to replicate research findings, and the highly subjective nature of the research. It could be argued then that ethnographic research is hard to conduct ethically, from a top-down perspective anyway, as the ethical integrity of the research would rest solely on an individual’s perspectives, and it would therefore be difficult to determine a lack of ethical bias. I would argue however that from a moral perspective, ethnographic research may fair slightly better, as the lived experience shared by the research would perhaps allow the research to better understand the specific, socially constructed nature of moral ideals of a particular society. Eshun highlights the problems with this approach however, by emphasizing the seeming impossibility in successfully capturing the lived experience of another culture through ethnography alone: “Even if we were able to “capture” realities…what criteria could we legitimately use to evaluate or interpret ethnographic texts” (Eshun, 3).

Feminist ethnography-is it possible?

Despite these difficulties, feminist ethnographers arguably view the challenges placed in their way by dominant systems of governance as a sign their research is all the more necessary and needed, rather than a discouragement (Buch et al, 121). This is perhaps an indication that the way forward in determining and conducting ethical research does not perhaps lie in more stringent governance, or in individual morality, but in seeking to create a dialogue in the spaces between regimented ethics and subjective morality, and perhaps find a common social ground were a bridge can be built, grounded in the foundations of both perspectives.

 

Bibliography:

Links/images:

“Elsie Clews Parsons.” CUNY.edu. CUNY. http://csivc.cwsi.cuny.edu/history/files/lavender/graphics/elsie2.gif

Stacey, Judith. “Can there be a feminist ethnography?” Women’s studies in forum. 11.1(1988): 21-27. http://researchmethodswillse.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/01/Stacey.pdf

WeegieLou. “Tales From the Jungle: Malinowski.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, February 12, 2007.Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f22VsAlOwbc

 

Books/Articles:

Bell, Linda. “Chapter 4: Ethics and feminist research.” Hesse-Biber, S. J., ed. Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014): 73-106.

 

Buch, Elana D., and Karen M. Staller. “Chapter 5: What is Feminist Ethnography?” Hesse-Biber, S. J., ed. Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014): 107-144.

Eshun, Gabriel., and Clare Madge. “Now, let me share this with you: exploring poetry as a method for postcolonial geography research. Antipode. 44.4(2012): 1395-1428.

 

Maynard, Kent., and Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor. “Anthropology at the edge of words: Where poetry and ethnography meet.” Anthropology and Humanism. 35.10(2010): 2-19.

An Intersection to everywhere: An analysis of the potential benefits of a multidisciplinary intersectionality approach to creating and utilizing modern research paradigms in the pursuit of social justice

Posted on by under GRSJ 501

If you stopped five random people on a busy street corner and asked each of them to define the word ontology, you would probably expect to get a variety of reactions. Blank looks, huffed brush offs, hurried googling, drinks thrown in your direction, possibly someone ringing the police. All of those would probably be in there, but in a way, you might also come closer to that answer you were seeking than you realize.

Taken From Google Images, Full Citation below.

Bagele Chilisa defines ontology as “the body of knowledge that deals with the essential characteristics of what it means to exist” (Chilisa, 20). More broadly, this could be interpreted as denoting what particular knowledge makes up a particular reality. Many of the readings covered in this course have dealt with the problems associated with different types of research methodologies, and how different perspectives can define different realities. In this essay, I will examine week 1 and week 2’s readings on the similarities and differences between various Indigenous, Feminist, and Transfeminist research methodologies, with a view towards examining how an multidisciplinary, intersectional research paradigm might help overcome some of the inherent biases common to some of these research methodologies and/or paradigms. In other words, using intersectionality as an intersection between different methodologies, in order to combat oppression of marginalized groups and voices. I will undertake this through a brief examination of the shifting nature of research paradigms and biases in different research areas, and how an intersectionality between these fields has shaped the changes which have occurred within said fields. Ultimately, I seek to highlight the shifting, diverse nature of any ontological research reality.
Chilisa’s discussion of western centric biases which persists in many modern research paradigms, and the problems associated with trying to decolonize these methodologies highlights a key issue which could perhaps be applied to most if not all research paradigms. I speak here of inherent biases. Hesse-Biber suggests that feminist research praxis’s use of reflexivity to provide “a way for researchers to account for their personal biases and examine the effects…on the data produced” allows a way to cope with these biases, while simultaneously acknowledging that such bias is both inherent and inevitable (Hesse-Biber, 3). I would argue that this intersect between feminist and indigenous studies approach to research biases exposes a problem which is just as evident in Chilisa’s discussion of indigenous research’s four dimensions (13) as it was evident in older western centric research methodologies such as positivism (24-27). Indeed, all of these paradigms make assumptions about the nature of the reality, knowledge, and values of the group or system they are applied to. While I would tend to agree with Chilisa that some assumptions are inevitable in order to be able to conduct structured research of any form, I would call attention to this unspoken issue which seems to lurk around the edges of every discussion about new research methodologies and new research paradigms: as long as the focus is on decolonizing existing research paradigms, or even creating new paradigms within existing narratives in order to meet standard research criteria, is it actually possible to fully legitimize any new research ontology as being wholly unbiased and separate from the oppressive, marginalizing narratives which have come before?
While the above discussion perhaps begins to highlight the importance of intersectionality in research paradigms on forming a multi-faceted understanding of the nature of shared ontologies, it is necessary at this point to properly define what I mean by intersectionality here. Naples and Gurr discuss the origins of feminist intersectionality from a black feminist perspective in the 1980s, focusing particularly on Collin’s emphasis on what intersectional approaches reveal about a “matrix of domination”(Naples and Gurr, 31). However, for the purposes of this discussion I attempt to explore the evolving nature of this definition, as intersectionality has evolved and became key to relating feminist research paradigms to the pursuit of social justice. In particular, this highlights the trend in modern research paradigms towards multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural, multi in general, complex, comparative discussions. This ties into the discussion of feminist standpoint theory, and its assumption that marginalized groups have a “double-vision” which allows them to understand both dominant and marginalized ideologies (Naples and Gurr, 33). I would argue this recalls the inherent biases discussed above in relation to Chilisa’s narrative, in that a certain amount of potentially biased assumptions must first be made in order to determine what constitutes the dominant group and what constitutes the marginalized group(s). In this case, it is necessary to label something in order to analyze it, something which perhaps highlights the potential benefits of developing new Indigenous research paradigms free from preconceived research biases, which focus on the narrative of the colonized other in relation to their own reality, rather than the reality of the colonizer. In other words, attempting to define something without the common, convenient dichotomy of relational us versus them perspectives.
Enke opens the discussion in Transfeminist Perspectives by making a direction connection between feminist and transgender studies, describing the relationality between the two research areas as a “productive and sometimes fraught potential” (Enke, 1). Enke draws a clear connection between gender identity and the nature of reality, by highlighting the individuality of each person’s gender, where “everyone’s gender is made” (1). While this discussion of gender identity is largely predicated on individual identity, something which is perhaps in contrast with some indigenous ontologies, the connection between reality and subjectivity is applicable to both fields. In the case of transgender studies, reality seems to perhaps equal identity, or vice versa. Enke makes the suggestion that trans studies could be viewed as a form of new intersectionality in research paradigms, due in part to the relatively new emergence of the research area. Enke also connects transgender studies to power imbalances, much like early intersectionality paradigms, as trans perspectives are largely viewed as a marginalized other in the larger framework of gender studies narratives. This is arguably most evident in Noble’s discussion of the term cis-gender, and the negative connotations which can be applied to the term (Enke, 58). It is worth noting that the politicization of this term, and the resulting negative connotations, is predicated entirely on how the label is used and applied, rather than the actual word itself.

Video on definition of cis-gender
The commonality seems to run between Indigenous, feminist, and transgender research paradigms in terms of their relation to decolonizing, marginalized, and indigenous narratives. Power relations, a level of oppression, and a utilization for the purposes of social justice connections all of these narratives, tying together the importance of intersectionality between research paradigms.

Image About Intersectionality of oppresion

If you went out and interviewed another five random people on the street, and this time asked them what an intersection was, you would probably still end up soaking wet and possibly detained on suspicion. But you might also have five somewhat similar answers, that for all their differences, might still involve the connections which can grow from the intersection of several different points meeting somewhere in the middle of nowhere, leading to everywhere.

 

Works Cited:

Links/Images:

“Ontology.” Slideshare.net. IN. http://www.slideshare.net/andrewhinton/context-design-beta2-world-ia-day-2013

Connor O’Keefe. “What Does Cis-Gender Mean?” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, December 27, 2014. Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlE-NQWURg

“All Oppression Is Connected.” Rebloggy.com. Tumblr. http://rebloggy.com/post/class-racism-sexism-feminism-capitalism-oppression-privilege-misogyny-socialism/63021736591

Books:

Chilisa, B. “Situating Knowledge Systems.” Indigenous Research Methodologies. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Save Publications, 2012): 1-43.

Enke, A. Finn. “Introduction.” Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014): 1-14.

Enke, Ann. “The education of little cis: Cisgender and the discipline of opposing bodies.” Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014): 60-80.

Frost, Nollaig and Frauke Elichaoff. “Feminist postmodernism, poststructuralism and critical theory.” Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014): 43-72.

Hesse-Biber, S. J. “A re-invitation to feminist research.” Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014): 1-13.

Munoz, Victor. “Gender/Sovereignty.” Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014): 23-33.

Naples, N. A. & Barbara Gurr. “Feminist empiricism and standpoint theory: Approaches to understanding the social world.” Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014): 14-41.

Noble, Bobby. “Trans. Panic: Some Thoughts Towards a Theory of Fundamentalist Feminism.” Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014): 45-59.

 

Lesson 3.3: The Allusion of Understanding

Posted on by under Unit 1 and 2 posts, Unit 3

To say Green Grass Running Water is hard work to understand is like saying physics is mildly difficult(for those of us who are scientifically challenged, like me : ). In other words, a huge understatement. Unlike physics however, with just a little research and study, a whole new level of understanding can quickly be unlocked within the novel. To claim to understand all or even most of King’s allusions and meanings would be folly, since part of the joy of King’s text is in the “not knowing”. This was one of the things that struck me about the novel, upon first reading it-how easy it was to get sucked into the text, and yet have no understanding of what was going on for large portions of the narrative.

There are of course many, many allusions, references, and metaphors within every page of the novel, however I will focus on pages 269-284. The pages start about with a dialogue between Coyote and the first person voice present within the novel(presumably the narrator), discussing stories about how the world came into being. King makes extensive reference to the myth of “Thought Woman”, a Navajo mythic figure who thought the world into being(Flick 159). King crosses the story of Thought Woman over with several other references, particularly to Christian mythology and the figure of Mary. Thought Woman, also known as Spider Woman, was a important mythic figure for the Navajo, one who created things by imagining them, and wove the world into being like a spider in a web. This blending of Thought Woman and Mary both serves to highlight the emphasis placed on Christian mythology by the Europeans, to the exclusion and deletion of Indigenous mythologies, and the differences between a Patriarchal origin story and a Matriarchal one. Thought Woman thought the world into being, while Mary was arguably simply a vessel to produce a male savior.

The opening passage continues on to mention A. A. Gabriel, who represents the Archangel Gabriel who announced the birth of Jesus, and who represents the European Christian centric point of view, identifying Thought Woman in his own cultural context as Mary, before quoting the bible verbatim, specifically from Luke 1:42, re-writing the figure of Thought Woman into a Christian context(Flick, 160). A. A. Gabriel also represents the “Canadian Security and Intelligence Services”, and by extension the colonizers’ center of power-the government. His business card is perhaps a metaphor for the double sided knife of European doctrine and enforcement, enforcing the supremacy of Christianity and European superiority over the Indigenous population through religious and governmental sanctions and authority.

A. A. Gabriel asks Thought Woman: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the American Indian Movement?”-this is a direct paraphrase of Senator’s famous quote about Communism, implying that being an “Indian” is on the same level of subversiveness for the Colonizers(represented by Gabriel) as Communists were for McCarthy, marking “Indians” as “Un-American”, or in this case, un-Eurpean and therefore “other”(Flick, 160). Gabriel also mentions racial stereotypes about “Indian smuggling”, and brings up the “White Paper“, a bill proposed by the Trudeau Government in the late 1960s that would have eventually dissolved the “special status” of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

A. A. Gabriel’s “white with gold lettering” singing business card is possibly an allusion to Canada itself, the image of Canada as “white and official”, with the song “Hosanna Da” calling to mind different things for both Coyote and the first person narrator(Helms, 121). For Coyote, interestingly, the song represents the hypocrisies of colonization and colonizers’ anthems and justifications, while the narrator recognizes it as the national anthem, ignoring Coyote’s protests about what the Biblical connotations of the song imply, and what the anthem’s exclusion of, and ignorance about, the Indigenous “other” says about the Europeans’ view of Canada as a country.

Old Coyote is also referenced, taking the form of a snake, and is present during Gabriel’s attempts to turn Thought Woman into a “Mary”-an obedient, child bearing Christian woman. Gabriel’s parting shot about there being lots of Mary’s in the world, and his shouted questions about what to do with “all these papers, and this snake” seem to symbolize “yet another metaphor”(as mentioned by the narrator)-the whole exchange is perhaps a metaphor for the Colonizers’ dilemma about what to do with the “Indigenous problem”, with every reference in pages 269-272 making reference to ways to suppress, convert, absorb, and silence a foreign “other”, in this case the Indigenous populations of Canada.

King uses the metaphors of Lone Ranger, Hawkeye, Ishmael, and Robinsin Crusoe, traditionally European, White, or Christian heroes with “Indian sidekicks”(in the case of Hawkeye and the Lone Ranger) assuming the role of “Indians” in a subversion of their traditional culture meanings(Flick, 141), to discuss many issues in the novel, and also to introduce other mythic figures, particularly Coyote. On page 273, the figure of Coyote is discussed as dancing in the rain, an allusion to the problems Coyote causes stealing cars and creating water in the novel, classic Coyote trickery. Coyote’s dancing is a metaphor for his powers and the chaos he can cause, and the remarks of the “four old Indians” clearly highlight the problems Coyote’s actions can cause(Donaldson, 33). Lionel’s glimpse of a yellow dog dancing in the rain in the alley is an allusion to Coyote taking the form of a dog, a common theme in Coyote stories.

Dr. Hovaugh appears, a metaphor for both Northrop Frye’s attitude towards First Nations literature(Frye seems here to completely ignore the role of Indigenous culture and peoples in forming the country, or indeed having a literature or stories at all-he really doesn’t seem to take “Indians” into account on any serious level in this early publication), and a rather blatant(in this passage at least, in my opinion) example of European and Christian attitudes of superiority over, and “othering” of, Indigeous peoples-seen through Hovaugh’s treatment of Babo, and the implication Babo would know how the “four old Indians” would think and act, simply because she was also “Indian”(King, 275).

Alberta’s story about her father Amos and the government confiscating their “religous outfits” speaks further to the theme in this passage of the Canadian Government paying lipservice to the image they respect and care about the rights or welfare of “Indians” and Indigenous issues, while turning a blind eye and ear to any real issues and problems-the broken feathers and boot marks a screamingly loud metaphor for the abuses suffered by First Nations under the Colonizers’ boots. The end of the passage returns to the theme of the flood, and missing cars, bringing the blending of Indigenous and Christian narratives full circle.

There are many other subtle references, allusions, and themes hidden in this passage of King, but I have chosen to focus on those mentioned above because, in my opinion, they all speak to the common theme of the hippocrisy of the suppression and subjugation of Indigenous peoples by European settlers and the Canadian government. King appropriates and manipulates traditional Christian or European names, characters, attitudes, and myths to emphasize the hippocrisy of othering the First Nations, and the suppression of their culture, religion, and myths. At every turn the Indigenous narratives are viewed as inferior by the characters, and yet, as Coyote craftily asserts, “there is only one Thought Woman”, undermining and even reversing the ideas of superiority by suggesting there are “many Marys'”, but only one Thought Woman, and then tricking the seemingly sermonizing narrator into agreeing( subversive and powerful message that is, in my opinion, a more subtle echo of Coyote’s blatant statement in changing the old Western so the “Indians” won, not the “Cowboys”). King’s intertextuality and subtext spin a web of meaning which, once understood even partly, at the very least causes us to question our view of the world, and perhaps even shakes it, just a little.

Works Cited:

brt001. “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Life Examinations. WordPress.com. December 9, 2010. Web. July 17, 2014.

Donaldson, Laura E. “Noah meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the Rain: Intertextuality In Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.7(1995): 27-43. Web. July 17, 2014.

Drinnon, Dale. “Coyote the Trickster.” Frontiers of Anthropology. blogspot.ca June 15, 2013. Web. July 17, 2014.

Fed Vid. “Trudeau’s White Paper(June 1978).” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, October 13, 2008. Web. July 17, 2014.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162(1999):140-172. Web. July 16, 2014.

Frye, Northrop. “Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada.” Literary History of Canada: Carl F. Klinck, General Editor; University of Toronto Press; pp. xiv, 1945; 1965. Northrop Frye-The Bush Garden. Blogspot.ca. 2013. Web. July 17, 2014.

Helms, Gabriele. Challenging Canada: Dialogism and Narrative Techniques in Canadian Novels. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003. Print.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Klooss, Wolfgang, ed.  Across the Lines: Intertextuality and Transcultural Communication in the New Literatures of English. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1998. Print.

Lousley, Cheryl. “Hosanna Da, Our Home On Natives’ Land”: Environmental Justice And Democracy In Thomas King’s “Green Grass, Running Water.” Essays On Canadian Writing 81 (2004): 17-44. Web. July 17, 2014.

“Native American Coyote Mythology.” Native Languages of the Americas. Native Languages.com. 2012. Web. July 17, 2014.

Raine, Lauren. “The Hands of the Spider-Woman.” RaineWalker. RaineWalker.com., 2012. Web. July 17, 2014.

 

 

Lesson 3.2: Naming Orality

Posted on by under Unit 3

I have chosen to tackle question 6 for lesson 3.2, concerning the ways in which King’s text encourages his audience to read out loud, rather than silently. This post will touch on and expand some issues I raised in my blog post for lesson 3.1.

In my blog for lesson 3.1, I discussed my initial reading of Green Grass Running Water, and touched on the new levels of comprehension and readability I experienced upon reading parts of the novel out loud. King’s writing is virtually impossible to read easily or “comfortably”, without a great deal of thought on the part of the reader, particularly if the reader wishes to attain any real attempt at understanding the narrative (Chester, 54). He blends two traditionally unblendable genres, orality and literature, to create a hybrid between the two. In doing so, King effectively negates the “us” vs. “them” conflict often present in a discussion about orality vs. literacy. Like many of the other blendings of radically opposing ideas in his novel, such as the combination of Christian and Indigenous creation stories, King tackles the divide between orality and literature through the medium of story, using elements of both types of narrative techniques to form a unified whole(Bailey, 43). To return to my initial reading of the novel, I noticed that many of the allusions and phonetic tricks were far easier to comprehend when read aloud, or even impossible to understand or catch without reading them aloud.

For example, it wasn’t until I’d re-read the passage a couple times that I got the reference to Louis Riel(King, 334), despite the fact the names are deliberately repeated by Latisha, in order, without the use of “and” to separate them: the meaning simply doesn’t come across unless spoken aloud. This was probably the best example for me of King’s brilliance and his subtle(or, as mentioned above, deliberately obvious) assertion of the importance of orality within what appears, in many ways, to be a purely written narrative (Chester, 55). If one is simply willing to be a bit confused, to not understand some points, the story can be read as a purely “literary” narrative, the oral elements glossed over or ignored. However, such a reading leaves out most of the impact and meaning behind the narrative, and accepts the standard status quo of the traditional superiority of written narratives over oral ones.

King includes a number of other names which can only be fully understood once read aloud. The most obvious example is that of Dr. Joseph Hovaugh(King, 11), who is a parody of the famous Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. The character’s name is also a spoof on Jehovah-Joe Hovaugh. This allusion was also, I found, impossible to pick up when read silently, despite the fact I was looking for it based on my pre-readings prior to reading the text. However, like Louis, Ray, Al, this allusion has to be “heard” to be understood, demonstrating the level of context and information which can be conveyed by orality, which is lost when translated to the page(Flick, 144). It gives the phrase “lost in translation” a whole new meaning.

Another place King utilizes this technique is near the end of the novel, when Clifford Sifton and Lewis Pick observe the three cars which had mysteriously disappeared from puddles of water earlier in the novel floating down the flooded dam-“a Nissan, a Pinto, and a Karmann-Ghia”(King, 407). Here again, the names are repeated and emphasized without the use of any joining words, hinting strongly to the reader that something else is at play. While the cars also allude to the flood, and the mixing of Coyote and Flood motifs in the novel-Indigenous and Christian story elements being combined-they are also a reference to Columbus’ famous Nina, Pinta, and Santa-Maria(Chester, 55). As someone who had to memorize the names of those ships in elementary school, I still didn’t catch the significance when reading silently. The cars falling over the edge of the dam could also reference the old European superstition about falling off the edge of the world(Flick, 146). The allusion of the cars’ names is another example of the added depth and hidden information King conveys in his text, which can only be understood from the perspective and practice of orality.

King utilizes the different narrative mediums of orality and literacy to full advantage in the novel, combining the two seemingly completely opposite methodologies to create a discourse within the text where the whole meaning behind his narrative can only be understood when both halves are experienced and appreciated. King’s novel is full of mixed theories, methodologies, ideologies, narratives, and allusions, a veritable melting pot of combined meanings. King forces his readers to really think, to abandon passive reading, by “transgressing the boundaries that separate orality and literacy” (Ridington, 222). By creating names and allusions which can only be understood when spoken aloud, King highlights the value of orality, drawing his reader forcefully yet subtly away from a purely silent and passive reading experience.

Works Cited:

Bailey, Sharon M. “The Arbitrary Nature of the Story: Poking Fun and Oral and Written Authority in Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” World Literature Today. 73.1(1999): 43-52. Web. July 9, 2014.

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999): 44-61. Web. July 9, 2014.

Donaldson, Laura E. “Noah meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the Rain: Intertextuality In Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.7(1995): 27-43. Web. July 3, 2014.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162(1999):140-172. Web. July 9, 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Ridington, Robin. “Re-Creation in Canadian First Nations Literatures: “When You Sing it Now, Just Like New.” Anthropologica. 43.2(2001): 221-230. Web. July 9, 2014.

 

 

Lesson 3.1: God’s Coyote

Posted on by under Unit 3

I have chosen to answer question 5 for lesson 3.1, comparing the different narrative styles of King and Robinson in their stories about Coyote covered in lessons 2.3 and 3.1.

When I first started reading Green Grass, Running Water I was rather confused, to be honest. Intrigued, but definitely confused. The seemingly fragmentary nature of the narrative, and the initially disconnected narrative pieces and apparently unrelated characters made it hard to follow. So, I tried reading a few of the passages again, this time out loud with a friend, each of us reading a different section each time. Just as with Robinson’s “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”, the moment I stopped trying to understand the narrative from the context or perspective of a modern westernized novel or narrative, the intersections and deeper meanings within the text became instantly recognizable. By the time I got to a point in King’s text when the characters started to connect on an overt narrative level, I was thoroughly hooked.

The purpose of the above anecdote is to highlight the initially seemingly fragmentary nature of both texts, with King echoing Robinson’s style on a larger scale, both in terms of overall length, and length of the different fragments of narrative. Both texts weave seemingly different narratives together to form a rich and diverse whole, a stark contrast to the “short and lifeless” nature of many written narratives (Robinson, 8).

Robinson’s method of storytelling combines aspects of orality with a written medium, resulting in a seemingly fragmentary and disjointed silent reading experience, as was demonstrated by last week’s lesson. When read silently, the story seems to jump all over the place within the same few lines, repeating sections and adding nonsensical words and phrases in places where they don’t seem to belong. King’s narrative is slightly less fragmentary on a small scale, but when taken as a whole, I found reading the text in an oral manner, particularly in the parts about Coyote, helped convey the idea of the narrative as following King’s layers of imposed orality on a written text(echoing Robinson’s recorded orality). King’s narrative is considered by some scholars to be “rooted in oral tradition“, offering an unusual bridge between written and oral narratives (Schorcht, 91).

King employs a similar narrative voice to Robinson in some places in his novel, particularly in the passages where the four old Indians talk about stories of the beginning of the world-the disjointed speech exchanged between the four in several places throughout the novel(King, 9-12) echoes Robinson’s repetition of multiple voices in a single passage, relaying information from several narratives at once.

Coyote is an active character in both narratives, but in Robinson he’s described through the distinctive yet subtle, ever-presented personal voice of the narrator: “Did you know what the Angel was? Do you know? The Angel, God’s Angel, you know. They sent that to Coyote”(Robinson, 66). By contrast, there is no direct address of the reader/listener in King, but the use of the pronoun I in places seems to imply a narrator or story teller, who converses directly with Coyote: “”Coyote,” I says, “you are all wet””(King, 429). Both narratives employ a personal narrative voice, which could be construed as the voice of a story teller who occasionally directly interacts with the narrative and/or the audience.

Another similarity between the two texts is the use of the Coyote figure in relation to the christian God. Robinson’s Coyote is a paradoxical figure, both employed by “God” and an independent and empowered character (Ridington, 347). Robinson’s Coyote is both chained and free, only “let out” by a god(not explicitly stated as Christian), who instructs him how to act through the medium of an angel-an interesting level of intertextuality to biblical narratives is introduced here, with the presence of a messenger angel. This Coyote is a character of few words, who is articulate when he has to be, loquacious when necessary, straightforward, and no-nonsense: “I’m another king. I come to see you. I want you, you and I, we can talk business”(Robinson, 70).  Coyote is a rather removed figure in the story, his thoughts inaccessible, while the king’s are an open book to the listener. God doesn’t directly appear, speaking to Coyote through an intermediary only, and yet his presense is felt at all times, clearly identified as giving Coyote his power and orchestrating events. I found this dichotomy between the Coyote figure of Indigenous narratives and the christian God interesting on several levels, particularly in how it relates to the narrative in King.

King’s narrative contains a lot of biblical allusions, a good example being the continous presence of a flood narrative theme throughout the novel, represented by the mysterious puddles of water appearing under all the cars(Donaldson, 29). However, the presence of the christian God is hard to pin down in the novel, seen largely in the metaphor of “Dead Dog” equaling “Dead God”(Ridington, 343). King’s Coyote, in somewhat of a contrast to Robinson’s, becomes a “disjunctive and disruptive” figure (Smith, 516), who yields the power of god just as in Robinson’s narrative, but on a seemingly unrestrained and unsanctioned level: “”It wasn’t my fault,” says Coyote. “It wasn’t my fault””(Robinson, 429). Coyote acts as the narrator for a large portion of the story, flitting in and out with tales of how the world began. Here, Coyote’s voice seems to dominate the narrative, out shouting the running Christian ideology of the flood and God, and expressing “Indian” creation narratives. Echoing Robinson, King’s Coyote becomes a potentially subversive figure, challenging ideas of “white” superiority. However, in my opinion, one possible reading of the ending of King’s novel, could be seen to imply that the “white” narrator, represented by I, and the christian god, represented by the flood narrative, triumph over Coyote and the Indigenous narratives in the end, acting as a metaphor(although not necessarily an endorsement) of traditional “white” superiority in Canadian Culture:

“”Okay, Okay,” says Coyote. “I got it!”   “Well, it’s about time,” I says.   “Okay, okay, here goes,” says Coyote. “In the beginning, there was nothing.   “Nothing?”    “That’s right,” says Coyote. “Nothing.”          “No,” I says. “In the beginning, there was just the water.”  “Water?”, says Coyote.    “Yes,”I says. “Water.”       “Hmmm,” says Coyote. “Are you sure?”   “Yes,” I says. “I’m sure.”    “Okay,” says Coyote, “if you say so. But where did all the water come from?”       “Sit down,” I says to Coyote.     “But there is water everywhere,” says Coyote.   “That’s true,” I says. “And here’s how it happened.”             –Green Grass, Running Water, King,431.

Works Cited:

Donaldson, Laura E. “Noah meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the Rain: Intertextuality In Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.7(1995): 27-43. Web. July 3, 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Ridington, Robin. “Coyote’s Cannon: Sharing Stories with Thomas King.” American Indian Quarterly. 22.3(1998): 343-362. Web. July 3, 2014.

 

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005. 1-90.

Schorcht, Blanca. Storied Voices in Native American Texts: Harry Robinson, Thomas King, James Welch and Leslie Marmon Silko. Indigenous People and Politics. Reviewed by Ellen L. Arnold. Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.17(2005): 90-93. Web. July 3, 2014.

Smith, Carlton. “Coyote, Contingency, and Community: Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water and Postmodern Trickster.” American Indian Quarterly. 21.3(1997): 515-534. Web. July 3, 2014.

 

Lesson 2.3: A History of Self-Interest

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I have chosen to answer question 6 for lesson 2.3, concerning Wickwire and Carlson’s opinions on why Aboriginal stories that don’t conform with the ideal of ahistorical Aboriginal narratives were “chucked in the dustbin” by scholars, among others.

Carlson discusses the importance of “authenticity” in historical narratives, for both Aboriginal and European cultures, noting one significant difference between the two: European’s used written accounts to justify the authenticity of their narratives about “history”, while Aboriginal peoples used previous oral retellings to verify their stories (Carlson, 57). In addition, the consequences for inaccuracies in European histories were generally visited on other peoples, not the Europeans themselves, while Indigenous peoples feared drastic consequences being visited on themselves by the spirits (Carlson, 58). If one goes back to the old divide of orality vs. literacy, and situates these two differing views of authenticity in the context of orality vs. literacy, orality holds Indigenous peoples accountable to relaying an “authentic” narrative, while Europeans can fudge the truth by supporting their written accounts with other “authentic” written accounts of “history”.

Just as Bertha Peter’s describes the Indigenous peoples losing knowledge of medicine because they didn’t write it down (Carlson, 48), Europeans’ such as Franz Boas are able to write an “authentic” history which suits their own image of Indigenous stories and history, by discarding those accounts which don’t suit their purposes, and publishing those that do, cementing a particular historical perspective through literacy. As Wickwire points out, Boas’ seemingly casual dismissal and suppression of “hundreds” of Aboriginal narratives which challenged Levi-Strauss’ ideal of “”cold” mythic societies”, an ideal Boas was eager to conform Indigenous peoples to, had “serious long term consequences” for Aboriginal peoples (Robinson, 22). Carlson suggests that a raised awareness is starting to exist in scholarship of the dangers of writing an “ideologically driven history”, perhaps due in part to the marked change in western anthropological scholarship in the recent decades. However, the damage has been done, both within scholarship(due partly to Boas’ prevailing influence, mentioned by Wickwire as influencing her own selection of stories, over half a century later) and without. Indigenous peoples were relegated to ahistorical relics by Boas and others, a culture that had to be improved and “enlightened” by the superior Europeans, a culture which epitomized Levi-Strauss‘ ideals of “cold” mythic societies.

This “ideological writing of history” served a specific purpose for the European colonists, justifying their colonization by legitimizing the marginalization of Indigenous peoples because they were “destined” to be “pressed back into the wilderness”(Moodie, ch.15). Mrs. Peters’ story about the prophetic paper which justified “white man’s” superiority and conquest of the land, which ironically falls into the taboo model of narratives which incorporate post-contact elements, shows the purely rational and scientific way in which such stories were suppressed. It was a black and white application of censoring and “ideologically motivated history writing”(Carlson, 54-58). As Moodie’s stories demonstrate, suppressing any evidence that Aboriginal stories could adapt, were more than just ahistorical myths, directly enabled the marginalization of Indigenous peoples, and the prevailing “myth” of European superiority, due in part to their “superior” literate culture.

One is perhaps called to question the definitions of orality and literacy here, much as Carlson does in subtly questioning the implicit assumptions that orality comes before literacy, and that any return to orality from a literate state would “signal a culture’s decline”(Carlson, 46). While these assumptions may seem largely accurate or historically verifiable, such categorizations perhaps inform European ideals of superiority, by maintaining the idea that literacy is somehow better than orality, somehow superior. Literacy and written accounts are held up as verifiable and authentic, implicitly championed by stories such as those of Mrs. Peters, or Harry Robinson’s account of the “white paper”, as holding some “special knowledge” beyond the understanding of oral societies. While this attitude has enabled the suppression of Indigenous culture and stories, what it overlooks, or dismisses as unimportant, is the “special knowledge” contained in orality, which is lost in a prioritization of literacy over orality. By drawing a distincition between the two, rather that even entertaining the possibility they might not be mutually exclusive, a dichotomy is maintained, holding the status quo of “them and us” undercurrent in “orality vs. literacy” all the firmer.

Works Cited:

Boas, Franz. “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology.” Science. 4.103(1896): 901-908. Web. June 27, 2014.

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. 43-72. Print.

Harland, Prechel. “Exchange in Levi-Strauss’ Theory of Social Organization.” Mid-American Review of Sociology. 5.1(1980): 55-66. Web. June 27, 2014.

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush. 2nd edition. London: Richard Bentley, 1852. Digital Library, UPenn. Web. June 27, 2014.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.

 

 

Lesson 2.2: Written in Stone

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I have chosen to answer question 5 for lesson 2.2, concerning my initial reactions to Robinson’s story about Coyote’s twin brother stealing a “paper” (Robinson, 9).

When I first read the story, I was immediately struck by how much it reminded me, in part, of the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall from Eden. The “whites” ancestor twin steals knowledge they shouldn’t possess, banishing all their descendents to a displaced life away from their original homeland, much like the Christian tradition. However, in this story, Coyote’s descendents become the chosen people, and the Europeans assume the role of the kin of Cain, in a manner of speaking.

Another thing that struck me was how explicitly the story draws a line between “Black and White”(Robinson, 10). It mirrors European narratives of superiority over Indigenous peoples, by asserting the Indigenous peoples’ role as descendents to the obedient and wise older brother, the one who did not “fall.” It is a narrative which illuminates the artifice of the “facts” of  the traditional contact dialogue between First Nation’s and Europeans, flipping the paradigm on its head, with the Europeans becoming the younger, inexperienced, disruptive individuals, while the First Nations become the favoured, wiser, chosen people. Robinson’s story seems to take a traditionally European or Christian narrative, and invert it to convey the opposite message, legitimizing First Nations rights to “their” land through a narrative with roots in First Nations mythology, which utilizes more “modern” tales and reasoning to legitimize the story’s message.

What the “paper” is precisely eluded me, but it seemed to me to recall the differences between oral and written cultures, between Indigenous and European cultures in the “first contact zone.”(Lutz, 4) The story establishes the “Indians'” claim to the land, establishing them as being there “before the whites.”(Robinson, 9) The story highlights the dichotomy identified by Lutz between Indigenous methods of storytelling and European methods of storytelling, because :”storytellers in the modern European tradition wrote their stories down.”(Lutz, 8) The “paper” contains some knowledge which the First Nations lack-European scientific knowledge or rationalism, say-not because they are intellectually inferior, but because they do not need it. The story could be read as completely, subtly undermining the whole basis of European traditional superiority-their scientific knowledge and reasoning. The story is a myth, sculpted to fit a certain narrative, one which promotes the legitimacy and worth of the “Indian” over the “white”, inverting the traditional narrative of the reverse being true.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the story was the way it showcased Wickwire’s whole argument for challenging a Boasian anthropological point of view, showing that Boas selected stories to study and become scholarly “canon” based on his own criteria of a “static” Indigenous literary canon, one which was purely ahistorical (Robinson, 23). Far from being ahistorical, Robinson’s account takes elements of European narrative traditions, such as the presence of a Christian style “god”, and incorporates them into a story about Coyote, with the purpose of conveying a certain message about the presence and nature of Europeans on Indigenous land (Wickwire, 455).

Robinson’s story is eye opening to say the least, particularly where it reveals the problems with many traditional forms of anthropology, and a problem with scholarship in general, as scholars and others tend to assume that those who came before them in the scholarly or narrative tradition were unbiased, collecting data without a personal agenda. Wickwire’s revelation about Boas perfectly illuminates the problems with this methodology, and perhaps taps into one of the problems this course is seeking to evaluate-when you write something down, modern methodologies assume it to be genuine fact, and oral lessons to be more open to corruption and manipulation. However, as Robinson’s story indicates, perhaps the reverse is true, as once an obfuscation is written down, or evidence which does not fit the desired theory is discarded, the written product becomes sacrosanct, and it can be very hard to unpick the truth from the lies once again.

Works Cited:

Jacknis, Ira. “The First Boasian: Alfred Kroeber and Franz Boas, 1896-1905.” American Anthropologist. 104.2(2002): 520-532. Web. June 20, 2014.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007. 1-15. Print.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005. (1-30)

Wickwire, Wendy. “Stories from the Margins: Toward a more inclusive British Colombia Historiography.” The Journal of American Folklore. 118.470(2005): 453-474. Web. June 20, 2014.

 

Lesson 2.1 Assignment 2: Commonalities in defining “home”

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In my investigation of other student’s blogs, I discovered several common threads, mostly revolving around where “home” is, what physical location home consists of.

Some blogs mentioned childhood stories or locations, drawing on memories of older relatives and stories handed down in their family to draw a connection to a particular place, while others considered home more transient, a memory or a state of mind.

I investigated four student blogs in detail, and skimmed several others. All the stories seem to hold the common value of being connected to childhood memories and events-our sense of home is rooted in our childhood recollections, it seems.

Physical locations were paramount, generally on a micro-cosmic level, focusing on a place in Canada, rather than the whole country. Some people focused on a house, others on a neighborhood, others on a city, but all generally in a place they grew up.

Most spoke of searching for home still, while a few spoke of having already found it.

Memories were paramount, as were the stories passed down in the family. Feelings connected each person to the place the word home was tied to, rooting people in a location through feelings of happiness, security, safety.

People discussed their experiences moving from other countries, traveling, moving from place to place within a city, how one particular place seemed to capture that sense of home, even if it was a place they didn’t particularly like.

Above all, the common theme seemed to be location, around which a narrative of emotion was built, to create an internal sense of “home”.

Works Cited:

Coughlin, Krystle. “Finding my home, with jet-lag or a video game.” ENGL 470 Blog! Erika Patterson,ENGL 470, blogs.ubc.ca. June 2014. Web. June 15, 2014.

Khan, Rabia. “My Home is My Time Capsule.” Rabia’s English 470a Blog. Erika Patterson, ENGL 470, blogs.ubc.ca. June 2014. Web. June 15, 2014.

Lesson 2.1: The five W’s of defining “Home”

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What? I am five, spinning around in circles, blue sky blurring into green, green grass before my wide-eyed gaze. I’m happy, caught in the moment like only a child can be. My mum calls, “Time to go home.” The words themselves fill me with disappointment, because they mean an end to momentary happiness. I don’t stop to think about what the noun means-I don’t yet know nouns exist, or that words are arbitrary terms which are simply assigned a particular meaning(or perhaps I do?)-we are going to a house, where I have lived as long as I can remember, where my family lives. This is “home”. It means a place to lay my head, a place to return to, a place where I don’t have to wear shoes-or even more dreadful, socks!-a place I will always be able to find on a map. It is a physical location, surrounded by a fence, set borders dividing us from the neighbors(although those borders are quite bendable in one direction, but not the other). It’s a house, a piece of grass and some trees. For me, then, it was referred to as home. But what did that mean?

I still have no idea.

Who? If someone asked me to describe my family as a kid, this would have been my response(nobody ever did, as I never had the kind of formal, regimented education where they ask kids to do things like that): Mum, Dad, Grandpa(a cherished memory preserved in a picture frame),2.5 kids, a dog or two, myriad other pets, stuffed or otherwise. We were the epitome of “average”, the essence of “normal”. I only had three other “real” people in the world who I cared for deeply enough to consider the phrase, home is where the heart is . Yet, crack open a book and start reading, and I have the biggest family in the universe. Mr. Darcy and Sherlock Holmes and Aragorn and Elrond and Michelangelo and Enid Blyton’s creations are a part of my family. All I need is the words, or even just my own imagined memories, and I’m there. I’m home, safe and secure and loved.  I never thought about it at the time, but in hindsight, that sense of safety and love I felt in the presence of my family, real or furry or otherwise, was probably the closest I’ll ever come to defining the feeling of “home”.

 

When? I spent most of my childhood in the 18th century(or 17th or 14th or early 20th), gliding through worlds long dead or never existent in my overly fertile imagination. I spent it in the aether, on the air, in my head. It felt like home, suspended from time. I’ve always hated change, and home could never be lost if it wasn’t real.

There was an old picture hanging on my parents’ wall when I was a kid, which I would stare at for hours. It was black  and white, with a bit of recoloured green at the bottom of the giant oak tree, upon which two persons leaned, a tall figure and a little girl. A bearded man, right out of a turn of the century(20th, but of course when this memory was recorded by my brain, there was no such ambiguity) reenactment, had his arm around a morose boy leaning on a crutch, one of his legs uneven to the other. Two smaller boys stared shyly at the camera from the other side of the tree. One of those boys was my great-great-grandfather. One day, my mum opened a mysterious old black briefcase, and showed me our family’s past. Someone has to carry on the flame. I know an awful lot about that picture now, and the people in it. I even know where it was taken. They were the displaced, coming to rest in a place where they left a mark, but couldn’t hold on to. The fact they lived, in the place they did, however briefly, so long ago, makes me feel at home there, in the now. I don’t know why, but it does.

Where? When I was seven, I wanted to live at Baker Street. I imagined I could stay in Rivendell forever. I thought Bag End was so much cooler than my own living room. When I was scared I could run up the mentally shining steps of Lothlorien’s interconnected flets. I read about the past, watched it, imagined it, wished it, breathed it, listened to it. It was my home away from home, my escape from a time and place that could never live up to my childish imaginings.

I grew up feeling out of place, caught in a soulless place with no connection to the ground or the sky. I loved the tree in my front yard, purple in summer and copper in autumn like a jewel of nature rustling before my eyes. I felt at home in the stacks of my local library(even now, something about the smell of that moldy old carpet settles deep in my chest and spreads a sense of calm). I visited relatives I felt no connection to, stood on ground I knew from my mother’s stories and files and old documents used to “belong” to my ancestors. One of the streets still bears our name. Most of the land is still there, thanks to the Agricultural Land Reserve. The gate my great-great uncle crippled his leg swinging on is long gone, but I can imagine where it might have been. I stand on a crop of land, where my mother spent much of her childhood, where my parents fell in love, where I used to play. I’ve never lived here, never had a “home” here, not one with boundaries or borders or places to lay one’s head, and yet, and yet…it feels like home.

Why? What is home? A feeling, a place, a person, a definition, a border, a reality, a fantasy? My ramblings above seem to suggest that for me, it is all those things. I have assigned the label of home onto all those qualities, held there by the stories I listened to, the stories I was told. I have never felt safer, or more loved, than when I was telling, or being told, a story. And in this story, safe=home.

(For the record, I was never an HP fan, I never read the books, and only watched the movies because my brother insisted-yet somehow(well, mostly due to Fanfiction), this defines home for me better than almost anything: Story as Home (the first 15 seconds are the important point, but it’s a cool video).

Works Cited:

“Home is where the heart is.” Idioms. The Free Dictionary. Farlex, inc., 2014. Web. June 9, 2014.

Cut It Out. “Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, July 9, 2011. Web. June 10, 2014.

Lesson 1.3: I called Pandora back, but she put me on hold

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It was late. Armageddon22 was three hours late for work in his part of the world. Daisyswillrerise was three hours late for bed. Godschosenwitness was missing school. RedRoversOnPluto had nothing better to be doing. Jumpindon’tlook was bored one morning. So, “Jump” logged in to an online chat-she’d heard that might be fun from a friend, and wanted to try it.

(Who knows if any of these anonymous pseudonyms is male or female or something less socially definable, but since language doesn’t really seem to have evolved to support story telling without the use of gendered pronouns, let’s alternate, and think of them as the meaningless place holders they are.)

Anyway, back to Jump, who clicked around chat groups, insulated communities of all shapes and sizes, no definable location or segregation, except for their closed off attitude, their exclusive interest in one topic or area of life, imposing societal boundaries on a medium that could theoretically work just fine without them. Then, he found them. A group who seemed to be having fun, telling scary stories, like they were sitting around an exclusively anonymous global campfire. They were faceless, but distinctive. Colour Jump intrigued. She clicked “Join”.

Seconds later, accepted without reservation, he was thrown into an insanely competitive universe, a contest to scare one or other of their group off the internet for the night/day/moment, where ever they really were. They were all in the now, the moment, the relativistic present that was different for every one of them, and would be the past when the future arrived seconds later. Their activity lists, liked books, favourite movies, friends lists, user pics, and archived chats were so different, there was no relation between any of them.

Daisy was quiet, liked books and music and shades of pink and mauve and baking, a stereotype to fit with the first part of her pseudonym, on which an ironic pale was cast by the rest of her choice.

Armaggedon liked guns, heavy metal, and the good ol’US of ‘A-another stereotype, edged in shades of green.

RedRover liked space and red, Godschosen liked bible verses and church groups.

Are they having me on?, thought Jump. Is anyone really this one dimensionally stereotypical?

Still, Jump being no coward, he jumped right in to compete. The challenges got wilder and wilder-ghost stories, disaster stories, retold horror movies, invented horror movies, grisly tales of horror and death that left violent nightmares in their wake.

Jump was somehow being pulled into a world he wasn’t prepared for, something outside of his ordinary existence, something wild and untamed and crazy. She was loving every terrifying minute.

Then, it was suddenly his turn to present the ultimate challenge to the group. Everyone else had presented spine chilling tales, each out competing the last. This was it. Go big or go home, in or out. Win or lose. Jump had no intention of losing.

War. Hate. Horror.Supernatural insanity. Murderous terror.Friendly fire, terrorism, government corruption, corporate rot and disease, murder, mayhem, atrocities untold. Images, words, videos, pictures.

Jump had never mentioned she was a world class hacker. He could spin anything to look like anything, weave a story of imagination with threads of truth to create a narrative unparalleled in its believable depravity.

She pressed post, simultaneously broadcasting it. The response was cacophonous. Horror, disgust, outrage-no. Admiration, respect, awe-yes. But also, fear, worry, even terror.

Everyone agreed Jump had won unequivocally. RedRover, however, suggested he might have gone a bit far.

Daisy said “more than a bit not good there man.”

Armageddon forwarded him a link about Pandora’s box, with the tagline “might want to not leave that post up, as brilliant as it was.”

Godschosen said “we don’t need more pain in the world. Delete it, and be grateful we’re online where you can do that sort of thing; take back something you’ll regret.”

Jump “listened” politely, and then drew their attention to a live news feed on the edge of the blog.

They hadn’t known Jump was a hacker, and a very good one. They also hadn’t known Jump hated to lose, at anything.

The post had gone viral, sent to every major network on the planet simultaneously. With one click of a button, the world exploded into chaos and evil incarnate, all because of one story.

Jump posted one last time, before blinking out of existence like she’d never been there at all, “Next time, remember that in the modern world, nothing can ever really be deleted or taken back. Once it’s loose, once it’s out there, once a story has been told, it’s out there forever, and it can never be called back, never be taken back. Think before you type next time.”

I told this story to my brother and some of my friends, all of whom quite like stories about hacking and internet conspiracies. I discovered a couple things. First, they were astonished to find that this story was “taken” from another source with such a different setting, but still conveyed the same message, or attempted to.

Second, everyone I shared it with wanted to know exact details about what the story of horror was. In fact, the most intriguing aspect of the story for everyone seemed to be the level of suspense and horror it shows. Like horror films, the story awakened a primal thirst for violence and chaos in the people hearing it. Well, that’s one theory anyway.

My brother thought it was a cautionary tale, like a didactic poem from the 19th century, warning against the dangers of social media and hacking. My friends were intrigued by the ending, spending quite a while trying to come up with an explanation for who or what Jump was, and whether the ending was an elaborate hoax, a government trap, or what really happened.

I also discovered upon telling this by heart, that it was far too wordy to remember everything(I’d written it down first before memorizing it), and that it changed quite a bit in my verbal retelling-originally, Jump was the innocent party, not the hacker. Also, my listeners suggested additions and subtractions(there were two other characters originally, and Armageddon worked for the FBI). Also, as you may have noticed, mirror inconsistencies in the continuity of the narrative showed up as I told it(nobody left the internet after Jump won). I left them in for authenticity’s sake.

In the verbal retelling, I found hidden depths to both versions of the story. By retelling it both in person and online, I found myself thinking about the differences between oral and written stories once again, and the blurring  of the lines between the two due to the internet. After all, as Jump said, social media gives us a far greater opportunity to circulate stories, and makes it all but impossible to call those stories back once they’re out there.

Works Cited:

King, Stephen. “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” American Culture and the Media. (1981): 504-508. Web. May 29, 2014.

“Pandora’s Box.” Myths and Legends. E2BN, 2006. Web. May 29, 2014.

 

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