Write a blog that hyperlinks your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages assigned to you. Be sure to make use of Jane Flick’s reference guide on you reading list.

For this blog assignment, I was assigned pages 412-416 the 1993 edition of Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water  and there are three specific sections of this passage that I will divide my analysis upon.

Part 1 (412-413)

Alberta Frank and Lionel
In section one Alberta is the main character and the two pages focus mainly on Lionel and her discussing her surprise pregnancy. Alberta is the main female character in the realist story and her name could allude to the province of Alberta or to the famous Frank Slide of 1903. In Jane Flick’s “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water” Flick discusses that the Frank Slide is “one of the disaster dates that Dr. Hovaugh tracks” (Flick 144), supporting the allusion of her name. Alberta is the lover of both Lionel and Charlie and would like to have a child, however, she does not want a husband or marriage. Her pregnancy is completely unexpected to her and is Coyote’s doing, which I will discuss later in this post.

Part 2 (414-415)

Sir Clifford Sifton and Lewis Pick

Sir Clifford Sifton is a direct reference to the historical figure, Clifford Sifton (top photo), who was an “aggressive promoter of settlement in the West through the Prairie West movement, and a champion of the settlers who displaced the Native population. Federal minister of the Interior and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Laurier ‘s government from November 1896.” (150) In this section of the book, Siffton is accompanied by Lewis Pick who I have discerned to be a reference to Lewis A. Pick (bottom photo), the head engineer in New Orleans during the Mississippi River Flood of 1927. I think that the reference to the Mississippi flood is to correlate the flooding dam to an American disaster. When the earthquake hits the men “were knocked to the ground, and as they tried to stand, they were knocked down again. It was comical at first, the two men trying to find their footing, the cars smashing into the dam, the lake curling over the top. But beneath the power and motion there was a more ominous sound of things giving way, of things falling apart” (King 414). This is a reference to the men who are representative of Western colonialism not taking things seriously until it is to late and everything falls apart for them. The flooding is a metaphor for Western interference within Aboriginal peoples lives and the power they have to fight back.

 Dr. Joseph Hovaugh, Babo Jones, and Bill Bursum 

Dr. Joseph Hovaugh is a reference to Northrop Frye and his view of literature as a closed entity. This is understood when the water swept up his and Babo’s cars and all he could think about was how this disaster was written in the book he had:

“Dr. Hovaugh sagged against the bus, took out the book, and held it up. ‘It’s all here,’ he said to Babo. ‘I was right, after all.’
‘Sorry about your car,” said Babo.
‘The Dates.’
‘Looks like I lost mine, too.’
‘The places.’
Babo looked at Dr. Hovaugh, and then she turned and watched the lake race for the breach in the dam” (415).

Dr. Hovaugh is also representative of King’s love for oral storytelling as his name sounds like Jehovah when it is verbally spoken, however when reading, it does not come across this way. Hovaugh is a representation of Christianity within the book which is further supported by Babo who is mostly surrounded by. Although Babo Jones is not a major character in this scene, she “may be one of the three Wise Men of the East (the black King) following the mysterious star/light, indicated by the “westward leading” clue (276)—to Blossom and Alberta’s mysterious pregnancy” (Flick 145).

Bill Bursum reacts differently than both Babo and Dr. Hovaugh in this scene when the lake is flooding. Rather than subtly sitting by
like Babo or being completely consumed in something else like Dr. Havough, Bursum kind of freaks out. “he stood transfixed for a moment, and then he began walking down to the lake, trotting after the retreating water. ‘Now what’s gone wrong?’ he shouted, breaking into a run. . . ‘What the hell has gone wrong now?'” (415). Bursum represents a
person who is not flexible to change and becomes overwhelmed at the loss of control. “King combines the names of two men famous for their hostility to Indians; Holm O. Bursum (1867-1953) (top photo). . . and the Buffalo Bill part of the name . . . William R Cody (1846-1917)“(148) (bottom photo). Bursum proposed the Bursum Bill of 1921 which intended to take away large portions of land from the Pueblo Natives and give it, and water rights, to non-Indians.  Bill Bursum’s reaction to the water is representative of Holm O. Bursum’s reaction to the blocking of the Bursum Bill of 1921. As he thought it would be a sure thing and that there would be nothing preventing the passing of the bill, when everything started to go wrong he was overwhelmed.

Part 3 (416)

Coyote and The Four Indians – Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye

The four Indians represent predominant European and Western ideas of white power and colonization and I will briefly summarize Flick’s description of each of the four and of Coyote. The Lone Ranger is a “hero of western [stories] . . . At the centre of stories about the Texas Rangers and the lone survivor of a raid. He is a Do Gooder. The Texas Rangers myth has it that one ranger could be sent to clean up a town” (141). Hawkeye is “Another adopted “Indian” name. Most famous of the frontier heroes in American literature, when the frontier was in the East— Appalachia, before the frontier “moved” West” (141). Robinson Crusoe is a character based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk who was deserted on an island but managed to survive. “Crusoe survives through ingenuity and finds spiritual strength through adversity. . . King mocks Crusoe’s passion for making lists and for weighing the pros and cons of various situations” (142). Ishmael is a character from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick who survives when Moby Dick destroys Pequod “by staying afloat on Queequeg’s coffin. The name is Biblical: Gen.15.-15” (142). Finally, Coyote “The familiar trickster figure from First Nations/Native American tales, an especially important personage in the mythology of traditional oral literature of Native North America; one of the First People, “a race of mythic prototypes who lived before humans existed. They had tremendous powers; they created the world as we know it; they instituted human life and culture—but they were also capable of being brave or cowardly, conservative or innovative, wise or stupid” (143).

The last part of my section is a conversation between Coyote and the four Indians that basically summarizes the last few pages regarding the flood and Alberta’s pregnancy. This section refers to Coyote being God and that he/she is the reason for Noah’s flood, the conception of Jesus in Mary, Alberta’s pregnancy, and Christianity. Page 416 begisn with Coyote immediately denying that he had any part in the earthquake “I didn’t do it!” (King 416) to which Robinson Crusoe replied “The last time you fooled around like this the world got very wet” (416) and Hawkeye added “and we had to start all over again” (416). This is alluding to Coyote, not God, being responsible for Noah’s Flood (Flick 164). Coyote exclaims that he may have made a mistake with the earthquake but he was also useful;

“‘But I was helpful too. That woman who wanted a baby. Now that was helpful.’
‘Helpful!’ said Robinson Crusoe. ‘You remember the last time you did that?’
‘I’m quite sure I was in Kamloops,’ says Coyote.
‘We haven’t straightened out that mess yet,’ said Hawkeye” (416).

This conversation between Coyote, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye is alluding to the conception of Jesus Christ being the work of Coyote “rather than Mary’s own sinless conception” (Flick 164). The emphasis of the italisized “that” could also be a reference to the formation of the entire Christian religion, “the result of Mary’s pregnancy, one of Coyote’s mistakes” (164).

The section of Green GRass Running Water that I was assigned is extremely important to the book as it is riddled with religious allusions and forces the reader to breach the cultural barrier to fully understand.

Important Symbols, all directly from Jane Flick’s Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water

“PINTO (23) Ford automobile. Plains horse. A piebald or “painted” pony associated with Indians of the Plains. Note that Pinto ponies are promi nent in the drawings of the Cheyenne imprisoned at Fort Marion, described in Alberta’s lecture (19). Jokes about naming cars after horses, Indians and explorers may be at work here, as well as the play on words with Columbus’s ship, the Pinta. Babo thinks “the Pinto [in the puddle] looked a little like a ship,” and then, “not exactly a ship . . . Not a ship at all” (27). At the dam episode, Babo recognizes the red Pinto as “The cars [sail] past the bus” (406).

NISSAN, THE PINTO AND THE KARMANN GHIA (407) The Pinto is the first of a series of jokes about the disappearing cars that go over the dam. The three ships of Columbus on the voyage sponsored by Isabella of Spain were the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The belief that their ships would fall off the edge of the world is often (falsely) attributed to old-world mariners. Note another minor funny bit: Dr. Hovaugh drives the slightly more upscale car; the Karmann-Ghia is white and a convertible, just the thing for a theological figure on tour” (Flick 146)

“THE CARS TUMBLED OVER THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (414) Recalls the belief falsely attributed to Old World mariners that the world was flat, and that they would sail over the edge” (164).

Works Cited

“BBC – History – Scottish History”. Bbc.co.uk. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“Bible Gateway Passage: Genesis 5:32-10:1 – New International Version”. Bible Gateway. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature161/162 (1999). Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“Jehovah’S Witnesses—Official Website: Jw.Org”. Jw.org. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

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

“Mississippi River Flood Of 1927 | American History”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.30 Mar. 2016.

“New Mexico Office Of The State Historian | Places”. Newmexicohistory.org. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“PRX”. Beta.prx.org. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“Texas Rangers – Making Order Out Of Chaos”. Legendsofamerica.com. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“The Ledo Road – Lieutenant General Lewis A. Pick”. Cbi-theater.com. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Alberta, Government. “Frank Slide Interpretive Centre Frank Slide Story”. History.alberta.ca. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Ayre, John. “Northrop Frye”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., 2001. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Hall, David. “Sir Clifford Sifton”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., 2001. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. “Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale”. Americanliterature.com. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

PBS,. “PBS – THE WEST – William F. Cody”. Pbs.org. N.p., 2001. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

2.Coyote Pedagogy is a term sometimes used to describe King’s writing strategies (Margery Fee and Jane Flick). Discuss your understanding of the role of Coyote in the novel.

In their essay Coyote Pedagogy Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water Margery Fee and Jane Flick present the term “Coyote Pedagogy”. Within this term, Fee and Flick describe the educational experience of reading Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water. King forces the reader to surpass cultural boundaries by mixing imagery of both First Nation and Western culture into clever jokes and dialogue. Unless the reader is able to breach cultural confinements to engage with and appreciate a variety of symbols, they will not understand as King intended them too. “There is no reader of this novel, except perhaps Thomas King, who is not outside some of its networks of cultural knowledge. But every reader is also inside at least one network and can therefore work by analogy to cross borders into the others. We want to put as much emphasis on the “knowing” in our title as on the “borders”: borders are constructed by what you know and don’t know. Coyote pedagogy requires training in illegal border-crossing” (Flick and Fee 131). The need to understand a plethora of symbols within both First Nation and Western culture is the basis of Coyote pedagogy.

In terms of character, Coyote embodies the familiar trickster from First Nation storytelling and an extremely important figure within the Native North American mythology of traditional oral literatures. According to another article by Flick, “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water”, Coyote is believed to be “one of the First People, a race of mythic prototypes who lived before humans existed. They had tremendous powers; they created the world as we know it; they instituted human life and culture” (Flick 143). From this, we can infer that Coyote is the equivalent of God in Judeo-Christian culture. Coyote’s importance in GGRW is to aid the reader in the recognition of the cultural distinctions that King proposed. By adding Coyote into the creation story as a representation of First Nations culture he enables the reader to open their mind to a larger picture. On the opening page King immediately describes Coyote as a creator of the world “In the beginning, there was nothing. Just Water” (King 1). However, GOD makes an appearance within the first few pages as well. In order for the reader to understand the beginning of GGRW they must understand and appreciate First Nation creation stories AND Western culture creation stories. I feel like Coyote is extremely important as he/she enables the reader to look between the lines of the story and to read what is not written.

Works Cited 

Flick, Jane, and Margery Fee. “Coyote Pedagogy”. Canadian Literature161/162 (1999). Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature161/162 (1999). Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

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

3 ] Frye writes:

A much more complicated cultural tension [more than two languages] arises from the impact of the sophisticated on the primitive, and vice a versa. The most dramatic example, and one I have given elsewhere, is that of Duncan Campbell Scott, working in the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa. He writes of a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Dubussy and the poetry of Henry Vaughan. In English literature we have to go back to Anglo-Saxon times to encounter so incongruous a collision of cultures (Bush Garden 221).

It is interesting, and telling of literary criticism at the time, that while Frye lights on this duality in Scott’s work, or tension between “primitive and civilized” representations; however, the fact that Scott wrote poetry romanticizing the “vanishing Indians” and wrote policies aimed at the destruction of Indigenous culture and Indigenous people – as a distinct people, is never brought to light. In 1924, in his role as the most powerful bureaucrat in the department of Indian Affairs, Scott wrote:

The policy of the Dominion has always been to protect Indians, to guard their identity as a race and at the same time to apply methods, which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to their disappearance as a separate division of the population (In Chater, 23).

For this blog assignment, I would like you to explain why it is that Scott’s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations above? You will find your answers in Frye’s discussion on the problem of ‘historical bias’ (216) and in his theory of the forms of literature as closed systems (234 –5).

In Northrop Frye’s book “The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination” he explains Canadian literature to be extremely historical and factual rather than creative and imaginative. He states that “the form of [the Canadian writer’s] expression of it can take shape only from what he has read, not from what he has experienced” (Frye  234) and describes Canadian writers abilities are constricted to the argumentative use of language and textbooks. Frye understands Canadian literature to be written out of history books and never from personal experience or pure imagination. I think this is why Duncan Campbell Scott‘s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations.

Scott’s work aims to fight for the Indigenous people referring to historical facts but yet it is limited to those historical facts themselves. Scott was limited to only seeing the left and right, the primitive and civilized, the educated and the savage. “Right was white, wrong black and, nothing else counted or existed” (Frye 228). Rather than breaking free from the box of historical bias, Scott focused purely on the black and white which limited himself to writing strictly about traditional, historical and well-known facts. This type of thinking and writing has no positive effects on intellectual life and according to Frye, seeing things as just “two solitudes” is highly problematic as “nothing original can grow” (228). Being that Scotts work is entirely based on reiterating Canadian Aboriginal history rather than exploring the Aboriginal culture, his role in the destruction of the Indigenous culture is completely irrelevant to Frye. Scotts work negates the entire foundation of literature that Frye recognizes as he sees things as black and white rather than shades of gray.

However, I am not quite convinced this is the only reason why Scotts role is completely irrelevant to Frye. Maybe I am just playing the devils advocate here or maybe I am seeing two answers to the same question but I feel like Frye may have dismissed Scott because Frye doesn’t consider Indigenous people to be of any intellectual value. Frye spends a lot of time highlighting the division of two languages and two kinds of literature, emphasizing his elimination of any other source of cultural value. Specifically, the fact that he doesn’t even recognize any human being ever being present in North America before the two Canadian cultures arrived supports my claim that he doesn’t consider Indigenous people to be valuable beings at all. From the perspective of Frye, he doesn’t recognize Indigenous people to have a voice in the Canadian literary canon or have an impact on shaping Canada as a country.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you guys think 🙂

Works Cited

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. 2011 Toronto: Anansi. 228-234. Print.

3] In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

When Judge McEachem stated “We’ll call this the map that roared” the popular allusion noted was McEachern being demeaning about the cartography by the West’suwet’en and the Gitxsan. In his analysis “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation” within the section entitled “Contrapuntal Cartographies”, Sparke mentions that McEachern’s comment may be a reference to Peter Sellers 1959 film, “The Mouse That Roared”. This was an extremely clever association by Sparke, however, in order to completely understand the relationship between McEachems comment and Sellers film, one must know about the film. “The Mouse that Roared” is a film adaptation of Leonard Wibberley’s 1955 novel that satirizes Cold War geopolitics. The film takes place in a small fictional community in Europe after an attack in New York City. The Rotten Tomatoes description explains “In this film, the tiny country of Grand Fenwick faces economic ruin when their chief export of wine loses out to a California vintage. They declare war on the United States, hoping to receive money to rebuild the country after they lose. However, things don’t go according to plan”. The satire of this film is blatant and rude while it suspiciously correlates with Canadian politics, specifically the Delgamuukw trials.

To make this association clearer think of the Gitxkan and the Wet’suwet’en as the impoverished tiny European country in the film and think of the United States as the Canadian government. In the film, the European country declared war on the United States in order to receive a financial victory just as the Gitxkan and the Wet’suwet’en declared a court battle with the Canadian government in order to receive financial compensation, Aboriginal title and land declaration. After making this association I think it is quite clear what McEachern was saying when he stated “We’ll call this the map that roared”. Unfortunately, this comment of his is extremely insulting to the Gitxkan and the Wet’sewet’en as they are made to look like fools.

The cartographic maps are representations of the Gitxkan and the Wet’sewet’en people and they created these maps in “attempts to outline their sovereignty in a way Canadian court might understand” (Sparke 468). Unfortunately, rather than these maps helping the Gitxkan and the Wet’sewet’en people in court, McEachern dismissed their efforts to illustrate their presence on their land with “colonist claims about the extinguishment of aboriginal rights” (470).

I personally feel that McEachern was succumbing to colonialism during these trials and did not care to give the Gitxkan and the Wet’sewet’en the chance to prove their Aboriginal title and sovereignty. I also feel like the Supreme court agrees with me about that as they ended up overturning McEachern’s ruling so the trials cound continue and the Gitxkan and the Wet’sewet’en were given more time to prove sovereignty of their land, hurray!

Thanks for reading everyone 🙂

Works Cited

(1959), Rotten Tomatoes. “The Mouse That Roared”. Rottentomatoes.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

BC Treaty Commission. “A Lay Pearson’s Guide To Delgamuukw”. N.p., 1999. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map That Roared And An Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, And The Narration Of Nation”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463-495. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Question

In this lesson I say that our capacity for understanding or making meaningfulness from the first stories is seriously limited for numerous reasons and I briefly offer two reasons why this is so: 1) the social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness, and 2) the extended time of criminal prohibitions against Indigenous peoples telling stories combined with the act of taking all the children between 5 – 15 away from their families and communities. In Wickwire’s introduction to Living Stories, find a third reason why, according to Robinson, our abilities to make meaning from first stories and encounters is so seriously limited. To be complete, your answer should begin with a brief discussion on the two reasons I present and then proceed to introduce and explain your third reason from Wickwire’s introduction.

In this lesson Dr. Patterson outlines two definite reasons for our limited capacity to understand meaning from first stories: 1) the social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness and 2) the extended time of criminal prohibitions against Indigenous peoples telling stories combined with the act of taking all the children between 5 – 15 away from their families and communities.  This weeks blog post will be divided into 3 parts where I will briefly explain both reasons that Dr. Patterson has already mentioned and end with a discussion of a third reason presented by Wendy Wickwire in her introduction to Harry Robinsons “Living Stories”.

1.The Social Process

To quote Dr. Patterson’s lesson, “one [reason] is that in the acts of collecting, translating and publishing these stories, the social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness – and there are always questions about who is collecting the stories and why, and these questions complicate the larger issues of translating or interpreting Indigenous stories using European symbolism and mythology” (Patterson). First stories are property of the original storyteller who created and told a personal story at a particular time and place that was important to them. The ideas and meanings behind the initial creation of the story are personal and only truly known to the original creator. When stories are gathered and retold, information is lost and/or twisted which changes the meaning of the story itself. If stories are being translated from other cultures and languages they lose aspects that translators and editors do not find relevant or important in the translated language. Every time a story is retold or reprinted, it loses its original meaning and authenticity creating an obvious problem for ascribing meaningfulness.

2. Prohibition Laws

Between 1880 and 1951, “the telling and retelling of stories at the potlatch, and other similar First Nations institutions across the country, were outlawed by the Indian Act and accordingly, the possibilities for storytelling were greatly diminished” (Patterson). Unfortunately, the Indian Act outlawed the telling the stories within First Nation institutions in Canada leaving there to be a large gap in history. Seven generations of First Nation peoples were unable to hear stories of their heritage by their parents or people in their community. They were completely cut off from being educated about their languages, rights and clan histories. Being that there was such an extremely large gap in time, many languages got lost and many important stories never got told. The colonial government’s intention behind this prohibition was to deliberately erase Indigenous cultural practices. However, First Nation culture was not erased and this prohibition only hindered and complicated the understanding of these stories.

3. Introduction of Anthropological Definitions

The third reason for our inability to ascribe meaningfulness to stories presented by Wendy Wickwire is because of the institution of anthropological definitions which diminishes the relevance of first stories. Wickwire presents ideas from academics Claude Levi-Strauss and Franz Boas to exemplify the way definitions have caused a detchment to meaning. Strauss identified first ftories with “cold zones” of consciousness and defined them as a “resistance to change… timeless and ahistorical” (Robinson 11). This example alone identifies indigenous stories as stories of the past and discounts their importance in todays society. Indigenous stories have therefore become representative of an obsolete culture that has no relevance or importance within the European culture. The introduction of anthropological definitions to first stories has created a disconnect with these stories and reality and they have been discounted to be mythological and representative of a culture that is not relevant anymore.

Works Cited:

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2.2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia, 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books 2005. Web. 18 Feb. 2016

I really enjoyed reading everyone’s blogs about what home means to them and thank you all for sharing. While reading I noticed many similarities of what people believe defines a home so here is my list:
Home is…

• a feeling, not necessarily a specific location.
• associated with family, whether blood-related or not.
• defined by a sense of belonging, comfort, and safety.

What I most enjoyed about this assignment was reading blogs about students living in different cities or countries and comparing their sense of home to that of students that haven’t moved around. I thought it was really neat that all of our blogs have these common qualities that are not defined by a specific location. I think overall this assignment really showed me that home is not defined by location but of the experiences and feelings that a location can bring.

Question

Write a short story (600 – 1000 words) that describes your sense of home; write about the values and the stories that you use to connect yourself to, and to identify your sense of home.

Home is an unconditional sense of belonging. It is the place you go when you are having the happiest and the saddest times. It is the place you go to hide from your fears and solve your problems. When you’ve accomplished your dreams, it is the first place you go to celebrate and when you have fallen on hard times it is the first place you go to for support. Home is where you are completely and utterly yourself without fear of being judged. Where you show love not through material items but through spending time and personal gestures. Home to me is not a place, home to me is a feeling. It is a feeling you only get when you have completely surrendered yourself to another person, whether that be family, friends, coworkers, classmates etc. Home is being able to share all of your thoughts and dreams, no matter how unrealistic, and the person you tell stands beside you and cheers you on the whole way.

Personally, I have two homes. I have a home in Cochrane, AB where my family and lifelong friends live and a home in Kelowna, BC where I have spent 4 years creating a safe haven for myself. I moved to Kelowna alone in 2012, leaving all of my friends, family and sense of home behind. I moved to Kelowna without ever being here before and without knowing anyone at all. Throughout the past 4 years, I have made many friends, joined many groups, and never quite felt the same sense of home as I did in Cochrane, until September 2015 when I started the last year of my 4 year BA at UBCO. Over the past few months, I have created a home for myself. I have found a group of friends that have become my family and I theirs. We take care of each other just like a family does. We bicker and make-up, celebrate the successes and are there for the losses. We have family dinners, game nights and lazy days. I have found a sense of home here within the people I feel comfortable enough to entrust with my time, love, secrets, and successes.

Until I found this sense of belonging I had always thought I would be moving back to Cochrane when my degree was over. I missed the feeling of home every single day and it was really hard for me to be alone for a while. Whenever times got tough here I wouldn’t call my friends that live here, I would call my friends back in Cochrane. I found myself going back to Cochrane a lot whenever I got stressed out about school or just genuinely missed the feeling of people that genuinely cared for me. However, when I went home for a month at Christmas I began missing Kelowna. I got homesick for a place that I did not realize had become my home. When I got back after Christmas and reunited with all of my friends I was overcome with a sense of family and realized that I no longer needed to be in Cochrane to feel at home. This is when Kelowna became my home and I truly realized that home is not a place for me, home is a feeling.

Once upon a time, there was a land of beauty and grace, a land filled with joy and happiness. There was no judgment, hate or discrimination among people because they were all the same. These people were not like the people we see today, these people were witch people. Witch people once roamed the globe and were blissfully happy. One day, there was a conference between the witches so they all gathered together in a cave on the side of a mountain. They spent the night telling jokes, dancing and brewing potions. When it started getting late and the moon was the only light in the sky, the witches gathered in a circle to have a story-telling competition in which the object of the competition was to tell the scariest story. The stories were of all kinds; potions gone wrong, animal attacks, and fires and they were truly entertaining. However, the blissfully happy atmosphere changed with the witch who told the last story. This story was heart-wrenching, it was awful and cruel. It was composed of disease, famine, fear and slaughter. When the other witches were listening to this story they were awestruck and terrified, some had to cover their ears and some had to leave. When the telling was finished there was a silence among the other witches until there was an agreeance made that this was the scariest story. But, the witches were still terrified of this story and pleaded for it to be taken back. Unfortunately, the witch replied to them that it was too late, that the evil has already entered their world, “for once a story is told, it cannot be called back” (King, 10).

I enjoyed writing this blog post and found it fun to watch the expressions on the faces of the people I told it too. For example, when I asked to tell my friend Robin the story she was more than happy to listen. When I began telling the story to her, she was smiling and interested by the light and happy tone. However, when I began telling her about the last witches terrifying story her facial expression turned from smiling and happy to concerned and slightly uncomfortable. I believe the reason for this change of expression was due to her expectation of how the story would end. As the story began on a happy note and stayed as such for most of the story, she was inclined to expect the story to have a happy ending. When the story started taking a turn for the worse, her expectations were shattered. This assignment really taught me the importance of tone within storytelling and the effects it has upon the story and the audience.

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

Question

At the beginning of this lesson I pointed to the idea that technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons.  I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) Hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. How do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

In answering this question, I would like to highlight the efficiency of distributing literature and story through social media and the aid in which hypertext poses for readers. For my own organization and sanity I am dividing my response into two parts to discuss the two aspects of this question.

Part 1: Social Media

Publishing content on the www is as simple to do as it is for the audience to read. Through the social media source Facebook, account holders are able to publish their own stories for their friends to read and they can also share with their friends almost any page on the www through their Facebook profile. Among many other things, this enables Facebook users to share articles they enjoyed reading or recommend books they have read to their friends making the www highly efficient in distributing literature.

The example I thought of almost immediately when thinking about the impact of social media on literature actually comes from Facebook. I have two aunties that live in Toronto and are Canadian authors, Kelly Robson and Alyx Dellamonica. I have them on Facebook and through what they share on their profiles I have been introduced to an extensive amount of literature that I would have otherwise never known about. Being that they are authors, they are immersed in the field of literature leading them to have many Facebook friends who are also authors. Generally how I learn about new Canadian authors and texts on Facebook goes like this: One of their facebook friends will share a link on their timeline regarding a book that they had recently written or read, this link then gets shared by Kelly and/or Alyx to all of their Facebook friends which distribute’s this text to thousands of people including myself.

The www makes it so incredibly easy to access Canadian literature and interact with authors as you can find full texts published online with a comment function at the bottom of the page. This comment function enables the reader on the www to become the listener of stories as well as a writer. They are given the opportunity to write about their experience with the text and give their opinions and interpretations of it. This creates an interaction with the author as they are able to receive feedback from their readers. The author is able to ‘listen’ to the comments left by other readers around the world and interact with their analysis.  Being that readers on the www can also be writers and listeners, the blur between literacy and orality discussed in Lesson 1.2 is created.

Part 2: Hypertext 

I think hypertext is a phenomenal function as it gives you immediate access to further information regarding any topic that is being discussed. As I have exemplified in this blog post, hypertext gives readers an opportunity to be directed to a new webpage that can a) help them to gain a greater understanding of the topic being discussed b) provide web pages as examples of particular topics. In terms of the impact hypertext has upon literature and story, it enables readers to be more involved with the text as they are given the tools to broaden their understanding.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Hello there and welcome to my blog!

First order of business, I would like to introduce myself! My name is Caitlyn Robson and I am a 4th year BA student with a combined major in Art History, Visual Culture and English. This is one of my last classes at UBCO before I graduate in May and I am pleased to be focusing on Canadian literature in my final semester. After I graduate from UBCO I will be going back to Alberta to live with my family and work while I wait to hear back from UVic, UofC, and SFX regarding acceptance into the Elementary Education programs they offer. Throughout my journey over the past four years, I have taken many English classes jumping through various genres and eras. However, the only Canadian literature class I have ever taken was when I was in my second year of college prior to coming to UBCO. I find Canadian literature extremely important and thoroughly enjoying! Reading material derived from the beautiful country I was born and raised in is really rewarding and informative.

After reading the syllabus and viewing the introductory vlog I have understood English 470A to be “a scholarly study of Canadian literature in a historical context with a focus on the intersections and departures between European and Indigenous traditions of literature and orature” (Paterson). We will be studying and examining the power and logistics of storytelling within Canada. Through reading various literary texts and articles, students enrolled in this course will understand which stories are heard, which are not and why.

The syllabus Course Description for this class reminded me of two TED Talks I recently watched on youtube regarding the power of storytelling. The first one is Chimanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk  “The Danger of a Single Story”. In this, Adichie explains that cultures are composed of many stories and that if a person is only exposed to one single story about a particular culture or individual, their idea of this culture or individual can be extremely misconstrued.  I thought it was an informative and relevant video, so if you have time, check it out!

The second TED Talk I recently watched is given by Christ Turner entitled “Why Canadian history isn’t as boring as you think”. In this talk, he explains that Canadians have always understood their historical tale to be a nice but boring and discusses the how this stereotype came to be engrained through storytelling. Again, you should probably watch this as it is actually extremely interesting and I believe to be relevant to this class.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the TED Talks and thank you for visiting my blog! I look forward reading all of yours and working with you all this semester.

Cait 🙂