Here’s my question: where do all of these tourists get off treating everyone so horribly?

When I read my section I couldn’t help but recognize an overpowering theme of tension. It’s everywhere. There’s tension in the Café, there’s tension between Latisha and George, there’s tension between Eli and Sifton, and there’s tension between the people of the Sundance and the tourists. Tourism for entertainment leads to trespassing, interrogation, curiosity and spectacle of Aboriginal culture. Aboriginal culture is literally explored, put on stage for viewing, and judged like Duncan Campbell Scott watches and criticizes his “Onandaga Madonna”.

It’s not as much surveillance as it is carnival.

We begin with the four tourists at the Dead Dog Café: Jeanette, Nelson, Rosemarie De Flor, and Bruce. According to @eldatari (wordpress):

“The four customers sitting in Latisha’s Dead Dog Cafe are named in reference to Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, who appeared in the 1936 MGM musical, Rose-Marie.  In the film, they portrayed the characters Rose-Marie de Flor and Sergeant Bruce; a famous opera singer and an RCMP officer, respectively.”

User @eldatari explains how the Aboriginal character that accompanies Marie de Flor eventually robs and abandons her. This negative portrayal of the only Aboriginal character in the film provides sympathy to Marie’s exploratory, invasive actions. While it is mentioned that Marie’s Aboriginal guide has understandable reason for the robbery, the viewer does not deem his actions understandable.

In Green Grass Running Water, Latisha undergoes awkward, disrespectful interrogation at the hands of Jeanette, one of the other tourists in Marie’s company. Such spiteful inquisition leads me to think that King is alluding to this film to demonstrate the power of trauma. In the case of modern-day Aboriginal culture we continue to battle the echoing horrors of colonialism. By turning the tables and viewing the trauma from the “white” lens, the reader not only recognizes the power of traumatic memory, but also gains sympathy for the interrogated Latisha. In the film we originally sympathize with the white colonial, and in King’s novel we sympathize with the original “evil” Indian.

In addition, this interrogation represents a power-tension between the tourists themselves, as well as with Latisha. Jeanette says that she is “the spokesperson” and “ask[s] all the questions everyone else is too embarrassed to ask” (130) framing an alpha-beta struggle that competes between Jeanette and Latisha. While Latisha is the owner of the café, Jeanette feels entitled to answers for all of her questions. In turn, Jeanette provides playful answers that mock Jeanette’s need for personal and factual information about Latisha and the café.

(Food for thought: Alpha-beta, you say? Sounds dog-like to me.. Dead Dog café, you say? GOD-DOG?)

While there are certainly other interesting parts within my section (mine was kind of a goldmine) I think it’s worthwhile to closely examine the Sundance-photography-incident and how it relates to the ignorant tourists of the café that I just peeled apart.

Summary: narrator describes Eli’s yearly trips to the Sundance in his childhood. The narrator explains how “Every year or so, a tourist would wander into the camp…Occasionally there was trouble” (138). One year “when Eli was fourteen… [a] man climbed on top of [his] car and began taking pictures” (139). According to the narrator, photography isn’t allowed in the Sundance.

Here’s that tension again…

Something that resonates with me here that also resonates with me earlier (in Latisha’s section) is the spectacle of Aboriginal culture for white/Western culture. It’s almost like the tourists feel they’re being “respectful” or making themselves “cultured” by visiting the café when it’s really just an invasion, a reason for interrogation, judgemental analysis and pretence. Here, the tourists literally invade Sundance territory to entertain some sort of curious-touristy inclination. The camera shoots pictures, the photo roll given up is black, blank, dead—injury by literacy, death by colonialism. The Aboriginal ritual is rejected in the most literal sense—their legal claim is rejected by the RCMP even though the tourists broke Aboriginal law. Why is one perspective recognized, and another rejected? Even if the café served dog it still obeys the laws of the Blackfoot territory, yet the ex-RCMP officer still threatens “..if we had heard of anyone cooking up dog and selling it in a restaurant, we would have arrested them” (131).

The struggle for dominance has never been so obvious…

————-

Works Cited

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto, Ont.: Harper Perennial, 2007. Print.

Scott, Duncan Campbell. “The Onondaga Madonna Poem.” Poemhunter.com. Poem Hunter, n.d. Web. 11 July 2015.

Tari, Elda. “”Rose-Marie”, or “Indian Love Song” (Part One).” Words and Names. WordPress, 14 Mar. 2009. Web. 11 July 2015.

So I have to admit something. This is my third time studying Green Grass Running Water. When I first encountered the book waaaay back in first year I was unbelievably confused. Thomas King is a complex writer with a lot of meaningful things to say, and I think my first-year English 100 professor aimed her ambitions a little high when she assigned this novel. I remember reading the novel without any background understanding of Thomas King, Western culture and its impact on Aboriginal culture and colonialism. To be honest, cracking this novel felt almost like a joke to me even though it was far from it.

My second study of Green Grass Running Water quite literally opened my eyes to the incredible complexity that characterizes this novel. The cultural dynamic, the literary complexity and the meaningful use of history jumped off the page. I remember the moment where I finally created my own understanding of coyote’s significance in the novel. It seemed so obvious then.

“So. In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water”

This is the very first statement in the novel. A fictional novel is (in itself) a story. King begins his story with another story, Coyote’s story, which conveys the metaphor of creation that continues throughout the novel. The interesting thing about Coyote is that he is a character that crosses the boundaries of Aboriginal creation story(the shorter chapters without scenes from reality) and Western fiction (chapters with more believable characters and a believable plotline). Crossing such boundaries demonstrates his fluidity as a character, and the fluidity of the stories. Understanding the element of fluidity allows the reader to question the “hard” facts of the Western story.

Coyote always seems to be causing “mischief” wherever he goes. He teases the GOD-Dog Dream, starts all of the creation stories over, and nicky-nicky-nine-doors’ Bill Bursum’s shop. That being said, Coyote seems to be associated with new beginnings, do-overs and retellings. Coyote meshes “reality” and “story” by slipping past the barriers of reality that we build as Westernized readers. His interactions with the “real” characters of the story add an element of fantasy that jeopardizes the believability of the Western story. I feel Thomas King does this intentionally to illustrate the holes that exist in Western creation stories, and even our modern-day history lessons. Stephen Harper himself discredits the existence of colonialism in Canada when its horrors still echo in Aboriginal culture today.

In addition, Coyote’s control over the Creation story re-tellings demonstrates his power in the novel. Even though Coyote reflects a more imaginative aspect of fiction, Coyote invades the Western story without difficulty. While this might reflect a degree of “mischief” for the colonial antagonists of the story (Bill Bursum, Dr. Hovaugh), Coyote is able to demonstrate the power of story and fictional reality by using his power to annoy these antagonists. Coyote breaks the dangers of believing the single-story by jeopardizing the believability of the single story.

I definitely think I only scratch the surface when it comes to the significance of Coyote in this novel. Coyote is clearly a complex character despite his two-dimensional image on the cover of the Harper-Perennial edition of Green Grass Running Water.

————

Works Cited
“Animal Symbolism of the Coyote.” Www.whats-your-sign.com. What’s Your Sign, n.d. Web. 03 July 2015.
Flick, Jane. Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water(n.d.): n. pag. Web.
King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto, Ont.: Harper Perennial, 2007. Print.
O’Keefe, Derrick. “Harper in Denial at G20: Canada Has ‘no History of Colonialism’.” Rabble.ca. Rabble, 28 Sept. 2009. Web. 03 July 2015.

2) I’m going to answer this question in a way that (I pray) isn’t too tangential. After reading Linda Hutcheon’s “Introduction”, Northrop Frye’s “Preface” and his “Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada” I have taken away the thematic significance of Canadian identity, particularly the significance of the concepts “unity” and “identity” in the young Canada of Frye’s time. For me, Frye makes Canada out to be a country lacking wholeness and nationalism as a consequence of its largely unexplored, uninhabited terrain. This intimidating setting works along with a cultural incontinuity displayed through a battle for language dominance with the French and the English.

I remember watching the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and feeling annoyed at how Canadian culture was presented to the world. Literally every present-day stereotypical aspect of Canadian culture was included in the internationally-viewed performance including (but not limited to) beavers, moose, lumberjacks, maple syrup, a hell of a lot of ice, the mounties, and oversized winter coats.

https://youtu.be/0LZz5YQr-pg

The opening ceremonies depicted a country that is made up of harsh, cold weather, and landscapes of vast emptiness. While not every aspect of the ceremony was awful (some of the ceremony was very touching), it still missed so much of what it means to be a Canadian (at least what it means today). This ceremony looks toward stereotypes for some sort of inherent Canadian-ness. For me, it looks pretty stricken of (and desperate for) some sort of true Canadian identity. This ceremony depicts for me what Northrop Frye seems to be directing us toward: his understanding of a past Canada’s search for identity.

Canadian identity seems to have its roots in more modern cultural depictions. This video above touches on the humorous aspect of Canadian identity. In this video Jeremy Hotz (1997) compares us to the US stating “we’re very similar to the United States. We both have armies… we just didn’t give ours guns or anything.. Here comes the Canadian army with plastic knives and forks” (Hotz, 1997). While this statement is certainly funny, it isn’t necessarily wrong. Hotz is touching on a lack of individuality that exists for Canada as almost the “naïve little brother” of the US: loyal enough to be included, but too underdeveloped to be given any real sovereignty.

After reading the assigned parts of Northrop Frye’s “The Bush Garden”, I feel like Frye is pinpointing the similar colonial issues of identity and unity that burdened young Canada. Frye describes Canada as “full of wilderness”(222) and “to enter Canada [as] a matter of being silently swallowed by an alien continent” (219).

Frye defines identity as “local and regional, rooted in the imagination and in works of culture” and unity as “national in reference, international in perspective, and rooted in political feeling” (xxii). Frye states “The tension between this political sense of unity and the imaginative sense of locality is the essence of whatever the word ‘Canadian’ means” (xxiii) therefore identifying (what he deems as) the inherent issue with Canadian-ness. Frye later identifies the heterogeneous language tension that governs Canada. Frye touches on the issues of the French versus the English in crises like the FLQ and states “Assimilating unity to identity produces the kind of provincial isolation which is now called separatism” (xxiii).

Because Frye focuses so distinctly on (what he considers to be) the issues of identity and unity in this “wilderness”, I believe that this heavily influences his observations regarding Scott’s work. Indigenous peoples, being peoples of the vast, unexplored, frightening Canadian lands are those who already identify themselves with Canadian territory. In addition, as a culture consisting primarily of orality, I feel Frye ignores Aboriginal cultures and Scott’s attempt at their historical destruction because Frye is more focused on the literary aspect of Canadian culture. Seeing as this literary aspect is more heavily demonstrated through immigrant colonials, the tensions between Scott and Aboriginal culture are tangential to Frye’s focus.

——-

Works Cited

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Toronto: Anansi, 1995. Print.
“Just for Laughs – What Does It Mean to Be Canadian?” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 June 2015.

“Opening Ceremony – Highlights – Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 June 2015.

Alright. This question might be hard, but I think it’s an awesome question so I’m going to give it a go.

Carlson’s publication makes a few thought-provoking points that challenge my pre-existing ideas about orality, literacy, Aboriginal culture and its relationship with Western culture. In particular, Carlson discusses the binary of “orality” versus “literacy” that has characterized Aboriginal and Western cultures since, well, Canadian colonization. Carlson begins by explaining the two different Aboriginal stories: Bertha Peters’ story and Harry Robinson’s story. Both of these stories, while they are inherently different, demonstrate the importance of literacy in Aboriginal culture and history.

Bertha Peters’ story is centralized around three chiefs that were taught to read and write by a Great Spirit. It was the three chiefs’ task to share this knowledge with the rest of their people, however they failed. As punishment these chiefs were transformed into stone. Peters states that because the chiefs’ people could not write down what they knew about themselves, their history, or their lives in general, the people of the three chiefs lost all of their knowledge (Carlson 43).

Robinson’s story talks about how literacy is stolen from Coyote. In Robinson’s story Coyote’s twin steals the piece of paper that enables the twins to become literate. Coyote eventually chases down his twin in London, and there they write the “black and white law”. Robinson states that literacy is “the key to accountability and the means of restoring interracial balance” and “is shown to be a powerful force, capable of precipitating transformations in people’s lives not unlike the transformative power associated with Coyote” (51 [emphasis added]). Robinson says that withheld Aboriginal literacy resulted in alienation, lost lands and lost culture.

Peters and Robinson argue the significance of literacy as a vital element of transformative life that was literally stolen (or withheld) from these Aboriginal cultures. For Peters’ story, literacy (or greed by literacy) is literally the reason the three chiefs are transformed into stone. In addition, the illiteracy of the chiefs’ people hinders their progression/transformation as a society. In this case, literacy both causes transformation and inhibits transformation.

The transformative stagnation of illiteracy that Peters describes is actually really interesting. Not only does this story address the reason Aboriginal cultures were left “illiterate”, but it also addresses the historical significance of literacy in Aboriginal culture. Peters and Robinson’s stories bridge the binary between orality and literacy that has forever distinguished my understanding of Aboriginal and Western culture. Carlson further conjoins these Aboriginal stories with the significance of literacy when he writes about the Stölo history of the Fraser River. This Stölo history tells the story of xe:xal:s, the transformers, who developed great transformative powers and punished three chiefs who “refused, or failed, to share their knowledge of literacy” (47). All of this helps explain how transformation relates to literacy itself, but how is transformation an “act of literacy”?

Carlson states earlier on that in the eyes of Western Culture, a culture without literacy is a culture without history. He moves on to the issue of validity in both Western and Aboriginal cultures. Carlson states that Western cultures use footnotes and references to validate their claims, and in the case of poor interpretation or inaccuracy, the Western scholar is seen as either a sloppy or a dishonest academic (57). In contrast, the Salish world relies upon memory, renditions of the narrative told, as well as the teller’s status and reputation to rate historical accuracy and validity of the speaker/their story. Similar to Western culture, inaccurate retellings of stories are also deemed sloppy and unreliable by Salish conveyors. In Aboriginal cultures there are frightening consequences for unreliable retellings and pose dangers to both the storyteller and the audience. Carlson discusses similar dangerous situations in Western culture with Nazism, where inaccurate historical retellings resulted in horrible disaster. By conveying the importance of validity in both Western society and Aboriginal society, Carlson is able to refute the Western claim that a society without literacy is a society without history, as he clearly conveys the existence of historical retellings and the significance of their accuracy/validity in Aboriginal society. Carlson goes on to then say that “transformation stories are as much, if not more, about permanency or stability as they are about the change from one state to another”. Why is this historical validity so important?

According to Carlson, just like Aboriginal stories are passed down from generation to generation, family names are also passed down. According to Carlson, pieces of the person(s) soul are attached to the name when it is passed down. Carlson writes “transformation stories are as much, if not more, about creating permanency or stability as they are about documenting the change from one state to another” (61). The name of the Transformers (Aboriginal peoples of the Fraser River) as well as the verb that is used to describe their transformative powers come from the same root work that describes the process of “marking” (61). Carlson writes “the Transformers leave their mark on the world through transformations… [they] are then understood and known through stories describing that act. Considered in this light, the ‘root word refers to inscription in the widest sense’” (61). Marking is therefore associated with the transformer, and according to Carlson “transforming [the chiefs] to stone was an act of literacy” (62). Robinson himself says before that literacy was powerful and could cause transformations in people’s lives, not unlike the power of the Transformers of the Stölo. Therefore, the act of transforming in its historical foundation is also the act of literacy.

I can’t help but draw connections between the bridged binary that Carlson builds between the worlds of orality and literacy with the creation story binary of Thomas King: The Aboriginal creation Story versus Genesis (the Western Creation Story). I’ll leave you all with this question: How do you think Thomas King bridges a similar binary? Maybe we’ll look at one of our questions from last week: why does Thomas King create this binary, and how does this relate to Carlson and the relationship between transformation and literacy as it relates to orality and literacy?

Works Cited

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: Uof Toronto P, 2011. 43-72.

Hanson, Erin. “The Indian Act.” The Indian Act. The University of British Columbia, n.d. Web. 18 June 2015.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2003. Print.
Miller, J.R. “Residential Schools.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada, 10 Oct. 2012. Web. 18 June 2015.

Thomas King asks, “If this is your land, where are your stories” for a reason. Stories are narratives, sequences, plots, or events. A significant dichotomy that defines a story is its credibility. In other words, whether a story is nonfictional or fictional; true or false. Thomas King creates this same dichotomy when he pits the Aboriginal creation story and the European creation story against one another. If only one can be true, then the other must be false..

He begins with the Aboriginal creation story; a story told with a colloquial voice that follows Charm as she falls through the sky, into the water, onto the land and onto the rest of the world. In this world, everything begins with water. All of the animals work together to create the land that Charm needs to live and to give birth to her twins. The voice of the narrator has a childish fluidity that speaks to the reader like it would if it were spoken aloud. This voice does not deviate from the Aboriginal culture that it reflects, as Aboriginal culture is heavily characterized by orality and the power of storytelling.

Charm isn’t necessarily the most likeable character. She seems selfish, makes mistakes, and acts a lot like coyote in Green Grass Running Water. However, despite her flaws, Charm literally gives birth to the world when she gives birth to her twins. These twins are basically Yin and Yang. Upon my first read, I thought that one twin would be good and one twin would be evil. However, I learned that they were just different from one another. Together, these twins meshed both big and little pieces of both of them to create a world that reflected these similar, differing (but not opposing) characteristics. These characteristics were not good and evil, but black and white, Q and U, or peanut butter and jelly. These characters used what was unique about them to create a world that reflected their differences. This creation story ends with a cohesive, functioning world that results from exhaustive teamwork. This creation story ends well, and it ends happily.

I grew up in what I call a “demi-religious household”. By this I mean we went to church approximately three times per year: Christmas, Easter, and whenever my Nan visited. I mention this because I find it hard to appreciate the Genesis story with my demi-religious background. We always pretended to be religious, but we never really were. As a result I know enough about the bible to characterize it with the same degree of truth that I would the Aboriginal story. To recap: the Aboriginal story talks about a woman that miraculously becomes pregnant, falls from the sky, somehow lands in water, and gives birth to twins that create the world.

AKA: The bible is a big, fat narrative.

Like the question states, Genesis is narrated quite differently than Charm’s story. The narrator speaks with powerful intent. The voice is masculine, and speaks with a literate voice (a voice that is created through literacy). The story ends with Eve, a woman, who eats the forbidden fruit and is shunned to earth. She is punished for her mistakes and lives with Adam in chaos. Genesis begins with paradise and ends with the world. Genesis creates the world as a punishment to the woman, the weaker one, who disobeys the almighty and all-powerful God. Unlike Charm’s story of creation and birth, Genesis is about punishment and suffering.

Just for fun let’s dissect these stories and list the oppositions that exist:

• Colloquial narration vs. formal narration
• Orality vs. literacy
• Imperfect characters and teamwork create the world vs. imperfection that destroys paradise to create the world
• Positive ending vs. negative ending
• Women create the world vs. women destroy the world

At a first glance it’s easy for me to decide a good story and a bad story, much like I initially believed one of Charm’s twins to be good and the other evil. However, this would be an oversimplification. Instead, King creates this dichotomy to reveal these two stories as stories (narratives, sequences, plots or events). King doesn’t expose the reader to these stories in an effort to persuade the reader into believing one or the other. Instead, he creates this dichotomy under the umbrella of spirituality. Stories like these don’t need to be right or wrong. They can coexist in the world as stories. That’s really all they are, and that’s all King is really trying to show us.

———-

Works Cited

“Bible Summary – Genesis.” Bible Summary – Genesis. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 June 2015.
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 13 June 2015.

“Green Grass, Running Water Summary – ENotes.com.” Enotes.com. Enotes.com, n.d. Web. 13 June 2015.

MacNeil, Courtney. “The Chicago School of Media Theory Theorizing Media since 2003.” The Chicago School of Media Theory RSS. N.p., 2007. Web. 13 June 2015.

I’m surprised to find that so many of us feel so similar about the concept of “home”. I mentioned the ambiguity of “home” in my previous blog, and as I read the blogs of other students I began to feel that this feeling of ambiguity was more widespread than I initially thought.

Alishae Abeed talks about home “as a feeling” and describes her adventures back and forth from Lahore, to Dubai, to Oakville and to UBC. Alishae transgresses the physical space of “home” and describes it as a feeling with memories, family, friends, food, smells, and ultimately as something more than just the confinements of a property line. I share this feeling with Alishae, particularly the aspect of food, because there is nothing more “homey” to me than a piled plate of my mom’s spaghetti or her delicious salsa chicken.

Charmaine talks about the house that she grew up in on UBC Campus, her memories, her family, and eventually having to move into a new home away from campus. Charmaine reveals a conflict of ownership versus attachment that rules her confusion after discovering that her family never truly owns the house at UBC. While I believe that home is a feeling, as a child I felt a similar ownership for my home. Even thought it wasn’t mine (it was my parents) it felt like it was mine. Charmaine discusses the strange issue of whether or not her house was actually hers, as the home was actually situated on Musqueam land.

Fredi Li hits the hammer on the head when she states “home is comfort, familiarity, safety, love, and most importantly, family”. She shares her memory as a child when she was traveling toward Calgary on the “Going-To-The-Sun” road. In her moment of fear, she finds home in her family. Despite not having a physical place to call home, Freda expresses the happiness and comfort that she felt in the presence of her family. I share this feeling with Freda, as I have also always found a piece of home in each of my family members.

We all seem to share these values, assumptions, and stories:

-Home is hard to encompass in a finite definition

-Home is not stagnant. Home changes over time.

-Home includes family

-Home is familiar

——–

Works Cited

Abeed, Alishae. “ENGL 470A: Canadian Studies.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies. WordPress, n.d. Web. 09 June 2015.

Li, Charmaine. “A Home With Many Advantures.” Canadian Yarns and Storytelling Threads. WordPress, n.d. Web. 09 June 2015.

Li, Freda. “Whose Canada Is It?” ENGL 470 Whose Canada Is It. WordPress, n.d. Web. 09 June 2015.

I find it really hard to talk about the concept of “home”.

This isn’t necessarily because living at home has been a bad experience for me; it’s been wonderful. However, I feel like the concept of “home” is so ambiguous. Growing up I lived in two different homes. My first home was in a friendly neighbourhood next to all of my childhood friends. It was a great home with a big backyard, a trampoline and friendly neighbours, but eventually we moved. This was frightening for me as a child; moving my entire life into an unfamiliar place with unexplored corners was absolutely devastating. Yet, like my mom explained to me, this new house would soon become my home and it would feel just as warm and welcoming as the house before. The backyard was smaller, but it was big enough to fit our trampoline. There weren’t as many children around to play with, but my brother and I became closer to the two children that lived next door than we had ever been with our many friends and neighbours before. Nothing was the same, everything was new, but eventually that house became my home too.

When I left for university after graduation I had to say goodbye to my home once again. I packed up all of my belongings, said my goodbyes to all of my friends and family, and I moved into unfamiliar territory. I didn’t have any old friends to keep me company, I didn’t have my mother to reassure me that everything would be alright, and I didn’t even have the same bed that had given me so much comfort throughout the years (which I had always had despite any move). This time, I was completely alone. I had my suitcase, my computer and a mind full of pessimism. However, over the months I somehow found a way to grow attached to this little unfamiliar space with unfamiliar people and communal bathrooms (believe me, the lack of privacy was hard to accept). While I still had my home back in Abbotsford to return to for any long weekend or term break, this little dorm became my home-away-from-home. I made new friends, explored all of the unexplored corners, made new memories and learned more about myself in this unfamiliar territory than I ever would have if I had stayed at home.

Last November my family decided to move again. This time, it wasn’t because we needed a bigger house. My Grandfather was diagnosed with Stage 3 pancreatic cancer and my Grandma couldn’t take care of him alone. My Grandparents moved into the basement suite of our new house so that we could help take care of him whenever she needed. The home that provided me with all of my familiar comfort when I returned from university was no longer ours. Despite the fact that we were moving for good reasons, I couldn’t help but feel like I was losing the only constant space that I defined as home. I had never seen the house before I helped my family move in, and I was afraid of the new, unfamiliar space that would now become by new “constant” home. However, after returning for Christmas break I settled in perfectly.

I feel like, because the term “home” is so ambiguous, it doesn’t necessarily have to relate to any physical space specifically. Instead, “home” can refer to the feeling that you get after returning from the library after a long day of studying, the memories that taught you important lessons as a child or a young adult, the people that provide you with love, support and comfort, or even the feeling of being safe from harm. The concept of “home” is so ambiguous that it’s even used to describe our Facebook news feed (even though most of us would never characterize our social media as “home”)

My mom always told me that time heals everything. Even in the most uncomfortable, unfamiliar, frightening situations and spaces eventually become familiar.

——–

Works Cited
“In My First Year of University I Wish I Had …” The Globe and Mail. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2015.

“Preparing Your Child for a Move.” KidsHealth – the Web’s Most Visited Site about Children’s Health. Ed. Jennifer Shroff Pendley. The Nemours Foundation, 01 Nov. 2014. Web. 06 June 2015.

Hey everyone! Please forgive me for over-producing here. It’s a Norse Mythology inspired short story. This is my version of how evil sprouted into the world. Enjoy!

—

In a little house on the neck of a hill laid a little boy. He was small and he was kind, and he had never hurt a soul. He climbed tall trees and swam in deep rivers. The little boy spent his days frolicking in the daylight. He captured fish and he teased the neighbourhood girls. Although he was an orphan, the little boy knew how to take care of himself. The river bathed him clean and fed him full of fish. His little garden sung with happy herbs and spilled with radiant radishes. He was a happy, healthy, kind little boy.

While he was fearless in the sun, he was vulnerable by night. Each night at the brink of dusk the wind would blow softly and lull the little boy to sleep. Before the wind could sing its lullabies the little boy locked his doors tight and squeezed his windows shut. He was defenseless against the sleepy wind and his restless sleeps. When he closed his eyes each night the wicked world of his nightmares enclosed upon him. The boy was taunted by clowns, chased by wicked animals, and tortured by demons. Despite his benevolence and his courage, the little boy internalized a world of pure terror.

One night the little boy had an eerie nightmare that veered from his normal, terrifying dreams. In his dream his feet hid underneath a thick mist that caped the hard ground. He focused his eyes and saw a tall, ghastly old woman in the distance. The boy had seen a kind like hers in his dreams before.

“Witch” he whispered.

“Come here” whispered the witch. Her voice twinkled like stardust in the air.

The little boy’s heart thudded anxiously in his chest. He remembered the witches from his previous dreams well enough not to trust them.

“Do not be frightened. I need your help”

Her long white hair grazed the mist in stringy, straw-like strands. Her glowing red eyes wrinkled with deep crevices when she grinned with her yellow, decaying smile. With skin as white as bones, she looked like an angel of death.

The witch suddenly began to walk in the boy’s direction. The boy was frozen with fear.

Standing a table’s distance from the boy, the witch began to speak. “I need your help. I am caught in your dream.”

The boy felt his heart thud louder in his chest. “Why should I help an evil witch like you?”

The witch revealed her nasty teeth with a wide grin.

“Young boy. If you help me I will grant you any wish”

The little boy pondered in thought. He longed to escape from his terrifying dreams that plagued him each night.

“Any wish?”

“Anything you could ever want.”

“You have a deal”

The little boy awoke with a jerk. He thought long and hard. How would he help this witch escape from his dreams? Could he capture the dream?

“A dream catcher” he whispered.

The little boy gathered strong rope and sturdy wood. He webbed the rope with the wood and created a large dream catcher. The boy admired his finished project; it was his ticket to restful solace. As the sun said goodnight and tip-toed into the distance, the whispering winds made their way toward the little boy’s little house. Tucked into his bed, the little boy closed his eyes and listened to the breeze as it lulled him to sleep.

The little boy awoke suddenly. The moon was high in the sky as it was late at night. He turned his head toward his dream catcher and noticed a dark, hazy cloud of mist caught amongst the rope.

“Reach for me!” screeched a familiar voice. “Reach inside the cloud!”

The boy rolled out of his bed and reached deep inside the cloud. The boy grasped the witch’s bony hand and pulled her up with all of his might. The witch sprung through the cloud and collapsed on his bedroom floor. “Meet me at the nape of the Old Oak Tree before nightfall tomorrow. Then I will grant your wish,” she croaked. The witch then disappeared into the night.

The next day the little boy waited eagerly for nightfall. He gardened in his garden, swam in the river and fished for his dinner, but he could not tear his mind away from the night’s meeting with the witch. At the cusp of nightfall he began his journey toward the Old Oak Tree.

When the little boy arrived the witch swung from behind the tree.

“What is your wish, child?”

“I wish to be relieved from my nightmares forever”

The witch smirked. “On one condition” she cackled. She held out her hand and revealed one small, grey stone. “Plant this stone under the roots of the tree and your wish will come true”

The boy extended his hand and took the stone from the witch. “Fail to plant the stone within the hour and you will suffer”

The witch shrieked a menacing cackle and disappeared into the air. The boy began to dig, but his hands were young and small. The sun creeped behind the hill and the boy could hear the whispers of the lullaby breeze. The boy’s eyes felt heavy, but he continued to dig. His eyes felt heavier, and heavier. The boy dropped the stone into the cavity and collapsed, unable to resist the incantations of the wind’s whispers. The little boy slept soundly next to his wish, and the witch roamed freely in the night.

—

Works Cited

Cline, John. “Dream Catcher.” Psychology Today. Psychology Today, n.d. Web. 30 May 2015.

McCoy, Daniel. “Norse Mythology for Smart People – The Ultimate Online Resource for Norse Mythology and Religion.” Norse Mythology for Smart People. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2015.

1.

I think this is a fantastic question. Maybe this is because I learned the exact opposite in another course here at UBC.

I took English 348 with a well- renowned professor on campus. I have to admit he was absolutely brilliant, and I could sense his passion for the subject even before I heard his booming, theatrical voice that bounced around the room during his Shakespearean introduction. I was excited for the course and I couldn’t wait to dive into some of my favourite literature. Alas, he had me fooled.

This professor, brilliant though he was, advocated the theories of McLuhan and Ong; demonstrating the distinct existence of an oral society that existed pre-Shakespeare, and the semi-literate society that existed post-Shakespeare. He tried to argue that Shakespeare’s tragic plays, though full of love, loss, character and emotion, were instead centralized around the agonizing shift from oral culture to literate culture. What happened to reading the plays and discussing their thematic significance? What about Shakespeare’s brilliant literary devices? My professor’s perspective upset me greatly.

The arguments were fantastic. They were well-supported, somewhat logical and very interesting. However, his arguments just didn’t sit well with me. How could a culture that was so full of rich customs and traditions be degraded as a primitive culture that lived without the abstract?

I feel a similar feeling toward Aboriginal culture.

Courtney MacNeil’s article empowers oral culture. The culture is not considered simply black or white, but is instead credited for its complexity and its memory. The black-and-white parallel of oral culture vs. literate culture fails to recognize the existence of the written and the spoken that exists in both of these avenues of language. Today, while we are/were considered a literary culture (and now moving toward a digital culture) our culture would fail to exist properly without orality. This course may be something that we are each taking online, however, we all watched our professor’s introductory video. Our online course is a perfect example or how these cultures, while treated as distinct entities in my other course, are perfectly intertwined.

The abstract is everything in an Aboriginal culture. Every animal and totem pole has a story, every elder has a lesson. The falcon, the eagle, the bear, the salmon, the raven. Everything is significant, and everything is valued. This “oral culture”, while it uses orality to convey its language, does so with levels of complexity that literate culture has lost. These peoples have no means of writing anything down. They must remember what they are told. These peoples must listen when they are spoken to. The memories of these peoples are fantastic, and unheard of in any literate culture. MacNeil’s argument defending oral culture is probably one of the best articles I have read since my unsettling Shakespeare course. MacNeil states “orality is not the opposition of writing, but rather a catalyst of communication more generally, which is part of both writing and speech” as “the medium is innately connected with cultural knowledge”.

Similar to the “primitive” parallel that McNeil criticizes, Chamberlin discusses “Us and Them”. What interests me in particular is that the “barbaric” is criticized for being “them”; that which is not a part of “us”. Chamberlin makes a brilliant statement when he says “..surely different languages [orality] should be nourished the way rare species are, by protecting their habitat…Why should a particular language be preserved when another larger or stronger one seems ready to replace it?” (15-16). For the purpose of this argument, why should literacy be preserved as the dominant language when orality is still perfectly complex and dominant in Aboriginal culture? Does reinforcing and defending literate culture continue to proliferate colonialism?

Was my professor a secret supporter of the colonial effort? Just Kidding. (maybe)..

This is a residential school. This is what is agonizing. Not Shakespeare’s “transition” from “oral culture” to “literate culture”. This is brutal colonialism, and this really shouldn’t have happened.

Works Cited

“The Gutenberg Galaxy Essay – Critical Essays – ENotes.com.” Enotes.com. Enotes.com, n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

“Ong on the Differences between Orality and Literacy  |  Chapter 1: Literacies on a Human Scale  |  Literacies  |  New Learning.” Ong on the Differences between Orality and Literacy  |  Chapter 1: Literacies on a Human Scale  |  Literacies  |  New Learning. Methuen, n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

“Stories the Totems Tell: Bringing Aboriginal Poles to Life.” Https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca. Government of Canada, 2000. Web.

Hey everybody! I’m Hailey and I’m a fourth year English Literature major. I’m excited to be enrolled in this course because I LOVE criticizing colonization! I think that it is vital for a society to analyze it’s past mistakes and learn from them in order to reroute behaviours, attitudes and actions in a justifiable and moral direction. From what I seem to have read/observed this course will be weighted largely upon online discussion and participation. According to my understanding, it is up to us as responsible and reliable students to engage in discussion from a digital environment and actively read both the teacher’s blog and our fellow student’s blogs. As a course about Canadian literature we will be reading literature/stories and discovering intersections between Western and Native traditions. This course will be historically-focused in an effort to focus our thought upon the impact of history upon Canadian literature as a genre. We will also reflect upon storytelling (and I’m assuming this regards Native storytelling). In addition, from what I’ve come to understand, we will be separating the genres of Literature and storytelling in an effort to reveal canonization, nation-building and colonialism, and how all of these topics work together.

I hope that this course strengthens my online skills and stimulates thoughtful online communication between students regarding the texts of study. In addition, I hope that this course allows me to develop a well-rounded critical understanding of Canadian literature. In particular, I hope to reflect upon the evils of colonialism and criticize the horrors of assimilation and integration that native Canadian cultures underwent during Westernization. I recently took a course that reflected upon British imperialism in Africa and India and I was baffled at the horrific, bloody history that cut deeply into the cultures of these affected continents/countries. I hope that this course provides me with a similar enlightenment and focalizes my educational motivations toward the wrongdoing of Canadian imperial actions/behaviours that were once thrust upon Native cultures of the pre-Canadian territory.

I’m looking forward to this course and I can’t wait to see what it has in store! Happy Friday :).

Works Cited

Gordon, Todd. “Canada As Colonial Power | Literary Review of Canada.” Literary Review of Canada, n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.

Monkman, Leslie. “Aspects of the Indian in Canadian Literature.” Aspects of the Indian in Canadian Literature. University of Toronto Press, n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.