Connecting the Stories in Green Grass Running Water

PAGES 207-217, 2007 Edition of Green Grass Running Water

This section concentrates on Charlie’s childhood when his father brought him to Hollywood, as well as explores more of his father’s experience of Hollywood. Throughout the second part, the narratives are connected either through the viewing of the same old Western, or in Eli’s case, the reading of a novel that is interchangeable with the Western on the television. The televised Western parallels with the various narratives in this section as it becomes a unifying narrative of the oppression of Indigenous people, their stereotyping reflected in both reality and the fantasy of the film and novel, the re-focalization on the white, European hero, as well as the potential loss of land due to Western expansion. The Western film takes on personal significance to Charlie when it is revealed that the man playing the chief is Charlie’s father.

The Mysterious Warrior

Throughout this section, the film being viewed in unison by the characters of Green Grass Running Water, is the unifying thread that ties them all together. While the Western film works as a unifier in this section, it also draws individual meaning from each of the characters. For instance, Eli is reading a novel that runs parallel with the film in which he sees his possibly doomed romance with Karen. Bill Bursum, who identifies the film as The Mysterious Warrior, sees it as “the best Western of them all” (King 188) and heavily identifies with the invading John Wayne and his decimation of The Indians. Lionel, who also idolizes John Wayne, falls asleep to the Western. The four old Indians intrude the on-screen narrative, but “Lionel saw none of this,” (King 216) which is indicative of his unwillingness to participate in familial and cultural practices. He falls asleep to this Western, passively viewing the film much as he passively deals with his life by avoiding change.

In Jane Flick’s notes for Green Grass Running Water, she notes that The Mysterious Warrior  is “a composite of Western films . . . This title alludes to The Mystic Warrior (1984), a television movie based on Ruth Beebe Hill’s Hanta Yo (1979). This novel ignited a firestorm of protest from Native American groups outraged by misrepresentation of the Lakota Sioux” (Flick 158). Here is a link to The Mystic Warrior, if you are at all interested in that. Flick also notes that John Wayne “did play one or two roles sympathetic to Indians,” (147) but the bulk of his career featured him as a character that indulged the prejudice towards Indigenous people and reinforced negative stereotypes. As Indigenous people were often portrayed as villains, or at least opposing forces in these films, the John Wayne white, European hero expressed hatred and racism towards the Hollywood version of Indians.

As a result of this deep-rooted racism where Indigenous people were never allowed to have the victory that John Wayne did, the characters in Green Grass Running Water are not surprised by the eventual outcome of The Mysterious Warrior.

Alberta hit the Off button. Enough. The last thing in the world she needed to do was to watch some stupid Western. Teaching Western history was trial enough without having to watch what the movie makers had made out of it. (King 214)

Portland Gets a Job at Remmington’s and Four Corners

From page 207-213, Charlie remembers his time in Hollywood following the death of his mother. This is the concluding section of his childhood memories, Portland and Charlie must finally get jobs at Remmington’s, in hopes of getting exposure and, therefore, an acting job. Portland sinks farther from his dream when he gets a job at Four Corners, which signifies the last straw before Charlie decides to return home without his father. Firstly, I will be addressing the allusions in accordance to Jane Flick’s notes and then I would like to discuss further connections outside of the novel, as well as relate it back to the framing of the Western film.

Remmington’s: This is the Western style bar that Portland, and Charlie, begrudgingly goes to work for when he is unable to get acting work on his own. The name is a reference to Frederic Remington, “the most famous artist of the Old West” (Flick 157). According to Flick, while his work glorified the setting and heroes of the Old West, Remington’s “depiction of Indians is essentially hostile” (157). This double standard is reflective of the segregation between Cowboys and Indians as, respectively, waiters and valets. Portland encourages Charlie “to grunt . . . the idiots love it, and you get better tips,” (King 209) which makes him a willing participant in the racial divide. Again, the contrast of Cowboys and Indians refers back to the framing device of the Western film where Cowboys and Indians are further divided into Heroes and Villains.

Four Corners: The Four Corners in the burlesque theatre that Portland eventually goes to work for. At the Four Corners, Portland is employed to do background dancing for an erotic dancer. In this cheap imitation of acting Portland so desperately wants to participate in, King again utilizes the trope of Cowboys vs. Indians. In the Green Grass Running Water notes, Flick says that the club is named for “the Four Corners area of the Southwest is the point at which Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah meet. It is an area of particularly rich cultural associations” (157-158). The name connects both to the motif of direction that is utilized throughout the novel, as well as the cultural appropriation underline in the Pocahontas routine.

Four Corners becomes symbolic of Portland’s ultimate “rock bottom.” This section of the novel concentrates on characters remembering old failures, or the failures of relative. For Alberta, she remembers her alcoholic father. Eli remembers his past lover, Karen, and ponders over his unwillingness to include her in his “Indian” life. Lionel, ever a build-up of his past mistakes and failures, has his final sleep before he attempts to change himself in the next section. Portland is stuck in his old dream of becoming a famous actor, a failure that Charlie refuses to replicate, to the point where he is willing to sexualize himself to achieve his dream.

While this article is not directly related to the novel, and also focuses on the sexualization and violence towards black women, I believe that many of Crenshaw’s observations apply. Crenshaw discusses the sexualization of racialized women as seen in pop culture, from film to video games, through intersectionality. Intersectionality asks us to analyze by considering various forms of criteria, as opposed to a static analysis. In this case, Crenshaw looks at sexualization through the lense of both race and gender, wherein racialized women take on an assumed sexual availability.

[On the portrayal of a Native American woman in General Custer’s Revenge] The Native American woman is a savage. She has no honor and no integrity. She doesn’t fight rape; in fact, being tied up and ravished makes her smile. She enjoys it. (Crenshaw 253)

By allowing himself to be sexualized, Portland conforms to European assumptions and stereotypes of his race. This relates back to the Western, which is re-enforced by racist attitudes and beliefs, wherein actors must conform in order to participate. This pressure to conform is echoed throughout the novel. Though Charlie strives not to conform in the way that his father did in Hollywood, he works at the same law firm that is attempting to remove Eli, who is also being pressured to conform to what the company wants, to utilize the dam.

Works Cited

“The Mystic Warrior: Qarwayaku.” YouTube, uploaded by Craska1, 19 Nov. 2014, youtube.com/watch?v=8TGRxP2alrg.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams. “Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew.” Feminist Social Thought, edited by Diana Tietjens Meyer, Routledge, 1997, pp.247-263.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature, vol. 161-162, 1999, pp. 140-172. Freely Accessible Arts & Humanities Journals, canlit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/canlit161-162-ReadingFlick.pdf.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Harper Collins, 2007.

6. Find three examples of names that need to be spoken aloud in order to catch the allusion. Discuss the examples as well as the reading technique that requires you to read aloud in order to make connections. Why does King want us to read aloud?

The world of Green Grass Running Water is full of allusions and puns. While many would find the massive amount of allusions in this novel daunting, I found myself quite enjoying it. I have always enjoyed literature that forces me to go down the rabbit hole, so to speak, in order to fully explore the narrative. Occasionally, filling your novel with such a large amount of knowledge comes with a certain amount of pretension. No one is ever going to know that much about that particular subject. For instance, if you have ever had to read T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, you are probably familiar with that feeling of condescension as you trudge your way through the poem. Comparatively,  I read Mumbo Jumbo for an African American literature class that was filled with just as many allusions, but Mumbo Jumbo pokes fun at this assumption that an absurd amount of allusions = intellectual superiority.

As I read Green Grass Running Water, I feel similarly about King’s use of allusions. It is almost as though King is letting the read know that it is fine if they do not catch every allusion, but the reading will be enriched if they are able to catch and understand the allusions. I believe this novel works to destabilize normalized notions of storytelling and the devices used in storytelling, allusions in particular. I also feel as though King is trying to shake our knowledge base of what we assume to be truth. One of the ways he goes about this is through naming.

Naming in Green Grass Running Water is the most common way King establishes his allusions. Many of the characters are named after historical figures that play a part in the Indigenous history that King plays off of. Some of the names are left as is, while others are puns or a hybrid form of two different characters. A cursory look through Jane Flick’s notes on GGRW show that King was not short on material when he was naming his characters.

Back to the main question, I would like to discuss three names that I found throughout GGRW that required being read out loud to fully understand the allusion. Before I share these names, I would like to discuss why I believe King has used this technique in GGRW, which I believe has to do with his play on language throughout the novel. GGRW destabilizes many norms in literature, such as language and even norms on the reading of a novel. It is assumed that a novel is to be read quietly, in your own thoughts, which clashes with the idea of the oral tradition that we have discussed in several other assignments throughout the term. By creating names that need to be read out loud to properly interpret, King forces the reader to reinterpret his novel through an oral reading, as opposed to a silent one. This also makes me think of Robinson’s oral tradition technique that he used in Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory.

The first name, probably the easiest one to find was Dr. Joe Hovaugh. Read out loud, his name is meant to sound like Jehovah. This becomes relevant due to the fact that Dr. Hovaugh, as a doctor, maintains a sense of authority. With his name alluding to a religion that has been at odds with Indigenous culture and beliefs by attempting to impose their own ideas on Indigenous people. This also puts him in place to be in opposed to Indigenous culture, as Jehovah is “God’s unique name as revealed in the Bible,” (“Who is Jehovah”) which introduces an opposing creation myth in the narrative of GGRW.

The other two names first appear on the same page, not surprising considering the parallels between these two figures. The two characters are Sally Jo Weyha and Polly Hantos, who are Sacajawea and Pocahontas. I find it fitting that these two characters are introduced together as they have both been taken in by popular culture, to the point where often conjoin into a similar character, or are confused for one another. For example, there is the Disney movie about Pocahontas. Of course, the details of their stories have been altered in order to fit a narrative constructed by European cultures. Also, they are known to history in the context of their association with European historical figures. Perhaps this is why King westernizes their names in his allusion to these figures. What I enjoy about these allusions is that, while they must also be read out loud to be fully understood, it is not as straight forward as simply reading their names. Some syllables need to be skipped, or mashed together in a version of language that is unfamiliar to the ear. It is an excellent example of King using naming and allusion to construct his new language and put the reader in a position to read it.

Works Cited

“Pocahontas.” History, history.com/topics/native-american-history/pocahontas. Accessed 9 Nov. 2016.

“Pocahontas “Colors of the Wind”.” YouTube, uploaded by Disney Movies Anywhere, 26 June 2012, youtube.com/watch?v=pk33dTVHreQ.

“Sacajewea.” History, history.com/topics/native-american-history/sacagawea. Accessed 9 Nov. 2016.

“Who Is Jehovah?” Jehovah’s Witness, jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/who-is-jehovah/. Accessed 9 Nov. 2016.

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

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999). Web. April 04/2013.

2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit  guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

For this assignment, I have chosen to discuss the Indian Act 1876. I have chosen this act because I have briefly taken a look at it in one of my Gender and Women’s Studies classes in the past. I think that the Indian Act very much so is in agreement with Coleman’s theory of “white civility.” Also, much of the problems that the Indian Act has created (as we are talking about a constructed nation that is using this act to enforce an imagined idea of civility on a people) are still being felt today.

I remembered watching a video before on a bunch of really amazing art based on reactions towards the Indian Act 1876 that I wanted to post for you. Unfortunately, I was unable to find it, so I will be posting a picture of one of the more memorable pieces I have seen.

This is An Indian Shooting the Indian Act by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. If anyone is interesting in taking a look, there’s also 30 min documentary on him that can be found here. I haven’t had a chance to take a look yet, though, so I have no reviews for you!

In 1876, The Indian Act was created and enforced by the Canadian government in order to control and regulate Indigenous people and their land. While the Indian Act put many restrictions on Aboriginal life, there were a few key points that the Indian Act focused on. The Indian Act also created reserves in order to allocate land towards the government as opposed to the people that lived on those lands. The Indian Act changed existing structures that existed within Aboriginal society and replaced it with governmental structures in the form of band councils. Perhaps most important, The Indian Act was influential by creating the concept of Indian status, as well as who qualified for it. Indian status entitled those who held status to: ” treaty benefits, health benefits, the right to live on her reserve, the right to inherit her family property, and . . . the right to be buried on the reserve with her ancestors.” (Hanson)

The act is known for being extremely oppressive towards women in regards to status. Any woman marrying outside of her band was subject to, and often did, lose her status. This would often extend towards any children that were born through this marriage, taking both the woman and her children away from her culture and, often, into the imposed European culture that was being built into Canada. This could also occur if the woman were to marry another man of Indian status that was from another band. However, as Hanson notes, “if an Indian man married a non-status woman, he would keep all his rights.” So, it was quite clear that this document was formed with not just a racial bias, but with a gender bias as well.

While the Indian Act has gone through several revisions since it was first introduced, ” today it largely retains its original form.” (Hanson) On this wonderful page I found, Erin Hanson discusses why The Indian Act has not yet been abolished. Hanson says this is because “it acknowledges and affirms the unique historical and constitutional relationship Aboriginal peoples have with Canada.” So, while the Indian Act has been, and is, very destructive, to simply abolish it would be to get the Canadian government off the hook for everything that has resulted since the passing of the Indian Act.

In reference towards Coleman’s theory of white civility, I absolutely believe that the Indian Act was introduced as a means to impose the European conception of civility onto Indigenous culture. While the Canada we know today boasts of its multiculturalism, early attempts at nation building leave me to believe that Canada was not accepting of other cultures. So, rules and oppression were the tools that Canada used to mold what already existed in this nation into an image of civility that mirror white, European ideals. The Indian Act was not the only injustice that was imposed by the Canadian government on the Indigenous population and, though the government is attempting and continues to make amends, the wounds that it created in its mission of nation building will not easily be healed.

Works Cited

“Indian Act.” Justice Laws Website, http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/I-5/index.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

“Rockburn Presents – Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun.” YouTube, uploaded by cpac, 8 Aug. 2016, https://youtu.be/zEsU_GlJ53Q. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

Hanson, Erin. “The Indian Act.” Indigenous Foundations, http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-indian-act.html#introduction. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. “An Indian Shooting the Indian Act.” May 2013, http://cdn.agilitycms.com/national-gallery/Images/Galleries/May2013/Yuxweluptun-An-Indian-Act-2012.0439.19A.jpg. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. “An Indian Shooting the Indian Act.” Tribe Inc., http://www.tribeinc.org/wp-content/uploads/tribe-Lawrence_Paul_Yuxweluptun.jpg. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016.

1] In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to both King;s article and Robinson’s  story.

For this blog post, I attempted to read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England” in as many ways as I could to get a better appreciation on the oral syntax of the story that this question is concerning. I read it in my head, I read it out loud, I read it to my sister, I read it to my cat (who did not seem overly impressed by the narrative) and I alternated between reading certain passages in my head to outloud. My initial impressions of “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England” were that it does need to be read out loud to gain better understanding of it. Many of the passages just sounded better when they were read out loud, particularly some of the stanzas (I’m going off of an impression that this can be seen as poetry due to the story’s structure) which fluctuated in line length.

So they drive the boat closer but they can never get close.
Just about the same distance at all time.
They follow them around and around.
And they couldn’t get close. (Robinson 64-5)

As I read it in my head, I found myself reading the narrative faster, and not absorbing the content as well as I had when I read it out loud. I also found myself either skipping over, or even correcting, the grammatical layout that Harry Robinson employs in “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England.” However, when reading it out loud, I felt a certain level of frustration towards the text as I kept stumbling over the words as though it was a word puzzle.

Focusing back on the Thomas King article we read for this week, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” I would like to agree with his opinions on “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England.” King speaks of the assumption that key factors of oral storytelling, such as interactions between the listener and the storyteller, are lost when oral stories are translated into written stories. To me, this seems quite obvious, to the point where I had taken this loss for granted. However, King also writes that Robinson is able to work past this “by forcing the reader to read aloud . . . [and] re-creating at once the storyteller and the performance.” (King 186) While I, by no means, felt forced to read the story out loud, I do agree that Robinson is pushing the reader to become the storyteller. I did find that as I read it out loud, particularly for my audience, I did adopt a storyteller’s persona by altering tone and employing gestures.

Blanca Chester also looks at the concept of form in Robinson’s stories in her article, “Storied Dialogues: Exchanges of Meaning Between Storyteller and Anthropologist.” Her article is her own translation of a recording and dialogue between Harry Robinson and his editor, Wendy Wickwire. Before getting to her translation, Chester questions the way these tapes can shift in form when being transplanted from a recording to a written work.

The translation of these recordings into written texts enables one to play with form. Indeed, form manifests itself as an integral component of the dialogue. Meanings change depending on the form and style that is used in framing an oral narrative. Should these stories be presented as prose narratives, or as poetry? Is the prose form more objective than the poetic? What is objectivity? Is the poetic form an imposition on Harry’s text, implying that his speech is, somehow, more natural than Wendy’s? (Chester 14)

I believe that Chester questions what King celebrates in his article. While it is interesting and innovative that Robinson is able to bridge that gap between oral and written stories, Chester questions these choices, as well as if by altering the form, the story loses part of its form.

I would like to direct my attention now to an interesting article I found for this week concerning language and orality in Icelandic sagas. In “In the Refracted Light of the Mirror Phrases sem fyrr var sagt and sem fyrr var ritat: Sagas of Icelanders and the Orality–Literacy Interfaces,” Slavica Ranković discusses the two phrases, “sem fyrr var ritat/ skrifat (as was written before/ as already written), which directly invokes writing, and the appropriated oral-mode mirror phrases sem fyrr var sagt/ getit/ nefnd/ talat/ mælt/ rœtt (as was said/ mentioned/ named /told /spoken of /talked of before)” (299) in Icelandic sagas. While I do not believe that the connection between these referential phrases and our material this week is immediately apparent, it has been making me think about all our material up to this point. Ranković writes that “growing accustomed to the medium had slowly obviated the need of the authors to draw special attention to the fact of writing as such and freed them for a more metaphorical use of language and stylistic exploitation of the immediacy of the spoken word,” (807) which I believe Robinson utilizes in his story by stylistically mimicking oral storytelling.

It also makes me think of our blog posts. Early in the article, Ranković notes that “new communication technologies . . . processes of cultural transition from one dominant mode of interaction to another tend to be evolutionary, as the new media not only never fully supplant the old but also often adopt, adapt, and semantically appropriate some of the existing facets and etiquettes of communication.” (299) Are our blog posts not new technology looking to adopt and evolve the practice of oral tradition? Though our words are written, I do often read our posts as though we are all speaking our words and stories to read other. This translation of the written to the spoken word, again, is what Thomas King believes Harry Robinson is able to accomplish in “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England.”

Works Cited

Chester, Blanca. “Storied Dialogues: Exchanges Of Meaning Between Storyteller And Anthropologist.” Studies In American Indian Literatures: The Journal Of The Association For The Study Of American Indian Literatures 8.3 (1996): 13-35. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Peterbough, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

Ranković, Slavica. “In The Refracted Light Of The Mirror Phrases Sem Fyrr Var Sagt And Sem Fyrr Var Ritat: Sagas Of Icelanders And The Orality-Literacy Interfaces.” Journal Of English And Germanic Philology 115.3 (2016): 299-332. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

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

3. We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

I feel as though it is fair to point out this assumption, though perhaps it is required to add this assumption in. After all, academia constantly feels the shadow of the European tradition and, coming from European tradition myself, I did not see this shadow until several Gender and Women’s Studies courses pointed this out to me.

Looking at this question, I was reminded of a novel I once read in a course on narratives. The book that I read was Half-breed by Maria Campbell. The novel is a memoir of her life living as a Metis woman in Canada. Maria Campbell details her life as caught between two different cultures, with those around her assuming she can never fit into either of these two cultures because of her liminal identity. The memoir is her attempt to bring an understanding to the difficulty she had to deal with in her life, though there was always something about the novel that bothered me.

Though I have not read the novel in a long time, I still remember the tone that created a divide between me and the author. It was as though Maria Campbell assumed that the reader came from the European tradition and, because of this, the reader would never fully be able to understand her story. I also remember how alienated I felt reading the novel as she creates a clear divide, separating herself and her people from other cultures in the narrative.

For this post, I read “The Two Way Flow: Connecting Cultures, Understanding Others” by Sanjukta Dasgupta from Landscape, Place and Culture : Linkages between Australia and India. The UBC Library has an eBook version of this article, which is what I have hyperlinked to. Hopefully this will give you a quick route to the book. If I need to edit that, or make it easier to link to the book, please let me know. The article goes over how connection between cultures allows for an understanding that can remove the assumptions that I am questioning. Dasgupta says that, “desires for exceptionalism instead of cultural pluralism ushers in the risk of discrimination and the resultant disinterest in the society and culture of the re-located space” (6). Now, this made me think of Half-breed because, while Campbell does not attempt to exceptionalism her culture, there is a measure of disconnect between cultures throughout the novel. It is the disconnect and disinterest that gave me pause.

Again, I had this feeling as I read the Lutz article for this lesson. Lutz makes the assumption that his reader is European and that they will either need to drastically alter their perceptions, or will be unable to understand first contact stories outside of the European tradition. When I first felt this feeling with Half-breed, I wrote a very long essay about how this alienation created a divide between myself and Campbell, turning my anger into ammunition. As Audre Lorde says in her speech, “The Uses of Anger,” while anger and frustration can often be seen as disruptive and negative, they are also active emotions that can inspire change.

But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies. (Lorde 280)

However, I also detailed that perhaps this was not a bad thing because it inspired me to write about Half-breed, which generates conversation on the topic.

Now that it has been a few years since I wrote that paper, I would like to add something to this thought process. While, normally, I believe that assumptions, such as claiming that someone from European culture can never understand another culture, can be extremely dangerous and create further divide between cultures, I feel as thought it may have been necessary in this case. By pointing this out, Lutz and Campbell draw attention to the fact that the assumed reader will never have to experience being told that they will never understand because, as part of the dominant culture.

This brings attention to the fact that Indigenous cultures often have to deal with this kind of critique. As seen in The Truth About Stories, Thomas King discusses European and Indigenous stories of creation. King notes that European creation myths are often viewed with a grain of truth in them, while Indigenous creation myths are immediately dismissed. I feel as though, by pointing out a similar thought process in “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz is challenging any potential readers that belong to European tradition to think outside of the assumptions that are taught to them.

Assumptions can be very dangerous constructs. They can often be damaging and create an isolation between cultures by alienating cultures from each other. However, this can be repaired. As we go through this course, I believe that we are making steps to repair and dispel these assumptions. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes assumptions about his readers in order to continue his dialogue. In this instance, his assumptions are able to help in his argument because he puts the assumed reader in a space where they can begin to question their own assumptions.

Works Cited

Campbell, Maria. Half-breed. Goodread Biographies, 1983.

Dasgupta, Sanjukta. “The Two Way Flow: Connecting Cultures, Understanding Others.” Landscape, Place and Culture : Linkages between Australia and India, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2001, pp. 2-13.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003.

Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of Anger.”Women’s Studies Quarterly 25.1/2 (1997): 278-85. Web.

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

Hello there, English 470! Happy Monday and Happy October to you! Can you believe that we’re already a month into this term? It seems as though September went by so quickly. Anyways, here is my follow-up post to our assignment where we had to list what home means to us. I had a lot of fun reading your stories this week. Here are my observations, which I will be posting alongside some commentary. I, then, plan on following up my observations with an overall commentary on the assignment and my findings.

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SIMILARITIES

Evolution – Many of our stories revolved on the relocation of our sense of home, but it was Colleen Fish that brought the world ‘evolution’ to my attention. She begins her blog post by saying that “the reason why ‘home’ is so difficult to find is because home is something that evolves as you experience life” (Fish). I think this is an excellent way of looking at our sense of home as it is ever-changing as we rotate our location.

Comfort/Safety – Comfort and safety were words that were used often within our blog posts. I cannot agree with this more, as my story ended on me finally getting comfortable in my new house.

Family/Friends/Support System/Love – Out of all the blog posts that I read, I believe that this was among the three most mentioned aspects of the sense of home. The three most mentioned were: evolution, comfort/safety, and love. I believe this is because family is so closely connected with the home, so you feel most at home with those you consider to be your family.

The Attachment of Memories/Stories to a Physical Space – Memories and story were, of course, big themes in this assignment. The assignment was to write a story and, as I will discuss in my additional commentary, it is a crucial part of why a location becomes a home. Lucas Hui discussed the importance of story in his sense of home, while Michael Pendreigh shared memories with us in his story. 

Independence/Evolution of Identity – Finally, while not many mentioned the independence that contributed to my sense of home, Patrick Woo did discuss something similar. In his post, he says “I came to recognise it is not only my father’s home but mine as it helps us figure out who we are” (Woo). I am not sure if he was getting at the same thing as I was, but I think that this indicates that identity and the evolution of an identity can also be part of the process of making a home.

DIFFERENCES

Sense of Belonging – A few of the blogs that I inspected, such as Colleen Fish’s blog, brought up a sense of belonging and its connection to a sense of home. I will discuss this further in the additional commentary section of this post.

Stability – While most of Jenny Bachynski’s story aligned with what I wrote in my story, I thought it was interesting how her early sense of home was tied into the stability of her childhood home. As I moved so much in my childhood, I never felt this, but I enjoyed how she got the sense of stability and how that related to feelings of comfort and home across through her story.

Escape – In Chloe Lee’s blog, she said that “home has been a place of solitary peace for me, where I can escape from the world.” As my sense of home revolves heavily around the people in my life, I had not considered this aspect. However, I do agree that my home is where I find my peace and relax from the pressures of the world outside my home.

Language – As I have only ever lived in a country where my native language is the official language of the country I live in, I have never had to experience what Francisco Araneta has felt. Though, I am bilingual and I have a slight taste of what it feels like to be a fish out of water when it comes to language. I found this to be a very interesting blog post as I had never considered my language to be connected to my sense of home before.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY

I would like to begin this commentary with mentioning how much we all seem to want to give into cliches! I am not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, but I found it interesting how many of us utilized the phrase “home is where the heart is” or “there’s no place like home.” Even when I was writing my short story on home, I felt an urge to use these phrases as well. Perhaps there is some sort of truth to these sayings.

I also found that, as a group, we had more in common than we had in difference when describing our sense of home. Many of the stories were based around memories or stories that occurred in the location we proclaimed home and it was these stories that made that location a home to us, not to sound redundant. There was also many references as to home being the place where we were surrounded by the ones we love and the ones that love us, whether it be family, friends, or others we are close to.

The idea that home is not a physical space until we make it a physical space was something I also came across quite often, though not in those exact words. Many of the stories began with talking about how home was not a physical space, but it took on these qualities by being the location where the stories occurred. Looking through all of these blogs, I feel as though it is our stories and memories that make our homes.

In terms of differences, I did not find many between all of us. Even in the differences, I found them to be quite small and maybe only different in how we termed them. For instance, I went over the sense of belonging in the differences section of this post. While I did not go over this in my story, I do think that this ties in with home being where your loved ones are because your family accepts you. I also found that Francisco Araneta’s take on linking language to your sense of home also works into the idea of belonging somewhere. It is difficult to feel belonging when you are isolated by a language barrier.

In conclusion, I thought that this was a very interesting assignment. I learned a great deal of things about what I consider to by home for myself, and also learned about what other people consider to me home. While all of our stories were unique and individual, we all shared some similarities in our sense of home. Our theme of storytelling also continued into this week when I found that it was the story of home that transformed our house into our homes.

Works Cited

Araneta, Francisco. “Assignment  2:2, Alienated at Home, at Ease Overseas.” Telling Stories of My Own, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/franciscoaraneta/2016/09/28/assignment-22-alienated-at-home-at-ease-overseas. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Bachynski, Jenny. “Shifting: Assignment 2:2.” Canadian Studies: Exploring Genres through Canadian Literature, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/470acanstudies/2016/09/28/shifting. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Fish, Colleen. “What home is….for me. – Assignment 2.2.” English 470 – Canadian Studies, 30 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/colleenfish/2016/09/30/what-home-is-for-me-assignment-2-2. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Hui, Lucas. “Blog Post 2.2 – “Home” Is Where the Heart Is.” Engl 470A: Seeking new stories to write my own, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/lucashui/2016/09/28/blog-post-2-1-home. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Lee, Chloe. “2.2 Home.” Chloe’s Blog for English 470, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/470chloe/2016/09/28/2-2-home. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Pendreigh, Michael. “2:2 The Sense of a Home.” Michael’s Foray into Home on Stolen Ground: Canadian Literature Discussed, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/michaelpendreigh470/2016/09/28/22-the-sense-of-a-home. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Woo, Patrick. “Canada Is My Home And Not–Assignment 2:2.” We are in the Same Boat: Discovering the Homeland of Canadian Literary Genres in its Historical Context, 28 Sept. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/patrickwoo/2016/09/28/canada-is-my-home-and-not-assignment-22. Accessed 3 Oct. 2016.

Home is not a location to me. I’ve lived in far too many places to consider my home as a specific location. Yet, the place where I live becomes my home. What I consider to be an intangible concept of home becomes tangible once I settle in a location, whether this is chosen by me or not. Sometimes, though, this location is never quite able to absorb the qualities that make it home.

I have never thought about it before, but moving was a constant in my life. In my childhood, we moved because of my father’s job as he searched for a better job and a place that we could all call home. My first move happened when I was barely a year old. We picked up everything from our small trailer in Prince George, a place where I was not yet aware enough to call home, to settle in Vancouver with family. As quickly as we moved to Vancouver, we again moved everything to Vancouver Island, in the town of Campbell River.

In Campbell River, we moved twice. It was the second house that I came to call home. This house was located across from a river and surrounded by tall, green trees. All my friends lived on the same street as me, making it possible to go and explore the forest that our house was placed beside. I remember going down to the river to attempt to fish even though my parents had warned me against it because the currents were so swift. I remember not being able to go to school because there was a bear monopolizing the bus stop. This is where my sense of home began to take on its own unique qualities. To this day, I feel at home walking in the forest with my shoes getting damp because I didn’t listen to my mother telling me to wear proper shoes. I’m comforted by the smells of the forest and the river, and I leave my window open to lull myself to sleep with the sound of falling rain.

When I was 10, we moved to the Okanagan Valley. My family settled in Coldstream, which is a small community just outside of Vernon. Again, we moved twice in Coldstream. For a very long time, our first home there didn’t feel like my concept of home. There were no close forests for me to roam around. We had a small creek in the backyard, but it wasn’t the same. As me and my sister settled into our new school, we began to make friends with kids both at school and along our street. This is when it finally began to feel like home. While I was never as good of friends with the kids on my street as my new school friends, running up and down the cul-de-sac tickled the part of my brain that was nostalgic for Campbell River. As long as I had friends that I could spend my time with, Coldstream could be bearable.

I didn’t move again until my second year of college. I was beginning to feel cramped in my childhood home. The friends I was now making at college all lived in Vernon and my job was there as well. So, I moved into Vernon by myself. I lived there for two years before I decided to move back in with my parents when I started going to university full time. It was during this time that I discovered what it was about my home in Vernon that made it home to me. This factor was independence. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted. Though I was older and my parents never tried control my schedule like in high school, all of a sudden I had chores and had to work around their lives. The home that I had once called my home was no longer comfortable anymore.

This summer, I moved to Kelowna in order to be closer to university for my last year. It was a nightmare to find a place to live for both myself, my sister and her cat. When we finally found the place, I felt certain that this would just be a temporary stop in my search for my new home. I would have to suffer with living in a small room that didn’t have nearly enough room for all my things. My feelings to this new location were ambivalent as the boxes crowded around my room, monopolizing any free space. Though, as I began to fall to asleep, I realized that this could be my home. There were no parents there, I already had plans to visit my friends the next day, and I would eventually find the space for all my things. I could make this place comfortable. I slid the window open and fell asleep to the sound of the rain falling on my new home.

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Hey, everyone! I hope you enjoyed my short story about what home means to me. I had a lot of fun writing it and remembering all the places where I used to live. I couldn’t really find many places to insert hyperlinks within the story, so I thought I would point out the Meaning of Home Contest here. Habitat for Humanity runs a contest asking for children from grades 4-6 to write an essay on what home means to them, with the money going towards a Habitat for Humanity build as well as the school they go to. They have some postings from the current and past winners that you may want to take a look at.

Works Cited

Campbell River. Heritage River Inn, 2016, http://www.heritageriverinn.com/images/campbellriver1-b.jpg. JPEG file.

The Meaning of Home. Habitat for Humanity, 2016, www.meaningofhome.ca. Accessed 26 September 2016.

“Relaxing Sounds of Rain and Thunder in Woods – The Sounds of Nature 16.” YouTube, uploaded by KMYMedia, 13 September 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6OhIZODLDs.

“I am going to tell you a story,” says the man.

“What is it about?” The boy asks.

“This story is about stories,” the man says, “Back in the old days, when the world still believed in magic, there were those that could wield that power. They used these powers for good, to heal and to help. They would also use their magic for games and contests. They would meet in the woods with the light shining down on them as it always did, for evil  and darkness had not yet touched the world. That day, they competed to see who could be the scariest of them. This was all done in jest, of course. They shifted their appearance, brewed potions and cast spells until one stranger stepped forward. No one had ever seen this stranger, who appeared neither man or woman, but all listened as the stranger told its story. Tales of death, plague, and hate tumbled from the stranger’s mouth. As they listened, the sky began to darken and the woods stood silent, until they were standing in complete darkness. One of them, braver than the others, stepped forward to speak to the stranger.

‘What have you done?’ The brave healer asked. The stranger stood in silence, already seeming to fade into the darkness itself. Another stepped forward.

‘Take back your story!’ The other pleaded, desperation in their voice. Everyone began to cry, knowing at the bottom of their hearts that the story could not be taken back. The stranger had brought evil into the world.”

“Why couldn’t the story be taken back?” The boy asks.

“Because once a story has been loosed in the world, it cannot be taken back. A story is not something tangible that can be caught and hidden once the first storyteller has told it. That is both the curse and the gift of the story.”

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For my version of this story, I chose to pair it with a framing device of a man passing this knowledge down to a boy. The story that Thomas King tells about how evil came into the world is not about evil, but about the power that stories hold. The story only become tragic in this instance because it is evil being loosed into the world. However, stories can also function to deliver good, or even happiness, depending on the subject matter. The story within a story within a story also appealed to me. I also removed the fact that they were all witches, as I find that witches has a very negative connotation. Instead, I chose to make them simply practitioners of magic. I also accentuated the ominous quality of the storyteller within the story by giving them the title of stranger.

After memorizing my story, I chose to relay my story to three different groups. For this assignment, I thought it would be interesting to tell my story to groups that I had varying degrees of comfort with. First, I told my story to my sister, who I live with. Because we spend so much time together, my delivery of the story was fairly confident and stayed pretty well in line with the written version of my story. Next, I took my story to a close group of friends. I told my story in the public library this time, so, while I was comfortable with my group of friends, I did feel a little unease that other people might overhear us. I also noticed that this time, my story started to waver from the written version with small details changing. I think this was because I was more nervous performing (if we can call it that) for my friends than for my sister and our cat. Finally, while I did not solicit strangers to hear my story, I did ask a new friend that I am not quite comfortable with. This made me even more nervous because, even though he agreed to hear it, the situation almost felt awkward because we do not know each other very well.

I am very shy in many situations, so I was surprised I was even able to finish telling the story at all. I wonder how many people had this experience in retelling their story? Did you begin to deviate from your written version as you were forced to use your memory? Now, I am beginning to see why stories that originate from oral storytelling appear to have so many versions that go from changing small details to larger details.

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After further reflection and my dialogue with Kaylie in the comment section, it occurs to me that part of my influence came from the Sandman graphic novel. If you are interested in reading the whole volume, this comes from Volume 2, The Doll’s House. I highly recommend reading the entire series, though. There are so many interesting references to literature, mythology, etc. Also, Neil Gaiman is a fantastic writer. I am posting images of the first two pages of The Doll’s House, which contain some interesting dialogue on storytelling.

Works Cited

Gaiman, Neil, writer. Dringenburg, Mike and Malcolm Jones III, artists. The Doll’s House. Vertigo, 1990, pp. 1, vol. 2 of The Sandman, http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/perpetual/17950093/52685/52685_original.jpg. Accessed Oct. 2016.

Gaiman, Neil, writer. Dringenburg, Mike and Malcolm Jones III, artists. The Doll’s House. Vertigo, 1990, pp. 2, vol. 2 of The Sandman, http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/perpetual/17950093/74406/74406_original.jpg. Accessed Oct. 2016.

7. 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?

I would first like to address the importance of widespread publication through the use of social media tools, as I believe that this is one of the more important aspects of the digital technology on literature. Throughout this response, I will be using the term ‘user’ to refer towards the people who are consuming the literature and digital content that is being offered through digital platforms from the author.

In many of my courses, we have discussed the invention of the internet as having a profound impact on expanding what users are able to see as well as offering a platform where users can find content that deviates from what a publisher believes should be visible. Not only this, users and authors can offer unique viewpoints that publishers or broadcasters cannot access, especially in the case of news broadcasting. Online platforms have done much for literature, as well as film and television with online websites such as Netflix offering unique content. Avoiding publishers through self-publication on the internet allows an author to present a large audience with their work, as well as presenting the user with stories that may not have been presented by publishers. Self-publication gives voice to storytellers that may otherwise remain invisible towards both the publisher and user.

Hypertext is also important in online documents because it provides the user with even more options. Hypertext is not required to be clicked on, but when it is utilized, the user is given access to a wider amount of knowledge. It can also lead the user towards similar content, if they so chose, or content that is supported by the author.  The use of these links create a web that comes from the main story and threads out to other content that is linked by the author. The web grows as user submitted content is linked to by authors and shared by the user, spreading stories across the internet in a way that is not possible with traditional publication.

The most important thing about hypertext, in my opinion, is that is gives a certain amount of agency back towards the user that is not offered in traditional ink and paper publications. In fact, the main advantages of digital technology on literature are focused on the agency of both the user and the author. It also provides visibility to a multitude of voices, whether it is the always baffling dinosaur erotica or fan fiction turned bestseller, it also expands the choices that the user has when it comes to consuming the content. The user is not confined to the bestseller list or what is offered by the publisher. At this time, I can only think of advantages towards online content, though I am sure there are some disadvantages. For the time being, I remain optimistic about the future of online literature and self-publishing, in that the exposure to a multitude of stories can lead to an enriching experience for both the user and the author.

Works Cited

Taken by the T-Rex (Dinosaur Erotica). Amazon, https://www.amazon.ca/Taken-T-Rex-Dinosaur-Erotica-Christie-ebook/dp/B00FI9JFFO. Accessed September 2016.

Bertrand, Natasha. “‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ started out as ‘Twilight’ fan fiction before becoming an international phenomenon.” Business Insider, 17 Feb. 2015, www.businessinsider.com/fifty-shades-of-grey-started-out-as-twilight-fan-fiction-2015-2. Accessed 17 September 2016.

Cobben, Ingrid. “Social media: The leading source of breaking news video.” The Media Online, 5 Sept. 2016, http://themediaonline.co.za/2016/09/social-media-the-leading-source-of-breaking-news-video. Accessed 17 September 2016.

Wright, Alex. “The Secret History of Hypertext.” The Atlantic, 22 May 2014,  www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/in-search-of-the-proto-memex/371385. Accessed 17 September 2016.