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.

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To answer this question my husband and I read the story multiple times; to ourselves silently and out loud to each other. And while the story “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England” is written, it maintains a very oral construction. King indicates in his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” that the oral nature of this story encourages reading aloud, yet I would suggest that it necessitates a verbal reading.

Through the exercise of reading and listening to this story my husband and I realized that we tended to listen to the story more like a song than an account of events. And much like reading the lyrics to a song, reading this story silently did not have the same effect as listening to it aloud. I found that reading the story silently was difficult. I kept looking for a straightforward presentation of the facts and purpose. However, listening to the story aloud I was able to stop focusing on the words and structure of the story, and I found myself absorbed in the feelings the story created. In listening to the story aloud I was not only able to grasp the purpose much better, but I was also able to appreciate the melody of the story.

Because this story is written more how one might speak rather than write, it preserves its spoken character. And I found the story was not just preserving its oral construction, but also preserving its voice; the voice of Harry Robinson. The voice of Robinson is very distinct and clear throughout the story, and an oral reading allows him to tell the story through others. The “oral syntax,” as King calls it, not only creates the storytelling experience, but it also reanimates the storyteller himself.

The conversational tone and structure of the writing create a storytelling experience that requires the reader hear the story aloud to truly hear the story. Through the exercise of reading and listening to this story I have come to the conclusion that this type of “oral syntax” – which is rare in conventional written storytelling – shapes the meaning of the story by creating a much more personal relationship between the storyteller, the reader and story. I think that comparing the experience of stories with this type of “oral syntax” to the experience of a conventional written story is like comparing a dream to a movie.

Works Cited

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

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

My first reaction to this story is sadness. It makes me sad because it so strongly demonstrates how the white settlers treated the Native People of Canada. There is no surprise that the story shows white men as descendants of  “a liar and a thief” (Robinson 12) because that is what they did – lied and stole. My sadness at this story comes from two places. The first from the reality of the horrific and devastating atrocities committed against Native Peoples’ for so many years. Though I had never heard this story before I quite readily recognize it as truth, because everything in life is based on our perspective. This story it is true to those who were brought up with it, and to those who experienced situations that demonstrated the truth within it for many years. The second part of my sadness comes from the truth in this story – the idea that I have descended from a lying thief. I began to wonder, how can I combat this identity? What can I do to make up for the errors of my ancestors?

The “written document” is such a an interesting dynamic of this story. What does the document represent? I was wondering right away – what was written on that paper? But I realized, it doesn’t matter what was written on it because the significance of the document is not what it said but what it represents; writing and literature. This led me to thoughts of the intersection between orality and literature and the way they are often viewed as conflicting. I began to wonder what part did this idea of conflict play in the relationship between settlers and Natives?

Instead of sharing the contents of the “paper” as prescribed, white men came brutally enforced their interpretation of those contents. Natives seem to highly value and respect the art of storytelling, but White culture attributes a significant amount of validity and authority to literature over orature. In white culture it is a comparison, in which literature is deemed “better.” This white culture perceived  contradiction in values is a very saddening outlook. It not only encourage white settlers to try to annihilate Native history, language and culture through assimilation – but it is still a major barrier to widespread societal acceptance and recognition of Native rights, history and knowledge.

White settlers did not have to act “true to their original character” (Robinson 10); they did not have to kill and steal. But they did. And this reality is devastating and painful. However, while this story demonstrates the truth of that history, it also offers hope for a more cooperative future. Though it may be too late to share the contents of the “paper” in an honouring and reciprocal way. Maybe we (a new generation) can repair the damage that has been done. Perhaps there is still an opportunity to return to the original plan, perhaps we can uphold our part of deal struck upon our ancestor’s banishment; perhaps together we can all create a new and happier end to this story.

Works Cited

Mitchell, Terry. UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Monitoring and

Realizing Indigenous Rights in Canada. Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2014. Web.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy

C. Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon, 2005. Print.

Trigger, Bruce G., and Bruce G. Trigger. The Contested Past : Reading Canada’s

History : Selections from the Canadian Historical Review: The Historians’ Indian: Native Americans in Canadian Historical Writing from Charlevoix to the Present (1986). University of Toronto Press, 01/01/2016. Web.

After reading the blogs and picking out similarity after similarity I realized it was actually going to be much harder to find the differences. While the stories were very unique and diverse, the themes and values within them were very similar. Since the similarities seemed to be more noticeable to me I am going to start with the top similarities I observed:

1. The value of experience
2. The idea that home is not a physical place but a feeling
   1. Also the ability of physical place to affect the way feel, through providing stability, security and comfort.
3. The role houses play in our perceptions of home
4. The importance of stories to our understanding of home
5. The importance of the people you surround yourself with
6. The idea that our sense of home changes and grows with us

While each blogger presented a very different story to define their individual perception of home, most blogs seemed to suggest that the concept of home is personal. This recurrent theme was not only that home is personal, but also that it is more of a feeling than a physical place. We define home as feelings such as, stability, acceptance and connection. Also many of us seem to highly value the relationships and people in our lives that allow us to feel at home.

As I mentioned earlier I thought finding differences was a much harder task. One blog that provided a very different interpretation of home was Kathryn Fraser’s blog. Her outlook on home was unique because instead of exploring the concept of home from an individual perspective she looked at the national perspective. In her blog Kathryn examines peoples’ perceptions versus the reality of their home country. Where many blogs shared thoughts on the personal concept of home, Kathryn made me think about the importance of the national understanding of home. She stresses the importance of “bring together our differing understandings of home,” so we can create a nation in which all citizens feel the security, acceptance and connection of home. How we as a group define our country has substantial influence on an individual’s ability to relate to it as home.

Defining home is a very difficult task because it is a complex idea made up of both macro (national) and micro (individual) components. And while a home might be shared by many people, it can also differ from person to person, and even change for each person through time. I feel that the differences in people’s stories define the individual component of home and the shared themes and values within these stories give us a glimpse of the national component of home.

Works Cited

Fraser, Kathryn. “Question 4, Blog Post 2.” Kathryn Fraser’s Blog. Web.

I grew up in a large family – eight siblings to be exact. We lived in a big blue house. We loved the blue house. It had carpeted stairs that were perfect for sliding down in sleeping bags and boxes. It had a huge yard with a pool which was ideal for games of Roobinhood and Marko Polo. On Sunday nights we would have all our friends from church come over to play kick-the-can and cop-and-robbers in the dark. Sunday mornings, however, were not quite as fun. I always knew I was going to end up with a few burns on the ears if one of my older sisters was curling my hair. As a kid I only understood the inconvenience of having to wear those silly dresses and keep my Sunday socks white, it was not until I was an adult that I realized the painstaking organization and methodical preparation my mother would go through on Saturday nights to ensure they she had all nine kids washed, dressed and out the door for church at 9 am. Many of the years in the big blue house were focused around church. My childhood was captivated by the magical (although magic was strictly forbidden) stories of the bible.

I moved into small square white house. It was my first time living on my own … well with four other people – I guess, away from my family home would be a better way to put it. My life was captivated by the stories of all the interesting people I was meeting. In the white house I was able to deconstruct my family home – I made my own rules, I discovered my own boundaries and molded my own morality. The white house is where I came to realize that the big blue house was my parents’ home but it was just my house. It was the place they built (metaphorically they didn’t actually build it), where they raised their children, and where they shared their lives together. The blue house laid the foundation, but the white house is where I started to create the blueprint for my home.

As the years past I did many different things; I traveled, I worked a variety of jobs, I went to school, and I met the love of my life. After some amount of time we moved into our first house, the polka-dot house. It was named this because when we were fixing it up I made some stencils and painted one large living room wall brown with big blue polka-dots! This house had a huge backyard and we planted a massive garden. We loved to entertain, we threw dinner parties galore. This was a lively house, filled with music from the record player and many people laughing and dancing. While we were fixing and brightening up this house we were also building what would become the frame of our home.

The next house was the red house – Boy! Those were a busy few years. I managed a busy restaurant, we eloped to Mexico and got married, my restaurant burned down, I went back to university, years after our elopement we planned and had a huge wedding. Throughout these years we were building away on our home.; slowly adding walls, floors, a roof and more.

After red house moved into a tent. We packed up a motorcycle and traveled from Germany to Egypt. Our house on wheels. This is when I truly realized that our home was complete. The year of travel allowed me to see quite clearly that the home we built is wherever we are together; it is the place where we are sharing our lives.

My home is not in a place but in time; it is in the time it took to grow and learn, it is in the time spent discovering myself, it is the time spent with the ones I love.

My home is in my story.

Work Cited

Beach Front Blue House. N.d. Pixabay. PIxabay. Web.