Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice.

P.16-26 (note that I am using the Kindle edition for reference, so these pages may be slightly off)

I’ve yet to come across a novel that makes more use of the literary device of allusion than Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. While there were several names whose reference I understood immediately, there were many others that were vague to me, and there were even more that I didn’t even realize were a reference at first. However, it doesn’t take long for readers to understand that nothing in GGRW is in there without reason. King is a careful writer and even the smallest characters have names which were chosen quite consciously.

On page 16, we are introduced to the character of Dr. Joe Hovaugh, a reference to the Christian deity Jehovah. He sits at his beloved massive wood desk, which reminds him of a “tree cut down to a stump” (King 16). Here, it seems King is referencing the anthropocentrism of modern Western Christianity, with its belief that all of nature was created to serve man. As the eponymous Jehovah says to man, “Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (New International Version, Genesis 1:28). Even the grounds of Hovaugh’s hospital are described like the paradise of Eden, with Hovaugh reigning over them like God reigns over his creation.

Behind the wall, the willows were beginning to get their leaves, the cherry trees were heavy with pink and white blossoms, the evergreens stood dark and velvet against the stone. Yellow daffodil lined the front of the flower beds, and the wisteria and the lilacs around the arbors were greening up nicely. Dr. Hovaugh sat in his chair behind his desk and looked out at the wall and the trees and the flowers and the swans on the blue-green pond in the garden, and he was pleased. (King 17)

In the next scene, we meet Alberta Frank for this first time. Alberta, a university professor, has the namesake of the province in which the story is set. Meanwhile, the province itself was named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Princess Alberta was also the wife of Canada’s Governor General between 1878-1883. At first I thought this to be ironic- why would a strong, proud Indigenous woman share a name with a colonizing force? Upon research, however, I realized that there is more to it. Princess Alberta is considered to be somewhat of a rebel in royal terms, often described as “unconventional, determined and ‘dreadfully’ contradictory” (Seskus). She smoked,she sculpted, she dressed unconventionally, and she spoke up for women’s rights. She was also an individual who shunned the expected dating life of a princess, rejecting royal suitors to marry a man who was a politician and a writer, but who was not considered a royal. Thomas King’s Alberta also follows her own path when it comes to courting, choosing to casually date two men, and preferring to start a family with neither. Furthermore, the provincial motto of Alberta is fortis et liber (“strong and free”). Alberta, a successful and educated woman, is certainly a representation of a strong and free individual.

In Alberta’s first scene we also meet several of her students. The names of her students are Henry Dawes, John Collier, Mary Rowlandson, Elaine Goodale, Hannah Duston, and Helen Mooney.

Dawes is named after the U.S. Senator and creator of the Dawes Act, a land grabber who essentially stole over 90 million acres of Native land. He strongly believed in the assimilation of Indigenous people, attempting to carry it out through the Dawes Act.

Collier is named after the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs during the 1930’s. Unlike many other politicians of his time, Collier did not believe in the assimilation of Indigenous people, but instead “encouraged self-sufficiency among tribes and provided them with the land rights, religious and educational freedom, and organization to achieve it” (Your Dictionary). He was committed to preserving Native land, Native culture, and Native history, an attitude reflected in his creation of the Indian Reorganization Act, which helped to conserve Indian land while also extending the rights of America’s Indigenous people.

Mary Rowlandson’s namesake is the British American colonial figure who is perhaps most famous for being held captive by members of the Narrangasett tribe, and then writing an account of her experience, a piece of writing in the colonial literature/captivity genre. Rowlandson’s capture was the result of tensions between Native Americans and European settlers, in regards to land rights. Prior to Rowlandson’s capture, three members of the Wampanoag tribe had been executed by the Plymouth Colony, while many other Native Americans were suffering from famine and disease due to land encroachment.

Elaine Goodale’s name comes from the missionary teacher who wrote about her experiences with Native Americans. While Rowlandson’s writing portrayed Indigenous culture in a more negative light, Goodale was considered to be somewhat of a voice for Native rights, though she was a firm believer in assimilation.

The real-life Hannah Duston was an English colonist who was taken captive during King William’s War. With her fellow captives, Duston killed and scalped 10 of her Indigenous captors, including six children. Later on, Duston

Julius Brutus Stearns’ depiction of Hannah Duston and her infamous actions

was often portrayed as a righteous woman who did what she needed to do in order to escape her “savage” captors.

Lastly, there is Helen Mooney, whose name does not seem to directly (or obviously) correlate to any particular figure. Jane Flick suggests that it may be a reference to the ethnographer James Mooney, who studied Cherokee culture. Flick also suggests that the name could be a private joke.

It is no coincidence that the behaviors of Alberta’s students reflect the actions and attitudes of their namesakes. Henry Dawes- named for a politician who showed little care for Indigenous affairs- is asleep during class, and when forced to answer a question, replies with a vague, uninformed response. John Collier, on the other hand, speaks up frequently, asking questions and reacting to Alberta’s teachings. Mary Rowlandson and Elaine Goodale, both named after New England writers, spend the class huddled together. Rowlandson even asks if it’s necessary for her to know all of the names of the figures in Alberta’s lesson, perhaps a nod to the real-life Mary Rowlandson’s view of Native Americans as nothing more than barbaric savages.

While I admit that many, if not most, of King’s references would go over my head had I not done extra digging, I certainly find myself having more appreciation and respect for Thomas King now that I have this knowledge. Not only do I better understand why one can criticize Northrop Frye for his idea that writing is a closed system (how could anything be closed when there are so many external references?), but I also feel like King is demonstrating “Coyote Pedagogy”. He does not give us the answers to who these characters are or where their names come from, but he requires us to do the searching, ultimately making it all that more meaningful.

Works Cited

Cutter, Barbara. “The Gruesome Story of Hannah Duston, Whose Slaying of Indians Made her an American Folk ‘Hero’.” The Smithsonian. 9 Apr. 2018. Web. 18 Mar. 2019.

“Dawes Act.” Our Documents. N.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2019.

“Elaine Goodale Eastman.” PBS. N.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2019.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999). Web. 15 Mar. 2019

“Indian Reorganization Act (1934).” The Living New Deal. N.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2019.

“John Collier Facts.” Your Dictionary. 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2019.

The New Testament: New International Version. Bible Gateway. N.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2019.

Rowlandson, Mary. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Together with the Faithfulness of His Promise Displayed: Being, a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Project Gutenberg. E-edition. 1682/2005. Web. 18 Mar. 2019.

Soniak, Matt. “How Canadian Provinces and Territories got their Names.” Mental Floss. 30 June 2014. Web. 17 Mar. 2019.

Seskus, Tony. “5 Things about Queen Victoria’s Rebel Daughter, Alberta’s Namesake Princess.” Calgary Herald. 17 May 2015. Web. 17 Mar. 2019.

White, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155. Number 3767 (1967): 1203-1207.  

Everyone is on the move in this novel, road trips abound and in order to hit the road what do we need? — a road map. At the same time, Lionel, Charlie and Alberta are each seeking direction in life. As Goldman says, “mapping is a central metaphor” (24) of this novel. Maps chart territory and provide directions, they also create borders and boundaries and they help us to find our way. There is more than one way to map, and just as this novel plays with conflicting story traditions, I think King is also playing with conflicting ways to chart territory. What do you think lies at the centre of King’s mapping metaphor? Marline Goldman, “Mapping and Dreaming; Native Resistance in Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web. April 04/2013.

As mentioned in the question above, few characters in Green Grass, Running Water seem content to be sedentary (in both a literal and metaphorical sense). Everybody seems to be on the go, yet their ways of getting there are all different.

Charlie starts off with the goal of going to see Lionel and Alberta in Blossom, only to have his means of transportation stolen. Instead, he finds himself lying around his motel room, browsing through real estate advertisements for homes all over Canada. At the end of the story, he decides on a new direction: Los Angeles, the current residence of his father, a man with whom he once shared his own fateful road trip.

Lionel, about to turn forty, is adrift in life; he doesn’t like his job and contemplates returning to school, but shows no real motivation, or even a certainty as to what he would study. He struggles with his identity- even his own aunt frequently accuses him of wanting to be white.

Alberta knows she wants a child, but also knows she doesn’t want a husband. She is trying to map her own course in life, but as it is an “unconventional” course, there isn’t necessarily a road map for her to follow.

One of the few characters who seems at peace with his place is Eli. Despite having spent decades away from his family, Eli has now returned to the cabin of his youth, with no intention of going anywhere. Eli, it seems, no longer needs a map. When Eli takes Lionel to the Sun Dance site on his birthday, he takes the lease road, a “long run of potholes and washboards, dusty and slippery in the late summer and fall”, a road that is “a pitch of hill and coulees that dipped and rose on the land” (King Part 4). Prior to this drive, it had been a very long time since Lionel took this road home, as he normally takes the road that goes to Cardston, the road that is “all asphalt and mileage signs and billboards” (Part 4). Unlike that paved road, this lease road is a “wild thing” (Part 4). Lionel, in his search for identity, had been sticking to the signed road, the road that told him where he should go, the road that that seems like the path one should take, yet he has remained lost and without direction, clueless as to where he should be going. Yet on this day, by ignoring the paved and signed road, the “mapped road”, Eli and Lionel are following their own course to the Sun Dance.

Dr. Hovaugh, on the other hand, seems almost feverish about his use of mapping. Desperate to find the four old Indians, he surrounds himself in a “sea of maps and brochures and travel guides” (Part 4), and approaches his mapping in a more traditionally Western style, plotting “occurrences and probabilities and directions and deviations on a pad of graph paper, turning the chart as he [goes], literal, allegorical, tropological, anagogic” (Part 4). Hovaugh also attempts to map the events surrounding the 4 escaped Indians, cross referencing dates and tragic events throughout history that coincide with the disappearances of the allusive women. He believes in facts.

The role of borders in the novel also alludes to conflicting ways of charting territory. To the Native characters, the political borders seem arbitrary, yet they face challenges with these borders. Lionel finds himself stuck down in the United States by inadvertently getting caught up in a protest. Alberta’s family has their dance outfits confiscated by border security. Another interesting view on borders is that of Babo, who is not of European descent, but is not Indigenous either. To Babo, a black woman, the borders seem trivial and are depicted in a manner that is almost silly- take the regal portrait of Queen Elizabeth which is described by Babo as a “large picture of a woman in a formal with a tiara” (Part 3). Dr.Hovaugh, on the other hand, approaches the border with great solemnity.

The question we are asked to consider is “what lies at the center of this mapping metaphor”? I think the answer to this question is two-pronged.

Firstly, there is the more obvious, the more literal approach; the characters in this story  have different approaches to mapping because traditional approaches to Western and Indigenous mapping ARE different. As Marline Goldman points out, maps and the strategies of mapping have been central in  “conceptualizing, codifying, and regulating the vision of the settler invader society” (19). (One only has to consider the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en case of “the map that roared”).  

The second approach to analyzing the mapping metaphor comes back to story-telling. Like approaches to mapping, different cultures have different views on story-telling. Western stories (including creation stories) are linear. There is emphasis on dichotomies, on categorization, on labelling. There must be order, and there must be a satisfying conflict and solution. The Western approach to mapping is not much different- it aims to categorize (land vs. water) and label (Who owns this land? What do we call it?). Like their stories, Western maps are linear; the point is to get to the “end”. On the other hand, traditional Indigenous story-telling emphasizes patience and emotion- Sto:lo scholar Jo Ann Archibald writes that “we should listen with three ears: two on our head and one in our heart.” Stories may not provide “satisfying” or objective conclusions, but may instead encourage readers to seek out answers on their own (tying in to the idea of Coyote Pedagogy). The point of an Indigenous story is not necessarily to reach a conclusion, or final destination, but is instead an exploration of the territory of the story.

Mathematician Alfred Korzybski popularized the idea that the map is not the territory. His idea reminds us that maps are flawed, that they are merely a reduction of the place itself, and that in the mapping we lose important information. Additionally, reading a map is a form of interpretation, and in any interpretation, there is plenty of room for error. I’ve always loved a good road trip story. Admittedly, I’ve also always loved a good conventional map. There was always something mysterious about them. Looking at the name of cities, of lakes, of small towns… I always felt that behind each label there is a story to be told. Green Grass, Running Water explored a different kind of “road trip”. I would love to hear suggestions for other road trip stories, especially ones that explore different cultural approaches to the idea!

(Yes, it’s a bit cliche, but I couldn’t help thinking of the idea of mapping when I saw this commercial).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_h6Jojip2Q

Works Cited

Archibald, J. . “Coyote Learns to Make a torybasket: The place of First Nations stories in education”. 1997. Simon Fraser University dissertation. 06 Mar. 2019

Fee, M. & Flick, M. “Coyote Pedagogy Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water”. Canadian Literature 131-139 (1999) . Web. 05 Mar. 2019.

Goldman, Marline. “Mapping and Dreaming Native Resistance in Green Grass, Running Water”. Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web. 04 Mar. 2019.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water.  ePub edition. Toronto: Harper Collins. 1993/2012. Kindle edition.

“The Map is Not the Territory”. Farnam Street. 31 Dec. 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2019.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 88, no. 3, 1998, pp. 463-495. 05 Mar. 2019.

“Storytelling”. First Nations Pedagogy Online.  2009 .Website. 6 Mar. 2019.

Subaru. “2018 Subaru Outback | Subaru Commercial | See the World (Extended)”. Online video clip. YouTube. 28 Feb. 2018. Web. 09 Mar. 2019.

Frye writes:

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

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

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

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

Northrop Frye describes literature as a “conscious mythology [which] creates an autonomous world that gives us an imaginative perspective on the actual one” (234). It is this argument that allows Frye to ignore the fact that Duncan Campbell Scott romanticizes Indigenous life while simultaneously implementing policies to destroy that very same culture.

Scott, who was the deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932, played an active part in the establishment of residential schools and the subsequent removal of Indigenous children from their families, all with the ultimate goal to “to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic” (CanLit Guides: “Douglas Campbell Scott”). Meanwhile, he writes of a Native trapper with eyes like “jewels of content / Set in circles of peace” (Campbell 18-19) despite being chased by “whitemen servants of greed” (3). L.P. Weis sums it up nicely when he writes that Scott “consciously divided his life into two parts and wilfully ignored as a poet those morally objectionable aspects of the job he encountered as a bureaucrat” (Weis 27).

While many have tried to reconcile Scott’s words with his actions, or, at very least, have examined the discrepancies, Northrop Frye does not. For Frye, Scott’s actions are irrelevant because they exist outside of the closed system that is literature. Scott writes poetry about the “vanishing Indian”. Frye would say that Scott is giving an imaginary perspective on the conscious mythology of Canada (or the place that the nation of Canada happens to be) and that, although “primitive” in this case (i.e. an Indigenous woman who “took of her own flesh” (Scott 33) to bait a hook), is a closed form of literature. It isn’t necessarily real but rather the shaping of material (in this case, the historical entry into Canada by the colonizer, and the subsequent destruction of the Indigenous people- the “vanishing Indians”). For Frye, this is the beginning and the end, as the literary form of poetry produced by the poet Scott is unrelated (closed) to the historical and real actions of the colonizer Scott who is, in fact, shaping the material that he is then drawing from as a poet. The Indians vanish because they are being vanished by policies that have been penned by Scott, who then moves from the legislative system to the closed system of literature that is uninterested in his genocidal day job.

A controversial plaque “honoring” Duncan Campbell Scott- it recognizes his poetry as well as his role in the  residential school system. (See clearer version here).

Historical bias enters into it when we look at how literature views the entry of poets into Canada. The mentality that they are experiencing (really providing an imaginary perspective on the experience and creating a myth from colonizing history) a harsh and unforgiving land and are reporting a romantic interpretation of that land is reinforcing the social beliefs valued by their (Western) culture. The historical bias is in favour of the people who did the colonizing, as they were also the ones colonizing an incipient national literary identity.

In many ways, it makes perfect sense for Scott to romanticize Aboriginal culture in his poetry while at the same time attempting to “get rid of the Indian problem”. As it’s pointed out in The CanLit Guides, “saying racist things in poetic ways makes them seem all the more true” (“Douglas Campbell Scott”). By romanticizing Indigenous culture, Scott is setting it in a mythological framework, and at the same time, removing this culture from the present; if Indigenous people and culture are portrayed as a thing of the past, as a romantic and mythological idea, it suggests that they no longer have a place in the present. Additionally, as The CanLit Guides also points out “the beauty of a poet’s expression is itself an ideological tool” (“Douglas Campbell Scott”).

Works Cited

CanLit Guides. “Reading and Writing in Canada, A Classroom Guide to Nationalism.” Canadian Literature. Web. 24 Feb. 2019.

“Duncan Campbell Scott Plaque”. Whatever He Says. N.p., n.d. Web Image. 26 Feb. 2019.

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

Salem, Lisa. “”Her Blood is Mingled with Her Ancient Foes”: The Concepts of Blood, Race and ‘Miscegenation’ in the Poetry and Short Fiction of Duncan Campbell Scott.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne 18.1 (1993): n.pag. Web. 26 Feb. 2019

Scott, Duncan Campbell. “The Forsaken”. Poem Hunter. N.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2019.

Scott, Duncan Campbell. “On the Way to the Mission”. Poetry Nook. N.d. Feb. 25 Feb. 2019.

Weis, L.P. “Scott’s View of History & the Indians”. Canadian Literature 111 (1986): 27–40. Print.

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 the 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.

I chose to address this question in my blog for a few reasons. Firstly, I am a school teacher who focuses on literacy and Language Arts. It is my role to teach my students a variety of reading comprehension techniques. Some students respond well to reading silently, others comprehend better when they are listening. I figured this question would be a great way to explore the effects of various reading styles. Secondly, I truly enjoyed King’s “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial”. His approach to the terms currently used to describe Indigenous literature, and the terms he used, really opened my eyes to the Euro-centric approach many (including myself, if I’m to be honest) have when it comes to Native literature. His discussion of Robinson’s story-telling method piqued my interest and had me wanting to know more. My third reason for addressing this question is more personal. My husband and I used to read aloud to each other all the time. Our lives are much busier now than they used to be, so unfortunately, reading to each other has fallen to the back-burner. I thought this would be a great excuse to get back to it!

I first read the story silently to myself.King describes Robinson’s writing as having an “oral syntax that defeats readers’ efforts to read the stories silently to themselves” (186) and this may well be the most accurate description of a piece of writing that I’ve seen. Reading Robinson’s story silently was like reading a story written in a language in which I had only the most basic fluency. The language sounds stilted and jumbled- take the example of the search for Coyote: “But when they can’t see him, what they gonna do? No more. And that’s for a long time. They try to find” (chap. Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England). I found myself constantly having to re-read lines.

Next I read it aloud, alone. When I first started reading this story aloud to myself, I felt as though I were giving a monologue. I added pauses where I thought a pause should be. I added emotions. Despite me being alone, I read it as though I had an audience.And it got me thinking-  Courtney MacNeil argues that “orality is not the external and impersonal sound produced by the voice but rather a means through which an exterior drive toward communication is accessed”. So in this case, if I am reading aloud but am not communicating with anyone, is this an example of orality?

When I began reading it to an actual audience, I had the sensation that I was reading a transcript, a written version of a story originally told by someone else. Just like I did when reading it aloud alone, I added pauses and inflections. I also found myself speaking rhythmically, and often adding voices to the characters. I wanted to engage my audience.

When listening to someone else read the story, it comes across less as a transcript. Instead, it sounds like a story, a live event. There are many part of this story that don’t seem to translate from oral to written- when the narrator describes the book as being “about this long and this wide” and having a “little padlock, about that size” (chap. Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England), it seems nonsensical to a reader. How on earth are we supposed to understand the size to which he refers? Yet, when I listened to the story, the reader (in this case, my husband) added gestures to demonstrate. Naturally, he interpreted the sizes in his own mind, but it still added an extra layer of life to the story. King seems to be aware of this, as he points out that one common problem with translating oral literature into written literature is the loss of the “voice of the storyteller, the gestures, the music, and the interaction between storyteller and audience” (186), but that Robinson overcomes these issues.

Listening to someone else read the story clarified it quite a bit for me. Robinson uses many colloquialisms; he is fond of using the term “ ‘em”. Sometimes this term replaces the pronoun “him” and sometimes it replaces the pronoun “them”. Reading it myself (especially silently), this often tripped me up. However, when listening to the story, I found that identifying the correct pronoun was far more intuitive.

It is clear that Robinson’s work uses elements primarily found in oral literature. In “The Nature and Kinds of Oral Literature” Albert Bates Lord writes that traditional oral literature includes a “pattern consisting of (1) absence of a powerful figure (or disabled elder), (2) devastation, (3) arrival (or return) of a powerful figure, and (4) justice or restoration of order”. I found these patterns in “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”, where we start off with the powel figure of Coyote being absent from the live of the Indigenous people, followed by a devastation (sparked by the arrival of Europeans), followed by the return of Coyote. In the end, I suppose the idea of justice or restoration of order can be debated; the laws are returned to the Indigenous people, but is that truly restoration of order?

Like much other oral literature, Robinson’s story explores magic realism. Time is fluid (even the author seems unsure), and there are definitely anachronisms (such as the existence of the camera in what seems to be a time period centuries ago). Nothing seems to be set in stone; even Robinson fluctuates, often correcting himself in a very colloquial manner, like when he says, “And they give ‘em this book- the four of them, the three of them” (chap. Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England).

Style add meaning. In the case of this story, I found the repetition, the familiar tone, and the use of colloquialisms creates a story that feels intimate with the reader. Unlike many other stories (I can’t help but think of King’s discussion on the Genesis story), “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England” does not seem to come from a place of authority. It comes from a memory, perhaps a shared memory, and is now being passed on to us.

Works Cited

“Aboriginal Concepts of Justice”. The Aboriginal Justice Implementation System. N.p., n.d. Web.16 Feb. 2019.

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Peterbough, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190. Web. 15 Feb. 2019

Lord, Albert Bates. “The Nature and Kinds of Oral Literature”. The Singer Resumes the Tale. Center for Hellenic Studies. Harvard University.

MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 16 Feb. 2019.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks. 2005. Kindle edition.

First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

Thomas King is the first to acknowledge the different approaches he takes when telling the stories “The Earth Diver” and “Genesis”.  He describes his telling of “The Earth Diver” as using a “conversational voice [that] tends to highlight the exuberance of the story but diminishes its authority”. Meanwhile, the “sober voice in the Christian story makes for a formal recitation but creates a sense of veracity”.

King’s different takes on the telling of the two stories are representative of the culture from which each of these creation stories come. King tells the Genesis story in an authoritative voice; this makes sense, since this story is a product of Western Judeo-Christianity, a belief system that is monotheistic and hierarchal. In this system, information and knowledge is generally possessed by one authoritative voice- such as a priest or rabbi- who has the power to share this “wisdom” with his “herd”. The Genesis story contains a creator who knows everything, and it is a story that claims to explain everything- an idea that is reflective in Western culture, where objectivity, order, and the written word (or “facts”) are prized. In many Western belief systems, there is little room for interpretation, as many of their stories are meant to be taken literally; consider Catholicism, where followers are asked to believe that they are are truly drinking the blood of Christ.

King’s telling of “The Earth Diver”, on the other hand, demonstrates a more pluralistic view, and it is a story that is clearly meant to be told orally- King even explains how the story might change when he tells it to little children.  

Both King and Chamberlin warn us to be careful with binary thinking, yet the analysis he provides requires “pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies”. Why? I believe there are a few reasons for this approach.

1. We Live in a World of Opposites: “Genesis” and “The Earth Diver” are two very different approaches to the world’s creation but they both are filled with dichotomies. Genesis speaks of night and day, sun and moon, man and woman. “The Earth Diver” includes light and dark twins who create plains and forests, winter and summer, sunshine and shadow. It is interesting that while both stories reflect very different human behaviors, they both highlight contrast in the world. While there may be spectrums and intersections, our world is ultimately one that contains many opposites. The danger with binary thinking is that it can lead to a separation between “them” and “us”. However, King’s stories- told in very different ways- highlights that fact that dichotomies are actually a shared value in Aboriginal and Western belief systems.        
2. Incongruity Theory: King’s writing is one that I find to be quite tongue-in-cheek in style. The Incongruity Theory suggests that “one way for a speaker to get a laugh is to create an expectation in the audience and then violate it” (Morreall). I feel that by pairing up these two stories in “a tidy row of dichotomies”, he is (albeit subtly) speaking to the rather extreme approach to creation stories that Western culture has adopted. By keeping “Genesis” so short and tight (versus the long, flowing style of “The Earth Diver”), King highlights the absurd rigidity of Western culture’s approach to rules and order.                                           
3. The Audience: Traditional Western academia is a fond of binary thinking. As Edward Chamberlin puts it, “a lot of our contemporary literature seems to be in the business of confirming this theatre of Them and Us, with its chronicles of difference and historical distress” (49). Despite King’s own background, and his own approach to binary thinking, a large part of his audience could very well be “traditional” academics- individuals who studied and were raised in a system where binary thinking is widely used. Could it be that King’s approach was selected in order to make his arguments more “accessible” to a wider audience?

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are the Stories? Vintage Canada, 2004.

Hans, Mike. “The False Audience-Content Dichotomy.” 7 Aug. 2018. Admonsters. Web Image. 6 Feb. 2019.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Marsden, A.J. & Nesbitt, William. “Myths of Light and Dark”. Psychology Today. 8 May 2018. Web. 4 Feb. 2019.

Morreall, John, “Philosophy of Humor”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Web. 5 Feb. 2019.

Read at least 6 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of BOTH the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find and look for differences as well; look to see if you can find student peers who appear to have different values then yourself  when it comes to the meaning of ‘home.’ Post this list on your blog and include commentary please.

Shared Assumptions, Values, and Stories

At first, when comparing several stories about home, I found myself with a very long list; it seemed like we all shared so many assumptions and values regarding our definition of “home”. However, upon closer inspection, I realized most of these ideas could fall into two general commonalities:

1) A Search for Home

One major commonality among us is the assumption that home is not a given- it is something that must be found. Many of us have spent much of our lives searching for “home” and questioning what home means to us. Initially, I thought this was because of the assignment. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. There are many examples of us as children or teenagers, or young adults backpacking around the world, and even back then, it seems we were struggling to figure out our home. Many of us no longer live in the place where we spent our formative years, and have wrestled with the concept of “finding home”. Tamara Ensor writes of moving around when she was younger, feeling like she “never really belonged anywhere”. Kevin Hatch describes his search for home, referring to it as something that had “picked up and rumbled across the land”, and that it was up to him to pack up and follow”.

Lexis Mellish discusses her quest to find a community where she could “feel a part of something”.

2) Home is an Emotional Response

Despite a wide range of definitions for home, for the most part we agree on the idea that home is found inside us, and it is an emotional response. Home is not a house, a city, or even a country- it is a feeling. For some of us, it is a response to a relationship– home is with a partner, children, our parents, and/or our siblings. For some of us, it’s a response to our land. For others, it’s the way we feel when we are among a certain community. Because home is not a specific physical location, it can grow and shrink and move with us. Kevin Hatch puts it nicely when he writes that he prefers his home to be something he can take with him, “like a hermit crab”.

Differences: How are my values different from some of my peers’ values?

Most of the stories I read included a focus on heritage; for many, it seems, a part of identifying oneself and their home includes identifying their ancestors and the the lands from which their ancestors came. Many of the students in the class were raised with stories of their ancestry. I loved reading about my classmates’ heritages, but it made me realize that I did not discuss my heritage at all. I did not bring up my physical appearance, the language(s) that my family spoke, or where my parents or grandparents or great-grandparents were born.

And I found myself asking why not?

My father (born and raised in Montreal), since retiring, has become quite focused (I’m being generous here- “obsessed” might be a more accurate term) with exploring the “family history”. He has scoured the internet for photos and news articles and assorted tidbits related to his ancestors, most of whom come from England, Ireland, and Scotland. He constantly shares his findings with us, and one Christmas gave me and my siblings a USB key with all of his findings.

I must admit, I have not opened it.

I don’t have an interest in it.

Maybe I will one day, when I’m older. Maybe if all of the information on this USB key wasn’t related to a white, European, Catholic background- people whose history has been so prominent in mainstream education and culture that I already feel saturated- maybe then, I would have more interest.

But right now, for me, my exploration of home centers on my present life. The people and relationships I have in my life today. The communities in which I am a part of- or hope to be a part of- at this point in my life. The land in which I live on now, and the issues that we- as Canadians and as residents on this planet- face today.

Currently, I’m reading A.J. Jacobs’ It’s All Relative, a memoir around the author’s attempt to fully map out his family tree. In his book, he refers to a study  which concludes that children who know their family’s history are more well-adjusted than those who are unaware of their heritage. Perhaps this knowledge helps individuals feel more “rooted”, more “at home”?

I’m curious to know what you think, after considering the intersection of heritage and home- do many of you believe that your “home” is inherently linked to your heritage, in one form or another?

Commentary

I will repeat what nearly all of us have said: home is very difficult to define, and it is going to be different for each and everyone of us. As a Canadian of European descent, it is especially difficult. The truth is, if I am to use the more general of definition of home (“the place where I come from”), I have to tell people that my home is a stolen land. I have my home because people stole it from others. I was not responsible for these actions, and growing up as a child who knew little of our country’s harsh past, I had no reason not to proudly say, “My home is Canada”, in the same way that a child riding in a car that was, unbeknownst to the child, stolen by her parents, would proudly say, “This is my car”. I did not choose my past. I did not choose the country in which I was born. But here I am. And now it is my responsibility to be an Indigenous ally and to make amends for the actions of those who came before me, so that I can make Canada a place that my children can say- with deserved pride- is their home.

Thanks to Kevin Hatch, Tamara Ensor, Lexis Mellish, Georgia Wilkins, Cassie Lumsden, and Maxwell McEachern for their blogs; I focused on these ones for this response, but my goal is to read everyone’s!

Works Cited

Deer, Jessica. “Montreal non-profit launches toolkit on how to be an Indigenous ally.” CBC. 23 Jan. 2019. Web. 30 Jan.2019.

Ensor, Tamara. “Home…” .Web blog post. UBC Blogs WordPress. Canadian Lit Eh. 29 Jan. 2019. Web. 30 Jan. 2019.

Hatch, Kevin. “Home is Where Your Rump Rests”. Web blog post. ENGL 470 99C Blog: Oh! Canada? UBC Blogs WordPress. 28 Jan. 2019. Web. 31 Jan. 2019.

Jacobs, A.J. It’s All Relative. New York: Simon & Shuster. 2017.

Marche, Stephen. “Canada’s Impossible Acknowledgement.” The New Yorker. 7 Sep. 2017. Web. 30 Jan. 2019.

Mellish, Lexis. “Re-shaping Home”. Web blog post. Swamp Mama. UBC Blogs WordPress. 28 Jan. 2019. Web. 31 Jan. 2019.

“National Air Cargo: We Deliver”. N.p., n.d. Specky Boy. Web image. 31 Jan. 2019.

Rollins, Judy. “The Power of Family History”. Pediatric Nursing 39 (2013). 113-114. Web. 30 January 2019.

Rough Trade Records. “Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes- Home (Official Video). YouTube. YouTube. 17 May 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2019.

Why should we be born into our home? I asked myself. Why shouldn’t we be able to choose our homes? And why shouldn’t my home be on Canada’s stunning west coast? After all, I had good friends who lived in Vancouver. I had visited the city numerous times and loved it. And since childhood I had felt that I was meant to live among soaring mountains and beautiful but unpredictable oceans.

So we went for it. We sold our home after only owning it for two years. We both quit our solid jobs. We sold most of our possessions, packed up our car, stuffed our 6 year old dog into the remaining empty corner of the backseat, and drove west. And we made a new home (a much smaller yet, of course, more expensive one) in the majestic North Shore mountains. And we made new friends and found new jobs that we loved and explored new parts of a country that is so vast and so foreign to most of us, despite calling it our “home”. And whenever somebody would ask why we moved (no doubt expecting an answer such as, “For work” or “For school”), we shrugged, smiled, and responded, “For a change.” But the real answer? I was looking for a home that felt like home at that period in my life.

Winter in the West Coast mountains

Because home, and the idea of home, is fluid. Your home changes. What you need from a home changes as you go through different periods of your life. When I was 14 and hated my parents and my (at the time) very troubled brother, nowhere felt more home to me than my friend Lisa’s basement, where I shared inside jokes with friends, and watched way too many episodes of The X-Files, and ate obscene quantities of cookie dough. When I was in my late teens and yearning for respect and responsibility, my home was the local swimming pool where I worked every summer, and where kids looked up to me and my wildly unhealthy but oh-so-desirable tan. I met my husband at a BBQ when I was 25 and fell in love instantly; he felt like home to me, that night I went to bed knowing I would marry him. He became my home. When we adopted our lunatic, lovable boxer/pitbull terrier, our home grew. And last year, our home grew exponentially when we welcomed twin boys into our family.

Shortly after their birth, we once again packed up the car, the dog (who at this point had given up trying to figure out what was going on), our few remaining possessions, and our boys, and we drove east. We moved back to Montreal. I guess our reasons for doing so are predictable; help from family members, affordable real estate, and the chance for our boys to grow up knowing their grandparents and aunts and uncles. We were moving back to where we grew up, but we avoided using the term “moving home”. That implies that we have one physical home. And that is untrue.

A few years ago, one of my high school students was a Mohawk girl who lived on a nearby reservation. One winter night her family house burned down. It was undoubtedly a tragic event; while no one was hurt, the family lost all of their possessions. They lost their house, but they did not lose their home. Their home was their family and their community, a community that rallied together to help out this family in every imaginable way.  

         Quebec Camping

My husband and I are now looking to buy a house in a small, semi-rural/semi-suburban town outside of Montreal. When I was a kid I had this great checklist of everything I wanted in my house. That checklist has gotten much smaller. I know it’s not the house that matters- a house is not a home. It may represent an idea of home, but it in itself is not home.

In so many ways, moving from Montreal to Vancouver and back in only a few years seems illogical. Financially, it made no sense. Career-wise, it was impractical. And we certainly confused the heck out of our poor dog. But I absolutely do not regret it. Because my home has grown. My understanding of Canada- a place that is, by default, my home- has grown. My understanding of the people of Canada has grown. My connections to these people has grown. “Home is where the heart is”, goes the old cliche. To me, home is IN my heart. I carry my home with me through my experiences and the relationships I have with the people who have shaped me. My home is in me.

Works Cited

Brownie, Marianne. Hollyburn Mountain in B.C. 2018. Photograph.

Brownie, Marianne. Lac des Poissons Blancs in QC. 2015. Photograph.

Frost, Robert. “The Death of the Hired Man”. Poetry Foundation. N.d. Web. 28 January 2019.

Kreviazuk, Chantal. “Feels like Home to Me”. 18 Dec. 2007. YouTube. Online video clip. 29 January 2019.

“Quebec Government, McGill Partner to study and curb post-graduate exodus.” CTV News Montreal. 23 May 2018. CTV News.Web. 28 January 2019.

I have a great story to tell you.

A long time ago, when our world was still in its early stages, there was a story-telling competition. People from all the nearby lands came together, ready to share a story from their own culture. They brought stories that had been passed down for many generations in their world, stories that they had told many, many times, stories that were of great importance to them and to their people and to their land.

The contestants gathered together in this new land. The first story-teller began. She told an eerie tale of a creature from her land called “owl”. She described this graceful, wise creature in great detail, and explained how, one night many years ago, while a mother owl was sleeping, a large eagle swooped in and snatched up one of her owlets. Despite her exhaustive efforts, her babies were never found, and from that day forward, the owl never slept at night again, instead flying through the forests, crying out, “Who stole my babies? Who? Who? Who?”

As the first story-teller wrapped up her tale and took her seat among the other speakers, the soft rustling of feathers could be heard up in the trees, followed by the haunting hoo hoo hoo of the new land’s first owl.

The second story-teller began. He told the story of a great hero from his land who challenged a renowned maker to craft an unstoppable spear, one that would never fail to find its mark and could penetrate even the toughest hide. The maker sat in his workshop for many days, making spear after spear, each found wanting by the hero. One night, while watching a dark storm rage across the plains, the maker was struck by inspiration, and with all his craft and guile, shaped a pronged spear that crackled with power and energy. So formidable was this weapon that it could be seen from great distances and lit up the night sky. The great hero threw the spear, and watched it obliterate a tree, leaving only a charred stump. Satisfied, he declared that the maker had succeeded in crafting a force like no other.

As the second story-teller returned to his seat, the first lightning bolt to appear in this new land sparked swiftly across the sky.

Others shared their tales. As the competition went on, the world around them filled with the details from the stories, and soon the land was alive with new sights and sounds, smells and sensations.

Finally, it was the last story-teller’s turn. Now, unlike the other story-tellers, he had not taken much time to consider his story. See, he was very handsome, and quite revered in his land. In his experience, the audience enjoyed looking at him so much, it wasn’t necessary for to put much thought into his words. However, he had heard about this new land, and wanted to be a part of the competition, so he too, made his way to this gathering. Truth be told, he hadn’t been paying much attention to the previous story-tellers. He had enough confidence in himself (as well as prior experience) to believe that his audience would be engaged in his words.

He started to share a story that he had heard before from the story-tellers in his land, a story about a brother and a sister who get lost in the woods. The children stumble upon the home of an old woman who had been cast out from her village for her gruesome deformities. Frightened by the woman’s disfigurement, the children run away, but the brother stumbles and falls, hurting his leg. As the cold night descends upon them, the sister realizes that she has no choice but to bring him back to the home of the old woman for help.

At this point in the tale, the beautiful story-teller paused. In the original ending of the story, the one he had heard many times, the children are welcomed into the home of the old woman, who turns out to be kind-hearted and merely one who was wrongly judged by the people of her village. But suddenly, to this particular story-teller, it simply did not seem thrilling enough. How could he win this competition with such a simple and predictable tale?

So he made a hasty decision. Continuing the story, he began to make some changes. Instead of the warm and welcoming cottage owned by the old woman in the original version, the story-teller described a dark and gloomy abode. He described the eerie art on the walls, the chilling silence of of the house, and the stale odours that filled the rooms. And instead of describing a benevolent old woman who gently bandages up the young boy, he described a dark-hearted monster who is cruel and violent towards the young children. It was a story filled with gore and wickedness.

The story-teller looked around, pleased to see that he had the full attention of his audience. They looked horrified, but what did it matter? Were they not hanging on every word? He opened his mouth to continue, but then stopped. Embarrassed, he realized he did not have an ending to this story. He wracked his brain, desperately trying to come up with an ending that would be captivating, but nothing came. So with a forced smile, the beautiful story-teller simply sat down.

The audience was hushed. And then, things changed. Momentarily, the sky darkened, though it returned to normal so quickly it could have easily been confused with a passing cloud. The space chilled, but returned to normal so quickly it could have easily been confused with a sudden breeze. The contestants all felt a flash of pain tear through their bodies, but it was a pain that disappeared so quickly, it could have been imagined. Nonetheless, everybody felt different afterwards. A heavy feeling seemed to permeate the air.

“What’s happening? What is this?” asked the beautiful story-teller, fearful.

Nobody said anything at first. Finally, the oldest story-teller at the competition spoke up.

“This is your story,” she said. “You brought these elements to life. You created a terrible tale, full of horror and evil, and gave it no closure.”

The beautiful man bristled. “It’s a story,” he said. “Only a story. Forget I said anything!”

The older woman shook her head. “That’s not how it works. Once a story is told, it can not be taken back.”

Reflection

I’m on maternity leave this year, so my intended audience was my husband, my 7-month old twin boys, and my dog. With that in mind, I tried to keep my story simple and fun, with a little bit of repetition, since I’ve learned that babies are amused (and learn!) by repetition in stories.

I am not a great speaker, which may be ironic since I am a middle school teacher. As a student in elementary and high school, public speaking events were a nightmare to me. If I can read off a paper, I am fine- I think I speak clearly, with good pacing and appropriate tone. When my husband and I first started seeing each other, we spent many hours reading books aloud to one another. However, when I am asked to memorize a story or a speech, I lose all confidence and all momentum. I worry about forgetting details, and become so fixated on including everything that I cannot allow myself to relax and tell a story that- while may not include all the original details- is appropriate for that particular situation. Even in front of babies and my husband, I still stumbled with nervousness, One of the main points I took away from the first chapter in The Truth About Stories is that stories are fluid- there are different ways of telling a story (King’s example is when he explains how he changes Charm’s story a bit when sharing it with younger kids), but the essence of the story is what remains. This is something I need to work on; it’s okay if a story is different each time. As an oral story-teller, you have the opportunity to get immediate audience feedback (even if it’s non-verbal) and tweak your story-telling for the situation.

Half of my audience.

While writing this story, I also kept thinking about how it would sound. This is not something I think about when writing material that is not intended to be read aloud, nor is it something I teach my own students. We discuss the importance of including a strong voice in a our stories, but in this exercise, I truly felt the value and effect of “voice”.

Works Cited

Zeus undergoes routine health check-up in his eyes. Wildlife Learning Center. N.d. Earth Touch News. Photograph. 22 January 2019.

Bealing, Jacqui. “Again, again! Why repetition in reading help children learn more.” University of Sussex. 17 February 2017. Web. 22 January 2019.

Brownie, Marianne. Listening to a Story. 2019. Photograph.

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

Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87).  Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index).Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78).  Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada.

“Except for the idea of a creator, there is no idea quite as bewildering as the idea of home, nor one that causes as many conflicts.” – J. Edward Chamberlin

Indeed, there is great difficulty in attempting to define the place we call home- especially the place that we call Canada. Edward Chamberlin asks, “Can one land ever really be home to more than one people?” (4). A proud Canadian would answer the question with an emphatic “yes”. After all, what does Canada pride itself on if not its inclusivity? Unlike the melting pot that is the United States, Canada boasts (if that’s the appropriate term for a humble Canadian) of being a mosaic, a place where cultures can maintain their traditions and beliefs. However, what we like to believe can be quite different from reality, and Edward Chamberlin does not hesitate to address this misguided notion in If this is your Land, Where are the Stories?

When discussing the idea of “home”, Chamberlin brings in the dichotomy of imagination and reality. Imagination is what we like to believe; most Canadians like to believe that Canada is a multi-cultural, respectful place where we deserve to live, thanks to our inherent “Canadian-ness”. Reality, on the other hand, refers to the objective truth, and in reference to Canada, the objective truth is that we are descendents of colonizers, living on a graveyard of languages and livelihoods.

Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78). He then rephrases this idea, drawing parallels between the history of settlement and the history of many of the world’s conflicts. Settlement involves dismissing people, language, and livelihoods. Conflicts, he writes, involve dismissing beliefs and behaviors. To “settle” is generally a positive notion (after all, isn’t it desirable to “settle” our conflicts?) yet, ultimately, settlement and conflict stem from the same treatment of others.

What do these ideas mean to our understanding of Canadian history? Historians will say that Europeans settled in the land that eventually became Canada. Their actions are a reflection of Chamberlin’s explanation of settlement; indigenous people were removed from their land (with many sent off to residential schools or reservations), belief systems and cultural practices were banned (perhaps most notable is the banning of the potlatch), and languages were destroyed through the implementation of rules and laws that forbade the use of traditional languages. Consequently, we now have two narratives of Canada: the story of an accepting and progressive society, and the often-dismissed story of cultural genocide.

In Imagined Communities, sociologist Benedict Anderson defines a nation as an “imagined political community- one that is both inherently limited and sovereign” (51). Anderson argues that a nation is imagined because members of a nation will never meet most of their fellow members, but possess “the image of their communion” (51). In a country as spread out as Canada, Anderson is right in saying that we will likely meet only the smallest fraction of other Canadians. However, his idea of communion is flawed. Sadly, the imagined sameness of fellow community members-fellow Canadians- possessed of the same fundamental “Canadian-ness”’ allows for the fantasy of a joining, a togetherness, that is, upon even cursory examination, more imagination than reality.

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Print.

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

Palmer, Harold. “Mosaic versus Melting Pot?: Immigration and Ethnicity in Canada and the United States.” International Journal. 31.3 (1976): 488-528. JSTOR. Web. 13 January 2019.

Schneider, Howard. “Canada: A Mosaic, Not a Melting Pot.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post.  5 July 1998. Web. 14 January 2019.

Image of Canadian Flag. N.p., n.d. Queens University. Web. 13 January 2019.

Introduction