ENG 1120 Lecture 17: Squatter

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: English
• Course: ENG 1120
• Professor: Erin Kean

Document Summary

Don"t know if he is actually telling the truth we are in the anthropologist shoes. Keeps repeating that it is a true story, Reminded of the regulatory nature of narratives : stories impart rules of cultural regulation and are vehicles of cultural containment. He addresses what happens when something is uncontained. Moves to toronto to lead a somewhat better life. He is really upset about the name change. Sarosh"s failure to renegotiate his identity in canada is linked to discourses that regulate bodies, Typical of narratives where the squatting indian is seen as a degenerate and social body (body that is deregulated, uncontained, abject) The body is evacuating waste, is emptied of individual signification for the observer, who is repulsed and threatened by the uncontained nature of his behaviour. The squatter is then signified as an other body, allowing the observer to contain the threat that his body represents.