23:56
February 15, 2011
Purple Paper – creative writing – ficton and poetry – cp.submissons@gmail.com -- March 2nd
deadline
Queen of the North
Eden Robinson
grew up on a reserve in BC 1968 – Dolly Pator and Edgar Allan Poe (literary influences and
Stephen King) – gritty disturbing fictions
University of British Columbia in Vancouver
“Only one of the stories is about First Nations…” – slotted into the box of a native writer –
valid dichotomy?
Tradition or pop culture?
Do these references represents the vitality or destruction of aboriginal culture – is it
monolithic and unchanging?
Objectivication, abuse .. etc?
Karoke – women and first nations
Ambiguity and indirect discourse
Black humor
Queen of the North from Track Lines – 1996
Queen of The North is germ of the novel Monkey Beach
Retells many of scenes by Michelle (the sister)
Trap Lines does not focus on native – does look at cycle of abuse of the native school systems
– identifies herself as native not until 2/3 through the story
Barbie, Seasme St, America’s Funniest Home Videos, nick names Pepsi and Cola – enacts the
process of colonization? – critics
Pepsi critique’s pg. 216 family for watching Star Wars – cultural populum – switches the
channel to world wrestling
‘today’s commercialized society has .. a more authentic society”
GGRW – ‘not real Indians’ because they drive cars etc – native culture as static and leads to
stereotypes ‘vanishing Indians’
Culture Hybridity: definition – Pauline Johnson and Cry from an Indian Wife
Controversial term – suggests too pure a separate two cultures becoming exactly half and half
– does it mask assimulation?
Pop Culture here as native adaptation – interactive relationship between culture and
envirnment
Sings of vitality
Author writes about Pop Culture because is entertains her
Pg 1218 ‘what are we making..?’ middle of the page
Latisha and this one profiting from saying the food is dog meat etc.. ‘bullshit takes energy’ –
man is already staring at her sexual objectify
‘Are you Indian then?’ – bullshit is work – rude and politically incorrect – she is Heyse
—‘And you?’ insisting on reciprocity but he ignores it and asks another inane question – he
fails to recognize that he is ‘othering’ her—power and money to bribe her to talk to him
(keeps slapping money on the table until she will make more) – Uncle Joshua uses gifts and
money to control her too
Pg. 1219 – she caves because of pragmatism – she gives all the money to Cousin Ronny for a
party and gives this money to charity
Contrast between what she thinks and how she acts
The dish is so exotic that he doesn’t know how to eat it – she contains to resist his othering
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