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Monkey Beach. English 1106. Monkey Beach. Setting: Haisla territory; various scenes in and around Kitimaat (Lisa’s house; Ma-ma- oo’s house; Mick’s apartment; school; rec centre ; pool, etc.); Monkey Beach and the coast; Vancouver’s DTES, spirit world Mid to late 1980s
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Monkey Beach English 1106
Monkey Beach • Setting: Haisla territory; various scenes in and around Kitimaat (Lisa’s house; Ma-ma-oo’s house; Mick’s apartment; school; rec centre; pool, etc.); Monkey Beach and the coast; Vancouver’s DTES, spirit world • Mid to late 1980s • Vivid sense of place, Haisla territory, scenes cultivating food w Ma-ma-oo 150
Monkey Beach • Character: Haisla teen girl • Naïf (a literary device in which the main character does not fully understand the larger world of the novel; allows readers to learn as she learns, or be unaware as well) • Narrator: 1st person Limited Omniscient • Narrative voice and tone: what is the tone of the narrator towards her subject?
Monkey Beach • Naïf (a literary device in which the main character does not fully understand the larger world of the novel; allows readers to learn as she learns, or be unaware as well) • Naif: 288 – Josh, pooch, karaoke, 59 “god you can be so dense” 207-209 Tab doesn’t like Josh, 363 Karaoke and Josh; 369 spirits show her what happened to Jimmy; we learn w her • Narrator: 1st person Limited OmniscientLimited: Lisa’s first person perspectiveOmniscient: 131 ‘drifting hair of a corpse’ • Allows protecting of ceremony: feast 55
Monkey Beach • Plot and structure: Novel form (establishing of setting and character, inciting incident, rising action, climax, denouement) • Hybrid: many more significant central characters in webs of relationships than in traditional western novels • ‘Northern Gothic’; ghost story; horror with a twist • Fragmentation in narration, as in experience of trauma
Monkey Beach • Bildungsroman (coming of age novel) • Unlike in classic bildungsroman, Lisa does not overcome her struggles and ‘accept’ her social position at the end; she continues to struggle to find her place; ending is highly ambiguous
Without Treaty, Without Conquest In the Delgamuukw court case (1997), the Supreme Court of Canadarecognized that Indigenous title to the lands in most of BC was never extinguished Significantly, the ruling agreed that intimate knowledge of the land transmitted in story, family crests, hereditary names, totem poles, etc. constitutes title to the land. This ruling employed and recognized Indigenous law at the highest level of Canadian law
Story as title to land William Gordon Robinson locates the origins of Haisla culture in his version of the popular myth of the “monster” of Kitimaat Arm, “The Story of Hunclee-Qualas or the Founding of Kitamaat”. He tells of Waa-mis, who “accidentally” killed his wife one night as both of them were sitting by the fire. Fleeing the wrath of his in-laws, Waa-mis encounters the “monster”: the river opened a huge, gaping, white mouth then slowly closed it again. Terror came to his men’s hearts but he, being the leader, was determined to see just what the thing was and in spite of their fear they kept paddling on until the thing opened its mouth again. It was then that they saw that what had been believed to be a mouth was, in reality, a flock of countless millions of seagulls feeding on small fish in the river. The gulls, at times, would all sit on sand bars and then all of a sudden the whole flock would fly up. This was when the mouth was believed to open. When the party had taken enough of the small fish, now called eulachan, or oolachan, they returned to their camp at Kildala where the oldest woman cooked and ate the fish to see if it was good. Shortly afterwards she fell into a deep sleep for the fish were so fat that they had made her very drowsy. When she awoke she pronounced the fish very good and Waa-mis then moved his camp to the Kitamaat River Valley and pitched his new camp at the mouth of what is now called Anderson Creek for that was then the mouth of the Kitamaat River. Waa-mis hosted a feast and changed his name to Hunclee-qualas; according to W. Robinson, he is honoured as Kitimaat’sfirst settler.“That’s our story,” he concludes, “[i]t explains our origins and why our land is ours. That’s how we Haisla came to be here ... and we’re still here. We’ll always be here.”
Story as title to land Compare the version of the oral story Lisa inherits from her mother in Monkey Beach to William Robinson’s version from Tales of Kitimaat: “That’s our story,” he concludes, “[i]t explains our origins and why our land is ours.
Monkey Beachstories of place Stone man 113-114 Gee Quans276 Meaning of the sun’s position relative to mountains 88 Namu means whirlwind 161 Winter loved Kitimat89 Kitlope and the buried village 112 Runs used to be so thick 39; 92 Why clams have black tongues 317 Gulls and oolichan114
Monkey Beach There are good ways to tell the stories that convey their significance and meaning – also see pg 54
Monkey Beach Both responds to and also subverts a Canadian readership’s hunger for an ‘authentic’ Haisla narrative; Returning the gaze 218 White settlers are dangerous 251 Ceremony can’t be represented (feast 55)
There are at least three visions of ‘nation’ in Monkey Beach 1. Ma-ma-oo: Haisla (means both land and people) 2. Mick: Pan-Indianreclaiming of settler concept; seeks to unify hundreds of nations to be able to resist colonization together despite significant cultural and political differencesMick never overtly calls himself Haisla; 1970s influence 3. Lisa’s parents, and Jimmy (Olympics): identify as Canadian? Lisa: renewal of Haisla identity, seeks Ma-ma-oo’s teachings Younger generations: resurgence, rebuilding – and hybridity
Nation concepts • Sovereignty: highest authority over land; legitimate right to rule (land or people) • Nation, state, nation-state • Types of nationalism: civic, ethnic, irredentist, jingoistic, Indigenous nations • Naturalization: making something appear natural, inevitable or unremarkable
Hybridity in Monkey Beach Monkey Beach is hybrid in several ways: -Oral narrative into written novel form with inclusion of many stories -Bildungsroman, with: - more characters, social networks more important -transformation theme of Bildungsroman takes on Indigenous resonance i.e. via Raven (374), trickster figure whose role is to create transformation -Lisa does not come to accept dominant cultures’ social role as expected of protagonist in traditional Bildungsroman -Form: patchwork mixing: recipes, history, scientific text, story, etc. -language is hybrid: traditional/natural and technological -visions of land (and those who inhabit it) are hybrid: Haisla and Western conceptions of ghosts and spirits exist in tension in the novel
Hybrid language in Monkey Beach natural/technological Similes: blend natural and technological
Spirits and visions 222 – vision of dead crow with missing wing – ‘teenaged’ – ‘transformed’ 324 – Jimmy’s disappearance begins with injuring his arm
Monkey Beachdiscussion Author’s perspective: is it better to gloss concepts, words, and experiences for outsider audiences, at the risk of homogenization, simplification, misrepresentation? Or is it better to just write as an ‘insider’ would speak, at the risk of a broader audience not understanding, or not being interested because they can’t follow? Reader’s perspective: do writers coming from ‘peripheral’ or ‘minority’ social positions have an obligation to explain and make things transparent, make them intelligible (make them ‘make sense’ on my terms)? What are the benefits and risks of doing so? Or do I as a reader have an obligation to stretch myself outside my comfort zone, into a world view that might be unfamiliar?
Key ‘Turns’ in Canadian Literature • Early period: Who are we? pre-1860s - early 1900s: ‘writing back’ to Britain • 1920s/30s: Canadian Literary Modernism • Early CanLit often seen as ‘in tension’ with American influences and British traditions. • Cultural Nationalist Turn: ‘Where is Here?’ (Northrop Frye) • 1960s/1970s: building of Canadian Canon • Multicultural Turn: ‘Why Are All These Voices Left Out?’ • Late 1980s/1990’s: Expansion and Revision of early Canon1980s/1990s: Free Trade Agreements (FTA 1988, NAFTA 1995); globalization • Today: Why/what is the Nation? • Reconciliation, multiplicity, challenge, and dialogue
Timeline: Key Moments in Canadian Literature • Early years: authors publishing largely in Britain, for British audiences First novel written in Canada: Francis Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague (1769 ) • Catherine Parr Traill’sThe Backwoods of Canada (1832 ); Susannah Moodie • Roughing It In the Bush (1852 ); Confederation Poets (Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell • Scott); Lucy Maude Montgomery’sAnne of Green Gables (1908). Victorian aesthetic. • 1920s/30s wave of Canadian modernists. Dorothy Livesay, PK Page, A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott. • Publishing in British and American venues, then little local magazines, • based out of Montreal (McGill Fortnightly Review, Canadian Mercury), Vancouver (Dorothy • Livesay), Toronto. 1930s also saw worker’s theatre movement in Toronto. CanLit in this time often seen as ‘in tension’ with American influences and British traditions. • 1949 Massey Commision: evaluates state of Canadian arts, creates Arts Councils • Creates context and support for cultural nationalism • 1960’sCoffeeshop and beat culture: Atwood, Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton • 1960s/1970s: Cultural Nationalist period, building of Canadian Canon • 1965:Northrop Frye’s “Conclusion to a Literary History of Canada” • 1972: Margaret Atwood, Survival : A Thematic Guide to CanLit); ‘garrison mentality’ • Search for the ‘Great Canadian Novel’ (Margaret Laurence, The Diviners, etc.) • (Trudeau Prime Minister: 1968-1979, 1980-1984: Civic Nationalism & Official Multiculturalism) • Late 1980s/1990’s: Multicultural Turn, publication of many ‘ethnic’ anthologies • 1990: Linda Hutcheon and Marion Richmond Other Solitudes • 1994 Writing Thru Race conference in Vancouver made national headlines (Roy Miki) • 1996 Smaro Kamboureli: Making a Difference • 1980s/1990s: Free Trade Agreements (FTA 1988, NAFTA 1995); small • publishers and booksellers absorbed by large conglomerates; globalization refigures role • of literatures and national cultures as exportable commodity in global marketplace • Contemporary: reconciliation; building dialogue between Indigenous oral traditions and settler • textual ones; accounting for colonization; redefining meaning of multiculturalism in Canada, • questioning role of changing nation-state and multiple ‘nations’ within the nation.
Key Moments in Canadian Multiculturalism • ~1860s: free entry policy; government gives land to European settlers • 1858~: Chinese immigration during Gold Rush • 1867: Constitution Act assigned Parliament legislative jurisdiction over "Indians and Lands reserved for the Indians.“ Policy of full assimilation. • 1876: Indian Act passed. Enfranchisement in exchange for assimilation/loss of Status. • 1881-1885 : Immigration from China sought by Canada, to build CPR • 1903 South Asian immigration picks up, disenfranchised between 1907-1947 • 1910 - 1960s: ‘White Canada’ laws and policies: • The ‘Border’ first appears in The Immigration Act of 1910. • Chinese Head Tax ($50 in 1885, $100 in 1900, $500 in 1903) and Exclusion Act (1923) • 1910 ‘Continuous Journey’ regulation excludes British Subjects from India • 1910 Exclusion in Immigration Act: ‘unsuited to the climate of Canada’ (mainly targeting British Subjects from India and the Carribean) • 1914: KomagataMaru • WWII ‘None is too many’ policy • WWII: expulsion of BC’s coastal Japanese Canadian community • Denial of citizenship even to those born in Canada • 1963 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, response to Quebecois, Indigenous, and racialized minority demands for equality • Official Languages Act of 1969 made English and French the official languages of Canada; two ‘founding’ or ‘charter’ nations. • 1971 Multiculturalism adopted as federal policy, ‘within Bilingual framework’ • 1973 Non-immigrant Employment Authorization Program created the category of the worker who does not gain citizenship • 1988 Official Multiculturalism becomes law: The Multiculturalism Act • 1988 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) passed between Canada and US same year
