I Lost My Talk Poem

In this study, cultural assimilation, which is one of the effects of colonialism and one of the major themes of Nervous Conditions and emerges as a common theme in Rita Joe’s “I Lost My Talk”, Stephen Watson’s “Song of the Broken String” and Susan Power’s “Christianity Comes to the Sioux” as well, will be discussed.

Colonialism is an oppression which contains the political and economic control over a subordinated area and it is all about relationship between colonisers and settled people. The colonisers consider that they are advanced and have outstanding characteristics than the colonized people. For this reason, colonised countries called themselves as “the civilized” and referred to natives as “undeveloped” and began to change their systems

'It'll kill them all if they aren't careful,' and she snorted. 'Look at them. That boy Chido can hardly speak a word of his own mother's tongue, and you'll see, his children will be worse. Running around with that white one, isn't he, the missionary's daughter? His children will disgrace us. You 'II see....The problem is the Englishness, so you just be careful!' (202-203).

The same theme had became apparent in selected poems. In “I Lost My Talk”, Rita Joe emphasized on forgetting to speak in her native language, to create and think in her culture because she had forced to take colonial education by colonialist powers. Also, she mentioned about her inheritance, language and culture by ‘word’ (Line 9).

You snatched it

Rita Joe wrote her poem ironically in language of colonialist state and didn’t assume an extreme anger and accusatory attitude, used peaceful words. With this style, poem made a stronger effect.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk (Line 9-10)

In “Song of Broken String”, Stephen Watson had described the cultural assimilation and people who removed from their homeland, realized that this area doesn’t belong to them any longer when they returned to homeland, using the metaphor "broken strings" (Line 6-7, 14-15, 23). According to Watson, their homeland was completely vanished and destroyed by colonialists.

Because

the string is broken, the country feels as if it lay empty before me (Line 22-26) .

Looking at the story “Christianity Comes to the Sioux”, narrator Susan Powder is seen as a limited omniscient narrator, i.e. tells the story in the third person. In this story, cultural assimilation is shown from the perspective of Harley Wind Soldier, Frank Pipe who are the students in the class of colonialist educator, Jeannette McVay. Although Jeannette tries to adapt to the culture of the “isolated territory” (31-34), neither the students nor Jeannette understand each other because of the cultural differences (40-43). This situation resulted in that the students demand to read stories belonging their culture and the teacher wants to improve herself about native culture (50,