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Klee Wyck: Effects The European Missionaries Have On Indigenous People

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In Klee Wyck, Emily Carr emphasizes on the concerning effects the European missionaries have on the Indigenous people, as they strive to modernize the younger generations. Irwin and Co.’s editor, William H. Clarke however, does not believe in what the Canadian author has to project. He altered stories such as “Friends” and “Ucluelet”, then completely removed “Martha’s Joey” from Carr’s writing piece. These modifications were distinctly noticeable to me and reveal that Carr 's concern with the evangelists forcing new ideas on the Indigenous people, were no longer essential to Clarke 's new envision. I believe that Clarke made these alterations to Klee Wyck to censor the ugly truth of the harm done to Indigenous people by the missionaries. Clarke 's edits did indeed transform the meaning in Carr 's stories. In the 1941 version of “Friends”, there is a significant change that I encountered when comparing the original text to the 1951 document. In the first publishing of Klee Wyck, Carr creates a scene where Louisa mother, Mrs. Green, has a conversation with Emily about wanting to buy a tobacco pipe. Within their conversation, Louisa jumps in and states “The missionary says ladies do not smoke” (page 115 published by Oxford University Press). This quote was …show more content…

Knowing that Klee Wyck went through a transformation without Carr’s input changed the way I interpret her work. At first I believed Carr’s re-published pieces were just an autobiography of her experiences among the Indigenous people for others entertainment, however, after gaining knowledge on Klee Wyck, my assumptions were incorrect. Carr’s stories are about the European missionaries negative effect on the Indigenous people’s culture and lifestyle, however, Irwin and Co.’s lead editor, William H. Clarke, destroyed that completely. I no longer believe that Clarke’s changes to Klee Wyck were to make the book appropriate in a Canadian school but to censor significant portions that criticized European

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