Tracey Lindberg’s novel Birdie is narratively constructed in a contorting and poetic manner yet illustrates the seriousness of violence experience by Indigenous females. The novel is about a young Cree woman Bernice Meetoos (Birdie) recalling her devasting past and visionary journey to places she has lived and the search for home and family. Lindberg captures Bernice’s internal therapeutic journey to recover from childhood traumas of incest, sexual abuse, and social dysfunctions. She also presents Bernice’s self-determination to achieve a standard of good health and well-being. The narrative presents Bernice for the most part lying in bed and reflecting on her dark life in the form of dreams.
In the short essay Pretty Like a White Boy by Drew Hayden Taylor and the short story Sara’s Gift by Barbara Smith, both protagonists come into conflict with forming their identity. The two characters illustrate Indigenous peoples' struggle with questioning their identity and searching for a belonging. The protagonists in both stories struggle with not fitting in because of their appearance. Drew Hayden Taylor never knew his white father, he grew up with his Ojibway mother and lived in the indigenous community, but was always looked at differently. “It’s Not Easy Having Blue Eyes in a Brown Eyed Village”(Taylor 504).
As time passes, while becoming closer to Lonnie and meeting his family, Garnet is quick to realise that he does not know who he is and where he comes from. Furthermore, all he is able to feel is a sense of loneliness, not the type of loneliness while standing in a crowd filled with people but one that consumes him and is unable to shake. Soon after Garnet recognizes in order to fill this hollow tunnel inside, he must reconcile with his family. Once he arrives in prison due to trafficking drugs he receives a letter from his brother Stanley filled with messages of love, telling him to come home which he
The detrimental and unfair categorization of people by race, gender and more, commonly known as discrimination, affects many in society both mentally and emotionally. Many instances of this act of hatred occurred among Aboriginal and Native Canadians in the 20th century. However, for a little Native Indian boy stepping onto the rink, this is the norm that surrounds him. Saul Indian Horse, in Richard Wagamese’s “Indian Horse”, faces discrimination head on, where his strengths for hockey are limited by the racial discrimination from the surrounding white ethnicity. Consequently, this racism draws him into a mentally unstable state, where he suffers heavy consequences.
Those around Garnet impacted his development as a person in finding his true identity. “It's the start of findin’ your power” and “if you anit got no power you gotta connect up to a power source” (Wagamese 262), in this quote, the Keeper illustrates why Garnet needs to connect with his culture to understand himself. Garnet began
His lack of exposure to any sort of homey atmosphere limits his capabilities in bonding emotionally to anyone. Wagamese illustrates all of these links and themes through his writing by exhibiting the symbols of Garnet’s lack of a home, as well as a lack of a loving family, but in the end provides Garnet with both. When Garnet does arrive home and meets his family he is finally comfortable with his life. He finds peace and love with his family and poses as a true advocate for those who wish to have a home but are unsure of how to do
Additionally, during his conversations with Lonnie in the streets of Toronto, Garnet reflects on his identity and confronts his feelings of displacement. "I felt all the shame and nervousness I always felt when I had to explain my history” (Wagamese 31). Through his conversations with Lonnie, he recognizes that his experience at the foster home has left him feeling lost and disconnected and shaped his character by reflecting on his past experiences and his displacements from his tradition. Ultimately, Garnet's experience with social connections, conflicts, and internal struggles shape Garnet’s character as he searches for his identity leading him to curiosity about his cultural identity by driving him to seek out a deeper understanding of himself and his place in the
“Lion” is a 2013 memoir written by Saroo Brierley alongside his ghostwriter Larry Philip Buttrose. Saroo Brierley tells his story of reconnecting with his Indian family and culture as a man who grew up in Australia after becoming separated from his family at age five. Throughout this text Brierley reflects on his identity as he learns more about his Indian past and family as a man who grew up adopted, detached from his former Indian identity. Throughout the whole of this memoir, Brierley explores how a sense of belonging, identity, and family bonds are vital to living a fulfilled life, highlighting the importance of having a connection to yourself and others.
(pg. 249) While out in the woods alone, Garnet was able to connect with his past and discover what it really meant to him to be
Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part time Indian begins with the narrator, Junior, describing himself as a 14-year-old Native American boy who has been taunted with racist slurs, poverty and hard times throughout his life, causing him to struggle with self-identity. He then walks through each stage of his life, starting with how he struggled with poverty and ending with his teacher, Mr. P, advising him to leave the Rez, since it has nothing to offer. This leads to Junior being torn between two different worlds, The Rez and Reardan. The Rez is Junior’s home; it’s a rough place to live. Most Indians that live there are poor, and to them, fighting is a way of life.
The theme of the compound is what it would take to survive in this situation and standing up to people who put others down. Eli shows this when he punches his dad and they start fighting (Bodeen, 2008, p. 171). He stood up to his dad because his dad was trying to make an excuse for why they really ended up in the compound. The family shows what it takes to survive by only having a limited amount of food. Surviving with limited resources van be very tough.
For a Native American man during the war, the distrust of the white man who mistreated his people for so long is a reality he uses as a source of strength in the midst of constant danger. The character Henry Dobbins had a
Treuer’s work is both motivational as a guide to maintaining personal well-being and as a narrative of his language-learning and revitalization journey. Although there are a plethora of valuable themes within the novel, the theme I found most essential was the importance of destigmatizing language-learning itself. In terms of the Ojibwe language, as well as a majority of other Native American languages, there is a gap between generations. Treuer describes a component of this conflict as lateral oppression, using the example of “the blame game”. In this, Treuer describes how the older Ojibwe generations blame the lack of revitalization on the younger generation’s unwillingness to learn, while the younger generation accuses the older generation of being unwilling to teach.
Identity is an instrument that is crucial to mental development, which can be used to determine someone’s true character and further pave the path of one’s life to culminate at a point of happiness. Opposingly, unknown identity paired with maturation has a likely outcome of sorrow. In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, the main character, Junior, is incapable of finding his true identity, because of the fact that Junior resides on an Indian reservation, but attends a school that is primarily white people, which results in Junior’s maturity and mental ability being tested. These setbacks in the novel drive the fascination of the audience, and leave the reader questioning the importance of their true identity.
The white man was captured by a Crow warrior. He had nothing and was owned by an old Indian women. He lived and changed while he was with the Crows, and he found what he was searching for. In Dorothy Johnson’s short story “A Man Called Horse”, the main character was changed throughout the story when he: was stripped of all identity, lived as a horse for months, and lived with the Crows. Since he was a very pampered man, he had no sense of self until it was all gone.
