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Summary Of Charlie By Lee Maracle

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Lee Maracle’s short story “Charlie” raises themes of imperial education on Aboriginal children in Canada and the harmfulness this standardized European schooling causes on the people, communities, and livelihood of Aboriginal tribes. In just a few short pages, “Charlie” manages to convey the severity of the situation for Aboriginal children taken to Residential Schools in Canada in an attempt to assimilate them into the foreign culture, religion and values of European imperialism. The children in the school are shown to have adapted to the situation by feigning stupidity and dull resignation, while quietly resisting in their own ways; Charlie, the titular character, escapes his imprisonment through daydreaming and, later, running away. The …show more content…

The inability of the white teachers to see the potential of the students and to recognise that they deliberately act incapable of learning in order to avoid punishment is described quite cleverly in an omniscient observer point of view that allows for an objective interpretation of the events in “Charlie.” The physical and psychological abuse perpetrated against the students in order to force conformism is shown to be particularly damaging when, after the boys have run away to the uncle’s cabin, the narrator describes how those who return after finishing their education are completely unable to reintegrate into their communities and become a drain on their families, unable to support themselves, having never learned the essential skills of survival necessary to live off the land as their ancestors had for

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Mastery Assignment 2: Literary Analysis Essay Lee Maracle’s “Charlie” goes through multiple shifts in mood over the course of the story. These mood are ones of hope and excitement as Charlie and his classmates escape the residential school to fear of the unknown and melancholy as Charlie sets off alone for home ending with despair and insidiousness when Charlie finally succumbs to the elements . Lee highlights these shifts in mood with the use of imagery and symbolism in her descriptions of nature.

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In Knoph’s “Sharing our Story with All Canadians”, Knoph emphasizes the effects of propaganda on the First Nation by describing the “colonizing gaze to depict Aboriginal culture to be inferior” (Knoph 89), showing that the aboriginals were brainwashed to believe they had to adapt to the newfound culture. The narrator speaks of the uniform brainwashing of minority groups in order to appeal to western culture; “in the face of a crass white world we has erased so much of ourselves and sketched so many cartoons characters of white people over-top the emptiness inside” (Maracle 158), revealing that the heritage of the older generations will soon be completely forgotten. Maracle chose to implement the idea of brainwashing into the story to place emphasis on the importance of carrying on traditions to remember the roots instead of becoming a one indifferent

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Charlie by, Lee Maracle is about a young Indian boy who goes to a catholic school. Charlie dreams about going outside and exploring but the school will punish him if he does. One a day a group of kids including Charlie sneak out to go to one of their families houses. When they get their Charlie leaves to go to his family’s cabin. Unfortunately his long journey is cut short by frost bite and he dies of hypothermia.

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