Listening to Old Woman speak : natives and alternatives in Canadian literature / Laura Smyth Groening.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Groening, Laura Smyth, 1949-

Series:

McGill-Queen's native and northern series ; 44.

McGill-Queen's native and northern series ; 44

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indians in literature.

Canadian literature--19th century--History and criticism.

Canadian literature.

Canadian literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Indians of North America--Ethnic identity.

Indians of North America.

Race in literature.

Physical Description:

xvi, 183 p.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Groening argues that what Frantz Fanon terms the "manichean allegory" has shaped European understanding of the New World to such an extent that the image patterns fundamental to the allegory continue to dominate depictions of Native characters. Although a world separated into two categories defined by light and dark, reason and emotion, mind and body, technology and nature, future and past is no longer also characterized as good and evil, revaluing the tropes has not made them disappear. And without their disappearance, good intentions notwithstanding, nonaboriginal Canadian writers will continue to portray Native characters as part of a dead and dying culture. Groening demonstrates that the real issue cannot be about censorship as censorship involves the abrogation of freedom, and the imagination is never truly free.

Contents:

Introduction : writing "Indians" and the Manichean allegory

Representation and identification : gender and genre in the first Canadian novel(s)

"A curiosity ... natural and feminine" : race, class, and gender in the colonial writings of Anna Jameson and Susanna Moodie

"Poor creatures, once so benighted" : imagining race in early colonial narratives

Inhabiting a Manicheal world view : colonialism, ideology, and discourse

Administering/ministering to the Indians : Duncan Campbell Scott and the politics of church and state

The temptations of Rudy Wiebe : history and postmodern Indians

"Contamination as literary strategy" : a postcolonial ideal

"Children of two peoples" : hybrid texts, hybrid people?

The healing aesthetic of Basil H. Johnston

Conclusion : finding an appropriate(d) voice.

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [167]-179 ) and index.

ISBN:

1-282-86290-1

9786612862908

0-7735-7222-8

OCLC:

923232739