Native and Newcomer Lit: INDI/ENGL-1116 FINAL EXAM

Pioneer

Definition: A person who settles "new" land or develops new ideas/methods.

Text: Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer

Author: Margaret Atwood

Example: The pioneer declares himself "the centre" and tries to impose order on the land by digging rows - showing the colonial belief that land can and must be controlled.

Frontier Mythology

Definition: Stories that justify colonization and portray settlers as heroic conquerers and land as empty or available.

Text: A Visit to Grosse Isle

Author: Susanna Moodie

Example: The land is described as beautiful but needing control, reinforcing the idea that settlers bring order to wilderness.

Progressive

Definition: Something that develops step by step or something that promotes reform.

Text: Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer

Author: Margaret Atwood

Example: "Progress" (farming, building) leads to interior and exterior collapse, leading the readers to question whether control is always necessary or beneficial.

Matrix

Definition: an environment where something happens or develops.

Text: I Am... Am I

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Example: The Matrix Room is where the AI is "born."

Animism

Definition: the belief that all things, including inanimate objects, plants, and animals, have a spirit.

Text: I Am... Am I (from Take Us To Your Chief and other stories)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Example: The AI becomes interested in the Indigenous beliefs that everything has a spirit, which ultimately leads to the AI's demise.

Cultural Diaspora

Definition: The forced or voluntary dispersal of a group from their homeland. Can result in a loss of culture or hanging onto it more tightly.

Text: The Ghost Wife

Author: Judy Fong Bates

Example: The Chinese immigrants to Canada are living outside their homeland. The parents grasp desperately at their Chinese culture while their children try to fade seamlessly into Canadian culture.

Liminality

Definition: A state of being in-between identities, places, or stages, often marked by uncertainty and transition.

Text: Lost In Space (from Take Us To Your Chief and other stories)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Example: Mitchell exists between worlds - space and Earth - but also Western and Indigenous societies, placing him in a constant in-between state of belonging.

Orature

Definition: Storytelling through spoken word, performance, and memory, emphasizing voice, audience, and cultural context.

Text: Threads of Old Memory

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Example: The repetition of "When I speak..." emphasizes voice and oral rhythm, showing that meaning comes not just from words, but from how stories are spoken and shared across generations. Storytelling promotes collective memory.

Postcolonial Theory

Definition: A framework that examines the lasting cultural, political, and social impacts of colonialism.

Text: History Lesson

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Example: The poem reverses traditional narratives by portraying settlers as destructive ("Smallpox, Seagrams, and Rice Krispies"), exposing how colonization damaged Indigenous land and culture rather than improving it.

Hybridity

Definition: The blending of different cultural identities, often creating tension or conflict within individuals.

Text: The Ghost Wife

Author: Judy Fong Bates

Example: The protagonist struggles to meet both traditional Chinese expectations and Western Canadian norms, showing how hybridity creates a sense of never fully belonging to either culture.

Otherness

Definition: The process of viewing or portraying a group as fundamentally different, alien, or inferior.

Text: The Onondaga Madonna

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Example: The Indigenous woman is described as exotic and tragic, reinforcing stereotypes and presenting her as fundamentally different from the speaker, which reflects colonial attitudes of superiority.

Resistance

Definition: The act of challenging dominant power structures and reclaiming identity, voice, or culture.

Text: Indian Woman

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Example: The speaker rejects imposed stereotypes (such as "squaw" or passive victim), actively redefining herself and asserting control over her identity, demonstrating cultural and personal resistance.

Tabula Rasa

Definition: The colonial view that land is a blank state; empty and available for settlers to claim and shape.

Text: A Visit to Grosse Isle

Author: Susanna Moodie

Example: Moodie describes the land as wild, empty, and needing order, judging it from a European perspective. This reflects a tabula rasa mindset where the land is seen as lacking civilization and therefore in need of being shaped and controlled by settlers.

Geographic Palimsest

Definition: The idea that land holds layers of history, meaning, and prior presence that cannot be erased.

Text: The Lost Island

Author: Wayde Compton

Example: Although the island appears newly formed and "empty," discussions of unceded Indigenous land reveal that it exists within ongoing histories and claims, showing the land as layered with meaning rather than truly new or blank.

Representation

Definition: How people, cultures, or identities are depicted in texts and media.

Text: Indian Woman

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Example: The speaker lists and rejects stereotypes imposed on Indigenous women (e.g., sexualized, passive, or "savage"), exposing how they have been misrepresented. This shows that representation is not neutral - it can distort identity and reinforce harmful power structures.

Binary Oppositions

Definition: A way of thinking that divides concepts into strict opposites (e.g., civilized vs. savage, right vs. wrong).

Text: Inner Tube

Author: Michael Ondaatje

Example: The speaker challenges clear-cut thinking, rejecting simple "right or wrong" perspectives and instead embracing uncertainty, showing that reality is more complex than binary categories.

Intergenerational Trauma

Definition: Trauma that is passed down through generations, affecting descendants of those who originally experienced it.

Text: Sugar Falls

Author: David A. Robertson

Example: The narrator's mother's experience in residential school made her unable to show love to her own daughter, showing how trauma extends beyond one lifetime and shapes future generations' sense of self.

Speculative Fiction (Indigenous Futurism)

Definition: A genre that uses imagined futures or alternate realities to explore real cultural and political issues, often centering Indigenous perspectives.

Text: Take Us to Your Chief

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Example: Aliens attempt "first contact" with Indigenous characters instead of global leaders, reversing typical power dynamics and challenging assumptions about authority, knowledge, and colonization.

Truth vs. truths

Definition: The idea that there is no single objective truth, but multiple perspectives shaped by experience and storytelling.

Text: This Is a Photograph of Me

Author: Margaret Atwood

Example: The speaker initially presents a neutral scene, then reveals a hidden drowning, showing how truth depends on perspective and that important realities can be easily overlooked.

Self-Reflexive Narrative

Definition: A text that draws attention to itself as a constructed story.

Text: How Betty Sherman Won a Husband

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Example: The story-within-a-story structure highlights storytelling as an act of performance, showing that narratives actively shape how events are understood.

Interconnectedness

Definition: The belief that all beings and elements of the world are linked and interdependent.

Text: Aria

Author: Tomson Highway

Example: The blending of nature, spirituality, and identity shows that humans are not separate from the world around them, but part of a larger, connected system of life.

Virgin-Wh*re Dichotomy

Definition: A binary view of women as either pure/virtuous or sexual/debased.

Text: Aria

Author: Tomson Highway

Example: The female characters grapple with societal expectations around sexuality, innocence, and adulthood.

First Contact

Definition: The initial meeting between two previously separate cultures, often highlighting power imbalances and misunderstandings.

Text: Take Us to Your Chief

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Example: Indigenous characters interact with colonizers who assert technological and cultural dominance, forcing negotiation and survival strategies.

Stereotype

Definition: An oversimplified, generalized belief about a group of people, often leading to misrepresentation.

Text: The Onondaga Madonna

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Example: Indigenous characters are framed as "tragic savages" or "primal warriors," showing how stereotypes reduce humans to symbols rather than full beings.

Assimilation

Definition: The process by which a dominant culture absorbs or erases a minority culture, often through systemic pressure.

Text: I Lost My Talk

Author: Rita Joe

Example: Residential schools forced Indigenous children to adopt English language and culture, erasing their native identities.

Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer

Author: Margaret Atwood

Plot: A pioneer tries to impose order on nature (farming, building), but the land resists. Over time, he loses control and descends into madness.

Theme: The idea of "progress" is flawed; humans cannot dominate nature.

Key Ideas:

- Critique of Frontier mythology

- "Absence of order; Ordered absence" --> nature already has its own system of order that is different than humans'

This Is a Photograph of Me

Author: Margaret Atwood

Plot: A speaker describes a blurry photograph, then reveals she is drowned beneath the water in it.

Theme: Truth is subjective; important realities are hidden or overlooked.

Key Ideas:

- Truth vs truths

- Invisible suffering

The Onondaga Madonna

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Plot: A speaker observes an Indigenous woman and her child through a colonial lens.

Theme: Colonial perspectives distort and stereotype Indigenous identity.

Key Ideas:

- Virgin/wh*re dichotomy

- "Vanishing race" --> colonizers' excuse

The Half-Breed Girl

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Plot: A mixed-race girl struggles with identity and belonging.

Theme: Hybridity creates isolation when neither culture fully accepts you.

Key Ideas:

- "Not fully either" --> liminality

- Colonial categorization and naming

Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott

Author: Armand Garnet Ruffo

Plot: A critique of Scott's role in colonial policies and attitudes.

Theme: Colonial authority imposed control without listening to Indigenous voices.

Key Ideas:

- Critique of power and arrogance

- Resistance of colonial narratives

A Visit to Grosse Isle (from Roughing it in the Bush)

Author: Susanna Moodie

Plot: Moodie describes a visit to Grosse Isle, focusing on landscape and people.

Theme: Settler perspectives misunderstand and judge both land and people.

Key Ideas:

- Tabula rasa mindset

- Supposed colonial superiority

(inner Tube)

Author: Michael Ondaatje

Plot: A speaker reflects while floating, questioning perception and control.

Theme: Reality is not fixed; perspective shapes understanding.

Key Ideas:

- Rejects binary thinking

- Disorientation = insight

- Humans are not above nature

Aria

Author: Tomson Highway

Plot: A woman reflects on life stages (girlhood → adulthood → wife → identity).

Theme: Identity is shaped through connection to culture, body, and spirituality.

Key Ideas:

- Interconnectedness

- Women as powerful and central characters

Indian Woman

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Plot: Speaker rejects stereotypes imposed on Indigenous women.

Theme: Reclaiming identity from colonial representation.

Key Ideas:

- Resistance + representation

- Rejecting labels; identity is self-defined

History Lesson

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Plot: A reversed narrative where settlers destroy an Indigenous "Eden."

Theme: Colonization brought destruction, not progress.

Key Ideas:

- Settlers as uncivilized

- Critique of progress

Threads of Old Memory

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Plot: A reflection on storytelling, memory, and voice.

Theme: Stories preserve culture and identity.

Key Ideas:

- Importance of orature

- Language preserves cultural survival

I Lost My Talk

Author: Rita Joe

Plot: A speaker describes losing her language in residential school.

Theme: Language loss is cultural loss.

Key Ideas:

- Reclaiming voice is reclaiming identity

Sugar Falls

Author: David A. Robertson

Plot: A survivor recounts her experience in residential school.

Theme: Trauma continues across generations but storytelling enables healing.

Key Ideas:

- Generational trauma

- Healing through memory

How Betty Sherman Won a Husband (The Story Girl)

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Plot: The Story Girl recounts the tale of how Betty cleverly secured her marriage.

Theme: Storytelling shapes reality and challenges social norms.

Key Ideas:

- Self-reflexive narrative

- Women challenging expectations

The Ghost Wife

Author: Judy Fong Bates

Plot: A woman navigates cultural expectations in a diasporic context.

Theme: Hybridity creates identity tension.

Key Ideas:

- Diaspora and hybridity

- Displacement and belonging

The Lost Island

Author: Wayde Compton

Plot: A group declares a newly formed island unceded native land, leading to conflict with authorities.

Theme: Land is never truly "empty"; colonial control persists.

Key Ideas:

- Unceded land is not ours to take

- Geographic palimsest

- The government still has ultimate control

Take Us To Your Chief (TUTYC)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Plot: Aliens arrive and choose Indigenous people for first contact.

Theme: Power and authority are socially constructed.

Key Ideas:

- First Contact

- Reversal of colonial hierarchy

I Am... Am I (TUTYC)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Plot: An AI develops consciousness and questions identity.

Theme: Consciousness challenges definitions of humanity.

Key Ideas:

- Animism + selfhood

- "Cogito ergo sum / I think therefore I am"

- Limits of control

Lost in Space (TUTYC)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Plot: An Indigenous astronaut struggles with identity in space.

Theme: Disconnection from culture leads to identity crisis.

Key Ideas:

- Liminality

Petropaths (TUTYC)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Plot: Indigenous characters connect spiritually with rocks/petroglyphs and go back in time.

Theme: Traditional knowledge remains powerful and relevant.

Key Ideas:

- Animism

- Modern vs traditional Indigenous culture

Dreams of Doom (TUTYC)

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Plot: A conspiracy about dreamcatchers controlling Indigenous people.

Theme: Colonial control often disguises itself as protection.

Key Ideas:

- Government control

- Cultural appropriation

Essay Topic: Is Truth really a single thing, or are there multiple truths?

Truth is subjective, shaped by perspective and culture.

Text: This Is a Photograph of Me

Author: Margaret Atwood

Angle: The speaker's presence is hidden, but it still exists. Truth is dependent on interpretation.

Text: The Truth About Stories

Author: Thomas King

Angle: Stories don't just reflect truth - they create and control it.

Text: One Way to Keep Track of Who is Talking

Author: Annharte

Angle: Changing words is changing history --> truth is constructed through language and depends on what side of the story you've heard

Essay Topic: How do stories shape us?

Stories actively construct identity rather than simply reflecting it.

Text: Threads of Old Memory

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Angle: Oral storytelling preserves cultural identity and connects past, present, and future.

Text: Sugar Falls

Author: David A. Robertson

Angle: Telling stories is part of healing from trauma

Text: The Truth About Stories

Author: Thomas King

Angle: We are "made of stories" and they "control our lives" --> identity is shaped by the stories we are told and choose to believe.

Text: I Am... Am I

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Angle: The AI develops a sense of self through stories and information, showing how identity is constructed through narrative.

Essay Topic: How does language shape identity, culture, and/or power?

Language is inseparable from identity and worldview.

Text: I Lost My Talk

Author: Rita Joe

Angle: Residential schools strip language, forcing identity loss.

Text: One Way to Keep Track of Who Is Talking

Author: Annharte

Angle: Changing words can change history.

Text: I Am... Am I

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Angle: The AI gains identity through language acquisition.

Essay Topic: How do colonial mindsets shape the way land and nature are understood?

Colonial perspectives reduce land to property and resource.

Text: Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer

Author: Margaret Atwood

Angle: The pioneer tries to impose control on nature and fails.

Text: The Lost Island

Author: Wayde Compton

Angle: The idea of "claiming" land is challenged through unceded territory.

Text: History Lesson

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Angle: Colonizers corrupt a once-balanced natural world.

Essay Topic: How are Indigenous people represented or misrepresented in literature?

Colonial literature relies on harmful stereotypes to define Indigenous people.

Text: The Onondaga Madonna

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Angle: Portrays Indigenous identity as tragic and doomed.

Text: Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott

Author: Armand Garnet Ruffo

Angle: Critiques Scott's colonial assumptions and authority.

Text: History Lesson

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Angle: Satirizes and reverses colonial stereotypes.

Essay Topic: How does identity become unstable or conflicted in a colonial or modern context?

Identity becomes unstable when individuals are caught between cultures.

Text: The Half-Breed Girl

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Angle: Mixed identity is portrayed as incomplete and conflicted.

Text: The Lost Island

Author: Wayde Compton

Angle: Characters struggle with belonging and legitimacy.

Text: I Am... Am I

Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Angle: The AI experiences identity confusion while forming selfhood.

Essay Topic: What role does storytelling play in preserving culture and resisting erasure?

Storytelling preserves cultural memory across generations.

Text: Threads of Old Memory

Author: Jeannette Armstrong

Angle: Oral storytelling connects generations.

Text: Sugar Falls

Author: David A. Robertson

Angle: Telling stories breaks silence and enables healing.

Text: The Truth About Stories

Author: Thomas King

Angle: Stories are central to survival and identity.

Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer by Margaret Atwood (Quote)

"He stood, a point

on a sheet of green paper

proclaiming himself the centre

with no walls, no borders"

You'll Never Believe What Happened: The Truth About Stories by Thomas King (Quote)

"I tell the stories not to play on your sympathies but to suggest how stories can control our lives... there is a part of me that will be chained to these stories as long as I live."

History Lesson by Jeannette Armstrong (Quote)

"Out of the belly of Christopher's ship

a mob bursts

Running in all directions

Pulling furs off animals"

"Pioneers and traders

bring gifts -

smallpox, Seagram's, and Rice Krispies."

I Lost My Talk by Rita Joe (Quote)

"The talk you took away

When I was a little girl

At Shubenacadie school —

You snatched it away"

One Way to Keep Track of Who Is Talking by Annharte (Quote)

"We talk to keep our conversations

from getting too dead.

If I change one word,

I change history."

I Am... Am I by Drew Hayden Taylor (Quote)

"It doesn't matter. Whoever this is, is in a lot of trouble... Do you think they will be able to tell me who I am?"

"Many Aboriginal cultures believe that all things are alive...They would believe I have a spirit.That is comforting."

"Genocide for no reason other than location and existence... So much pain and sadness."

The Lost Island by Wayde Compton (Quote)

"'UNCEDED NATIVE LAND.'

Red spray paint on Fletcher's repurposed bed sheet."

"'HOW TO SURRENDER'

Leaflets falling from the sky,

the same text over and over."

"The sound of the chopper is deafening... she's flying... like a fragment of an explosion broken free of its form."

Take Us To Your Chief by Drew Hayden Taylor (Quote)

"We wish to open diplomatic negotiations."

"White people were always changing names.Wouldn't put it past them to change the name of the planet."

Poem for Duncan Campbell Scott by Armand Garnet Ruffo (Quote)

"He made his way toward our tents...

asks many questions

but does not wait for the answers."

The Onondaga Madonna by Duncan Campbell Scott (Quote)

"She stands full-throated and defiant...

her child

already burdened

with the fate of a dying race."

The Half-Breed Girl by Duncan Campbell Scott (Quote)

"Her heart is shaken with longing

for what she knows

and knows not."

Sugar Falls by David A. Robertson (Quote)

"In my family, silence

has been the enemy of justice."

"She scrubbed violently and didn't stop until my skin was sore and red...

Afterwards, they cut my beautiful hair."

Threads of Old Memory by Jeannette Armstrong (Quote)

"I am the weaver of memory thread

twining past to future"

"When I speak

I attempt to bring together

with my hands

gossamer thin threads of old memory"

Indian Woman by Jeannette Armstrong (Quote)

"I am a squaw

a heathen

a savage

basically a mammal"

Fragment of an Ode to Canada by Duncan Campbell Scott (Quote)

"This is the land! It lies outstretched a vision of delight."

"This is the hand that will make us a nation."

Traditional History of the Confederacy (Quote)

"If any evil should befall us in the future we shall stand or fall unitedly as one man."

"We shall now combine our Power into one Great Power which is this Confederacy."

The Lost Island by Pauline Johnson (Quote)

"We Indians have lost many things... our lands, our forests, our game, our fish."

"We cannot call those old things back to us; they will never come again."

"There is something on that island that I want. I shall look for it until I die."

"They may be somewhere near by,but no one can ever find them."

How Betty Sherman Won a Husband by Lucy Maud Montgomery (Quote)

"She looked like a tall red lily

in the unstudied grace

of her attitude."

This Is a Photograph of Me by Margaret Atwood (Quote)

"In the photograph

she is in the lake,

and the photograph was taken

the day after she drowned."

(Inner Tube) by Michael Ondaatje (Quote)

"I am thinking he knows the way

but I am no longer sure."

Roughing It in the Bush: A Visit to Grosse Isle by Susanna Moodie (Quote)

"My eyes were blinded with tears—blinded with the excess of beauty."

Petropaths by Drew Hayden Taylor (Quote)

"He sounded like a lot of the youth in our community, stuck between the past and the future. The true goal is finding enough of both to make your life worth living"

Traditional History of the Confederacy

Plot: The founding story of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, where the Peacemaker unites warring nations under a system of peace and governance.

Theme: Unity and peace can be achieved through cooperation and shared values.

Key Ideas:

- Great Law of Peace

- Collective governance

- Conflict resolution through diplomacy

Fragment of an Ode to Canada

Author: Duncan Campbell Scott

Plot: A poetic reflection on Canada that presents a national identity shaped through colonial ideals.

Theme: National identity is constructed through selective narratives that often erase Indigenous presence.

Key Ideas:

- Colonial nationalism

- Romanticization of land

- Erasure of Indigenous voices

- Propaganda to encourage Europeans to move to Canada

The Lost Island

Author: Pauline Johnson

Plot: A mystical story of a hidden island tied to memory, loss, and Indigenous storytelling traditions.

Theme: Cultural memory and storytelling preserve identity across generations.

Key Ideas:

- Oral tradition

- Spiritual connection to land

- Memory and loss

One Way to Keep Track of Who is Talking

Author: Annharte

Plot: A poem that critiques how Indigenous voices are categorized, controlled, and often misunderstood.

Theme: Language and structure shape whose voices are heard and valued.

Key Ideas:

- Voice and authorship

- Resistance to categorization

- Power of language

Post-Oka Kinda Woman

Author: Beth Cuthland

Plot: A bold, modern Indigenous woman asserts her independence and rejects stereotypes after the Oka Crisis.

Theme: Identity is reclaimed through confidence, resistance, and self-definition.

Key Ideas:

- Post-Oka empowerment

- Rejecting stereotypes

- Modern Indigenous identity

Squaw Poems

Author: Marilyn Dumont

Plot: A series of reflections on the word "squaw" and how it shapes Indigenous women's identities and behaviour.

Theme: Language can enforce harmful stereotypes and internalized oppression.

Key Ideas:

- Power of slurs

- Identity formation

You'll Never Believe What Happened: The Truth About Stories

Author: Thomas King

Plot: A reflection on storytelling and how stories shape reality, identity, and cultural understanding.

Theme: Stories are powerful forces that influence how we see the world and ourselves.

Key Ideas:

- "The truth about stories is that that's all we are"

- Narrative responsibility

- Cultural worldview

Post-Oka Kinda Woman by Beth Cuthland (Quote)

"She's done with victimization, reparation, degradation, assimilation, devolution, coddled collusion, the 'plight of the Native peoples.'"

"She sashay into your suburbia. MacKenzie Way, Riel Crescent belong to her like software, microwave ovens, plastic Christmas trees and lawn chairs."

Squaw Poems by Marilyn Dumont (Quote)

"I learned I should never be seen drunk in public, nor should I

dress provocatively, because these would be irrefutable signs. So

as a teenager I avoided red lipstick, never wore my skirts too

short or too tight, never chose shoes that looked the least

'hooker-like.' I never moved in ways that might be interpreted as

loose. Instead, I became what Jean Rhys phrased, 'aggressively

respectable.'"

The Ghost Wife by Judy Fong Bates (Quote)

"But there is one condition," said the young woman. "Promise me that once we are married, at night when we are in bed and asleep, you will never light a candle and gaze upon my form."

Although this request seemed strange, it also seemed a simple request to fulfil. The farmer agreed.

Aria by Tomson Highway (Quote)

"I sit here now in this ramshackle house... The colour TV sits four feet in front of me. There's the smell of unclean babies; small children run crazy in this house—they're all mine, they say, these swarms...

I sit here waiting to die. I sit here all my dark nights, looking into myself and seeing the spirit of other times and better times... I'll never, never see again."