Transcript Document 7616037

Canadian Identities:
-- General Views
-- Its formation and Related Issues
1. Settlement Colonies
2. Language and Cultural Identity
3. Gender/Race Relations
4. Gender/Cultural Identity
-- From Two Solitudes to
Many: National Myths & Realities
Which of the following are Canadians?
Saturday Night Life:
Dan Aykroyd
Jim Carrey
MICHAEL J.
FOX
Keanu Reeve
Captain Kirk
Paul Anka, Neil Young,
Peter Jennings
k.d. Lang
ALANIS
MORISSETTE
Celine Dion
Megan Follow as
Anne of Green Gables
Pamela
Anderson Lee
Internet Jokes on
Cultural Differences
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Aussies: Dislike being mistaken for
Pommies (Brits) when abroad.
Canadians: Are rather indignant
about being mistaken for
Americans when abroad.
Americans: Encourage being
mistaken for Canadians when
abroad.
Brits: Can't possibly be mistaken
for anyone else when abroad.
Internet Jokes on
Cultural Differences
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Americans: Spell words differently,
but still call it "English".
Brits: Pronounce their words
differently, but still call it "English".
Canadians: Spell like the Brits,
pronounce like Americans.
Aussies: Add "G'day", "mate" and
a heavy accent to everything they
say.
Internet Jokes on Cultural
DifferencesAussies: Are extremely patriotic to
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their beer.
 Americans: Are flagwaving,anthem-singing, and
obsessively patriotic to the point of
blindness.
 Canadians: Can't agree on the
words to their anthem, when they
can be bothered to sing them.
 Brits: Do not sing at all but prefer a
large brass band to perform the
anthem.
General Themes (1): Settlement
Colonies
 Colonization 1:
invasion, exploitation
& cultural imposition
India: U.K. e.g. “moth” in
The God
the Caribbean: Holland,
Spain, France, U.K.
 Metaphor: Caliban
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Colonization 2:
Settlement
Canada: U. K.
Metaphor:Miranda
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Colonization 4: neocolonialism U.S.
Colonization 3 :
Internal
colonialism =
racism against the
immigrants; Quebec
Canadian History
 1534
--New France
 1670 -- Charles II of England
established HUDSON'S BAY
COMPANY
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1867 -- Canada become a confederation
of former colonies (The British North
America Act)
1947-- the creation of the status of
Canadian citizen
1967-- expo '67 in Montreal
1982-- The Constitution Act ended British
control over amendments to Canada's
Constitution.
1988-- Canadian Multiculturalism Act
General Themes (2):
Language & Cultural Identity/Hybridity
the Caribbean –
Indian
terms &
subcontinent
metaphor: creole;
 metaphor:
 Canada -metissage;
colors,
masala;
metaphor:
houses
and
midnight’s
mosaic
animals
children, god of
causes:
causes:
small things;
settlement +
cracking earth.
Europeans +
cultural
Africans + Asian
colonization +
indenture
 causes:
immigration +
laborers
language,
Multiculturalism
multiple
religion,
Act (1988)
invasion/
race and caste
e.g. “Syntax”
colonization;
Canadian Identity
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Compared with the States, it
merged quite late, slowly and
peacefully in the 20th century.
Defined in contrast with the
Americans -- White North (but not
the West), Irony (but not
Innocence), victim mentality (but
not heroism), Mounties but not
cowboy, etc.
Charateristics (?): Gentleness +
violent hockey, Two solitudes.
General Themes (3-1):
gender relations
Marital & Social Relations:
 “Honor”; Fire
 Antoinette
 Allegory: The Adjuster, ,
The Handmaid’s Tale;
“Blossom”
General Themes (3-2):
race/gender (class) relations
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Race/Gender power
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 parallel: women as doublevictims (WSS; Earth)
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marriage as a constaint
(“Her Mother”; Annie John)
 opposite: Clare’s hunting
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experience (Abeng)
the Caribbeans in Toronto (Rude;
“Blossom”)
poverty, drug, sexism
inverse racism, defense mechanism &
survival skills
Canada’s national
identity//Gender
Atwood’s “Tricks
with Mirror”
Handmaid
General Themes (4):
gender/cultural identity & migration
1. A girl/child’s
growing process:
(education)
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SB, “Gainda,” “Her
Mother”
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SA, Antoinette,
Annie, Clare
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“The Found Boat”
2. Departure & Memory:
 Baggage, film screen
(“Imaginary Homeland”)
 Annie John
 “Self-Destruct” in Rude
 Photos; House burned
(The Adjuster)
3. fear, lack, and ways of resistance & selfassertion:
Clare, Antoinette
Handmaid, “Rain Child”
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From Two Solitudes to MANY:
National Myths & Racial
Realities
e.g. “Who Are We?”
"As Canadian as possible, . . .,
under the circumstances."
“The Canadian North”:
Its Myths and “Realities”
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The Group of Seven
Myth 1: Victim Mentality
“Garrison Mentality”
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“Victim Mentality” vs.
American individualism
e.g. Atwood在Survival中視加人
為自然力量的「集體受害者」，
e.g. “Can Lit.”
主張加拿大文學即是移民文學，
But who are
哀悼「離家及失落」。換言之，
by Earl Birney
the victims?
加拿大文學的「後殖民」主題
之一即是文化及地理上－－或
內在與外在－－的流離失所.
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Myth 2: Two Solitudes
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Duality -- caused by settler-colonization and
neo-colonialism
–French and English;
–British, American & “Canadian”
e.g. “Tricks with Mirrors”
• The victims are not necessarily
powerless.
• Interactions between the victimizer
and the victimized.
“Tricks with Mirrors” from
You Are Happy
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“November”
“Kill what you can’t save
what you can’t eat throw out
what you can’t throw out bury
What you can’t bury give away.”
What do the Mirrors mean here?
What tricks does the
mirror/speaker do to “you” with
mirrors?
“Tricks with Mirrors” from
You Are Happy
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Mirror:
Identity
narcissism, selfabsorption, entrapment, stasis.
Note: Atwood compares
writers to trickster.
“The trickster figure embodies
contradictions, often using
humor, parody, and satire to
expose hypocrisy and
pretension.
Myth 3: Mosaic and Multiculturalism
Immigrants to Canada
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V
e
r
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t
i
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c
a
l
Mosaic
Ghettoized?
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Early 20th century: Italians and
Jews discriminated against
the postwar new-comers: at first
mainly British, and then Dutch and
German
in the 1960s -- Mediterranean
peoples, notably Italians, Greeks
and Portuguese,
in the 1970s -- a steadily growing
number of Asians--from India and
China via Hong Kong especially
and of people of ultimately African
origin via the Caribbean.
Examples of SelfConscious Artists:
Laiwan
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Laiwan, born
in Zimbabwe,
of Chinese
origin;
emigrated to
Canada in
1977 to leave
the war in
Rhodesia.
http://www.belkin-gallery.ubc.ca/laiwan/
An Example of Multi-Media
Artists: Laiwan’s “The Imperialism of
Syntax”
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What does syntax mean?
What are the consequences
of “being subject” to
another’s syntax?
What are the speaker’s
ways of survival and
resisting the other’s syntax?
What are the differences
between the Chinese and
the English versions?
An Example of Multi-Media
Artists: Laiwan’s “The Imperialism of
Syntax”
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“subject” to their rules
Self-forgetting,
ridiculed
Talk back
Chinese: not mother
tongue, openness to
another interpretation
An Example of MultiMedia Artists: Laiwan
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ETHOS:
writing with
found
objects,
detail seven
panels of
laminated
Vancouver
bus
transfers,
1982
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http://collections.ic.gc.ca/waic/laiwan/laiwan02_e.htm