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| Mixed Authors: Canadian Short Stories
Mixed Authors: Canadian Short Stories
English Main Topic
Canadian Short Stories
Peter Reich-Rohrwig, 8B
An Overview of Canadian History
Around the year 1000 Vikings landed on the eastern
coast of Canada, nearly five hundred years before the official discovery of the
New World by Columbus. A reconstruction of a settlement of thatched houses in
Newfoundland is a reminder of these first European settlers on the North
American continent.
Five years later, in 1497, the Italian Giovanni Caboto
(John Cabot) who was in the employ of the English King Henry VII, travelled
round the coast of what later became the Atlantic Provinces and claimed them for
England.
In the 1630`s, Jacques Cartier claimed the area around
what was to become Quebec as French territory. Another seventy years would go
by, however, before the first French settlement would be established in Port
Royal. From the early 17th century onwards French explorers pressed
further into the interior of the country, looking for new shores, while English
marines sailed round the north of America unaware.
The British fur trading company, the Hudson`s Bay
Company, founded in 1670 under English royal patronage, put a stop to the
uncontrolled French colonisation of Canada, and brought the entire countryside
in its area under its control. Battles between the two sides over land rights,
spheres of influence, and rights to hunting and fishing grounds, became the norm
over the next one hundred years, until the Treaty of Paris in 1736 settled
ownership issues in North America once and for all.
Although the majority of the population was clearly
French, Canada fell to Britain. The Quebec Act of 1774 merely guaranteed the
French cultural autonomy under British sovereignty. The English-speaking
Canadians were joined by more fellow countrymen following the American War of
Independence, when many Britons loyal to the mother country left the
newly-formed United States of America. The old French Province of Quebec divided
into the Anglophile Upper Canada and the Francophile Lower Canada (the
modern-day Provinces of Ontario and Quebec).
In the last war on Canadian soil, the British-American
War of 1812 - 1814, a number of skirmishes took place on different fronts. The
ensuing peace treaty fixed the actual border between the two provinces at the
49th Parallel. Towards the end of the 18th and the
beginning of the 19th century, explorers like Alexander Mackenzie,
Simon Fraser and David Thompson, in the employ of fur trading companies, opened
the gateway to the west, up distant rivers and unknown paths. By the first half
of the 19th century the fur trade had reached its apex and was a
lucrative business for the white, for whom the Indians acted as suppliers and
merchants in the wilderness.
The Dominion of Canada was founded in 1867, with the
Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. Politically, the
new country enjoyed internal self-government, but it was firmly tied to its
distant but immensely powerful motherland insofar as trade was concerned. Two
years later, Canada acquired the landholdings of the Hudson`s Bay Company, the
so-called Rupert`s Land. This area became the Western provinces of Manitoba
(1870), Alberta and Saskatchewan (1905) as we know them today.
In 1885 the Canadian Pacific Railway achieved the
first transcontinental railway link between the east and west coasts of this
vast country and triggered off the rush to settle the Pacific Province of
British Columbia. The Statute of Westminster in 1931 conferred on Canada
complete autonomy from the motherland of Great Britain. Newfoundland joined the
Dominion of Canada in 1949 as the tenth and last province, whilst the huge area
of the northern territories (the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories),
which are largely inhabited by Inuit and Indians, also came under the rule of
Ottawa, the federal capital.
In the 1960`s Canada saw a resurgence of conflict
between its French- and English-speaking people. The Separatist Movement of
Quebec was rekindled after a visit to Montreal by the French President Charles
de Gaulle, who supported a free Quebec. As a result, countless businesses moved
their headquarters from French-speaking Montreal to English-speaking Toronto,
which rapidly became the largest Canadian city. The election of Pierre Trudeau
in 1968 brought bilingualism to Canada and greater autonomy to the provinces.
Calls for independence for Quebec gradually waned.
In 1982 the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II,
signed the Constitution Act, thus severing the last legal tie between Canada and
Great Britain. Since 1968 every change to the Constitution had required British
consent. Canada, however, remains a member of the Commonwealth and Elizabeth II
remains the sovereign.
The 1990`s have brought enormous political changes to
Canada. The US-Canadian Free Trade Agreement allows the unimpeded trade of goods
and services between the two countries.
The Inuit and Indians as native Canadians are
demanding greater political rights.
And the Quebec Separatist Movement is again raising
its head in strident tone. The French province is insisting on constitutional
recognition as a distinct society with overriding political rights, but it has
so far failed to carry it through.
General Features of Short
Stories:
A short story contains some of these elements. It need
not to contain all.
- limited number of
characters
- short time span
- one main action
- limited places of
action
- characters are not fully
developed
- open ending
- no exposition - text starts
with the action itself
- special event in the life of
the characters
Selected Short Stories:
Margaret ATWOOD: Scarlet Ibis
Margaret ATWOOD: Significant Moments in the Life of My
Mother
Margaret ATWOOD: The Little Red Hen Tells
All
Alistair MACLEOD: The Return
Joyce MARSHALL: Old Woman
Scarlet Ibis
(Margaret Atwood)
Summary
Christine, Don and their youngest four-year-aged
daughter Lilian spend their vacation in Trinidad. Don is exhausted and irritable
because of his work. But the holidays are not that relaxing for him. His wife
feels a pressure he is under. And she thinks she the pressure. Christine tries
to plan activities for the three of them. One day she suggested to go to a place
where red birds called Ibises can be watched. They take a taxi to the swamp
where the birds live. There the meet other people who want to watch the Ibises.
Together with all kinds of tourists they make a boat trip in the swamp in order
to get to the roosting area of the birds. Suddenly the boat crashes against the
root of a mangrove and the boat springs a leak. But the Indian who is steering
goes on as if nothing has happened. The passengers try to put the water away
using beer cans without success. So a woman sits down on the hole to prevent the
water from coming in. When they reach their destination they watch the Ibises
flying. Don is very impressed, he even takes his wife’s
hand.
Every time Christine tells this adventure to
somebody she presented it as a form of entertainment.
Interpretation
Margaret Atwood shows the crisis of a couple. The
wife tries to help her exhausted husband to relax. But she does not have much
success. Her husband, her daughter and she herself do not enjoy their vacation.
When she plans the boat trip to the Ibises she hopes to get some relaxation. But
the tour seems to become a horror trip. The boat leaks, it starts to rain and
the steering Indian does not want to return. But for a moment she has reached
what she want: Her husband takes her hand for no reason. Only because he is so
impressed. But the end of the story shows the family acting as before: The wife
tells their adventure as a normal entertainment trip.
Form and Style
The story is told by a third-person narrator. He
portrays what the family do and what they think. He focuses on Christine. He
shows her feelings and motivations.
The story is written in formal English. The author
wrote a short exposition: He introduces the family and describes where they
are.
Significant Moments in the Life of My
Mother
(Margaret Atwood)
Summary
A daughter tells some details about her mother’s life, especially about
her childhood. So I will give some examples:
For example when the mother is only a few years old she is given a basket full
of baby chicks for Easter. She loves them to dead because she does not know how
the raise and look after them.
The mother’s father is a country doctor. His
office is in their house. So the mother often sees people with cut off fingers,
hands, toes and so on. Because of this experiences with illnesses she advises
her children never getting ill. And she also hardly becomes ill. But once she
almost dies because her appendix burst. Her father has to do the operation
although he does not like to do it because she is his daughter. That is one of
the few weaknesses the mother admit her father has.
Once the narrator’s grandfather and one of
his brothers invest money in muskrats. The want to breed them and sell their
furs. But an apple farmer washes his spraying equipment upstream and the
muskrats are poisoned.
Another episode is about playing with urine
samples: The mother and one of her sisters takes bottles with yellow liquid and
plays in their tree house with them. As punishment their are
beaten.
When the mother was 16 she has her hair very long.
Her father does not allow her to let it cut. So she asks him if she may cut it
while he is at the dentist’s and has tooth-ache. The daughter also tells
that her father was upset when she let cut his hair.
When the mother was 17 she started teaching in
school in Truro. She boards with a family with several sons more or less in
their age. One of their amusements is performing theatre. For on play the need a
cat. So the take the family cat. Then one of the sons drives her to the place
where they are performing. On the way their the cat urinates on the
mother’s skirt. She is very embarrassed but she does not talk with the guy
about that.
Interpretation:
The daughter describes her mother by telling
episodes her mother often tells. So she shows how the mother behaves. She shows
how much she loves and admires her mother. And she describes how life was when
her mother was young. She sometimes compares her mother and her life by telling
stories her mother often tells and by remembering how mother cares about her.
Form and Style:
The frame of the story is told by a first-person
narrator. The woman who is the narrator tells episodes of her mothers life. She
tells them as a limited third-person-narrator. She only knows what her mother
told her but she also interprets the stories and give her own
opinions.
The story is written in upper colloquial English.
The author sometimes uses direct speech. The author jumps between several
episodes of the mother’s life and the explanations and the point of view
of the daughter. But he does not jump between episodes that happens earlier and
episodes that happens later.
The Little Red Hen Tells All
(Margaret Atwood)
Summary
A Hen finds a Grain of wheat. She asked the other
animals if they can help her planting the crop. But every animal refuses. So she
plants it without support. She waters it. She guards it during day and night.
And it grows. And makes more wheat of it. So she plants these crops and cares
about them. Finally she gets enough wheat for a loaf of bread. After she has
baked the loaf she asked the other animals if they will help her eating the
bread. And everybody wants to. They ask the hen, write petitions to her. And
then they become depressed and accuse her of selfishness. They say she can bake
more bread. So the hen apologizes for having the idea of baking the bread, for
her luck, for being a good cook, for being a hen. And she offers them her
bread.
Interpretation
This parable shows the problems women still face in
our world: Nobody wants to support them, but after the work is done everybody
want to have the fruits. They even accuses the hen of not having done
enough.
Margaret Atwood retells the well-known children tale.
But she makes the hen to a woman. She tries to show the attitude our society
have towards women.
Form and Style:
The story is told by a first-person narrator. The
hen describes the situation she is in and how it has developed. The author
starts with the end: She tells that everybody wants to have the bread. In the
second paragraph she shows the development. In the third the hen
apologizes.
The narrator enlightens what happens. She talks to
the reader. She uses direct speech to talking with the other
animals.
The story is written in colloquial
English.
The Return
(Alistair MacLeod)
Summary
Angus, his wife Mary and their son Alex are going
from Montreal to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia where Alex grew up by train. They
want to see Angus’ family whom Alex does not know. Mary does not like it
because she thinks their son can be badly influenced there.
At the railway station they are picked up by two of
Angus’ brothers. They bring them to their parents. Alex has never met his
grandparents before. Angus talks with his father about his relationship two his
parents-in-law.
The next day Alex is introduced to some of his
cousins. Together they go to the town. When two older boys threaten Alex because
of his neat clothes his cousins defend him because he is one of their
clan.
Another day Angus and Alex visits Alex grandfather
at work. He is a coal mine worker as most people living on the
island.
When they have to leave to Montreal the
grandparents say to Alex that he is their only grandchild they will never
know.
Interpretation:
The story shows deep emotions. Angus parents think
in the old Gaelic clan system. They think the have lost Angus to his
family-in-law. Angus likes his parents and the place where he grew up. But he
cannot live there know. He has changed to much. Now he feels a little bit like
his wife.
The story illustrates one great problem of the
large country: Families are separated. Alex does not know his father parents for
ten years. He had now chance to meet them before because they live very far
away. The story also illustrates the differences between the educated people
living in an urban environment and the worker milieu in the
country.
Form and Style:
The story is told by a limited first-person
narrator: By Alex. He reports everything he hears, but he does not understand
the connections.
The story is written in standard English. This
shows Alex’ educational standard. The direct speech is adjusted to the
person talking.
Old Woman
(Joyce Marshall)
Summary
Molly and Todd married in England during the war.
He was there as a soldier. When Toddy went back to Canada Molly still stays in
England because she had to care about her mother.
Three years later she travels to her husband in
Canada. Together they go to their home in northern Quebec near to Missawani by
train. Molly realizes that Toddy has changed.
When they arrive their home Todd shows her
everything but the power plant he works in. He looks after the machines all day.
One week later he finally shows the power house to Mary.
After Mary has cleaned the whole house she starts
to be bored. She asks her husband if he can teach her how to drive the sleigh
but he always claims he has no time because of the machines.
One day a worker asks Molly if she can help his
wife who has problems with nursing their child. Molly knows what to do and so
she become a birth helper. Her husband does not want her to do that. He wants
her to stay at home all day.
One day he does not come home from the power house.
So Molly looks after him. She finds him with his machines. He seems to be one
with the machines. He does not react when Molly shouts his name. During the
years he has fallen in love with his machines. Now they are his
life.
Interpretation:
Todd has fallen in love with his machines. Now they
are his world. When people are lonely for years they forget real live. They
become like Toddy: Bushed. That is one of the problems of the country,
especially in the northern regions. People become strange.
The story illustrates the landscape of Canada. The
author often describes the beautiful country Molly sees.
Form and Style:
The story is told by a third-person narrator who reports Molly’s point of
view. It is written in standard English, even the direct speech.
There is no exposition. The story starts with some of Molly’s thoughts
during her trip to Missawani.
Canadian Short Stories:
According to Margaret Atwood Canadian short stories
does not distinguish from anyone’s else stories, if they are considered
individually. Together they are one whole body of work. Then a few
generalizations can be made: Many authors are women; there are many young
authors who started to write in the 60ies and 70ies; and the number of authors
in the western country is increasing.
The problem is: What is Canadian? What does the
Canadian nation distinguish from other nations? The answer is difficult. But it
is difficult for every country. In Europe countries can find their identity in
their history. The USA have their dream. Canada does not have a long own
history. And it does not have its own dream. Canada has stood between the
United Kingdom and the United States.
One typically feature for Canadian short stories are
the emotions shown. For example in ”Scarlet Ibis” the crisis of a
couple are illustrated very well.
Another feature is the landscape: Canada is a very
large country, and some parts have not been explored. Many authors describe the
landscapes their story take place.
Because of the low population loneliness is another
theme. For example in ”Old Woman” the man loves his machines more
than other human beings because he has been lonely a long time.
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