Canadian Literature and Film

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Canadian Literature and Film

• 2003 S
• Final Exam

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OutlineMajor Themes

• A. Nation and Global Culture
• B. Life its Stages and Survival
• Survival and its Representation
• Women
• After trauma ? a sense of community
• Minorities 1. The Caribbean 2. The Japanese
• C. Race and Gender, Body and Language

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A. Nation Global Culture

• How is Canada presented in two of the following
  texts? (By drawing boundaries or showing the lack
  of them? By defining certain Canadian character?
  Presenting an allegory of its relations with the
  U.S. in terms of gender relations? Or by showing
  the various people in it?)
• Denys Arcand's The Decline of the American Empire
  (1986) M. Atwood "Tricks with Mirror"Earle
  Birney's "Can. Lit." Ray Smith's "Cape Breton is
  the Thought Control Centre of Canada."

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A. Nation Global Culture

• 2. How do the following two films present and
  comment on global cultures (supermodel media,
  advertisement and Disney)? What roles do Canadian
  artists play in the films?
• Denys Arcand's Stardom (2000) Jill Sharpe's
  Culture Jam

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Global Culture

• Perspectives of media culture, not really
  perspectives of the world.
• It controls us. e.g. Disney,
• Means of spreading global culture e.g. TV.
• Products of media Tina Menzel
• Minoritys stances controlled, we have the
  spaces within to resist.
• Nothing outside of media e.g. Were always
  within the TV frames BLF has to clean up what
  they produce.

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Global Culture

• The role of Canadian artists
• Tina assimilated and absorbed by the American
  (not French) global culture.
• In Culture Jam, small but subversive actions.
• In Stardom,
• the director played by Robert Lepage following
  Tina 24/7, he believes that nothing exists
  outside of media.
• Through the camera, he still shows his concern
  for Tina.

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3.

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B. Life its Stages and Survival

• 4. Stages in Life -- The following texts, in one
  way or another, deal with different stages of
  human life (beginnings, initiation, endings) on a
  realistic level as well as symbolically. Choose
  two to discuss how they present one stage of life
  realistically as well as symbolically. (Pay close
  attention to the techniques--e.g. narrative
  perspectives, camera angles, etc.--they use too.)
• Cynthia Scott's The Company of Strangers, Don
  McKellar's Last Night Alice Munro's "The Found
  Boat" Jeremy Podeswa The Five Senses

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Stages of Life

• Natural process with different social rituals and
  different ways of communication
• The Five Senses and their dysfunction
• Rachel eyes
• Middle-Aged The doctor (ears)? there are other
  languages The message therapy (touch)
• the homosexual cleaner (smell) The cook (taste)

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Stages of Life

• Old people in The Company of Strangers
• Experience physical and mental aging
• A lot of stories to tell.
• Why a new beginning?

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Stages of Life

• Last Night
• Old people review life
• The young decide to have funs not afraid of
  death
• Sandra chooses her way of death
• A new beginning?

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B. Life its Stages and Survival

• 3. Survival --For Margaret Atwood, survival of
  the victims is one theme typical of Canadian
  literature and culture. How is this theme treated
  in the following texts? Choose two to compare.
  (For example what ordeals or traumas they
  experience and how/whether they survive them, and
  how they heal/support themselves or each other.)
• Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient Joy
  Kogawa's Obasan, Jeremy Podeswa's The Five Senses
  and Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter Helen
  Lee's "Prey" Clement Virgo's Rude Austin
  Clarke's"Canadian Experience."

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1. Speaker What about the new shoes, we have ten
seconds left, tell us about the new shoes.
Woman I looked down and I remembered thinking,

• why would he kill himself if he had on brand new
  shoes,

why would he buy new shoes if he was going to
kill himself?
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2. And you lie there, passive and violated,
feeling like someone told you you were going to
win an award, and then you didn't get it.

• Except the award was your dignity, your sanity,
  your middle class inviolability.

• It was taken away and given to someone else who
  never made the mistake of going to a hotel room
  in a strange place with a strange man.

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2 And all you were worried about was how to get
out of there with your luggage intact,

• how to avoid upsetting this man who not only had
  a black belt in Tai Kwon Do but also had your
  ticket for the boat out of that nightmare
  land,and how to get somewhere safe to sleep. God,
  you wanted to sleep, so bad. . . So, you take a
  picture of yourself so that you can remember what
  the Mona Lisa looks like when she realizes
  Leonardo is just another letch.

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2 You go home, and get on your bed, and Ross
takes a picture of you. You lie there, small and
helpless and black and white. And it looks like
this
And you think, wow, pictures don't tell you
anything.
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4. I wonder if you realize that all of us -
Dolores, me, the children who survived, the
children who didn't that we're all citizens of a
different town now, where waters gushed and fruit
trees grew, and everything is strange and new. .
.

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4.

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6.

• 6. "We die containing a richness of lovers and
  tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have
  plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom,
  characters we have climbed into as if trees,
  fears we have hidden in as if caves. . . . I
  believe in such cartography--to be marked by
  nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like
  the names of rich men and women on buildings. We
  are communal histories, communal books."  

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7.

• 7. " Peter wasn't trying to destroy you. .
  .Actually you were trying to destroy him."I had
  a sinking feeling. "Is that true?" I asked.. .
  ."But the real truth is that it wasn't Peter at
  all. It was me. I was trying to destroy you." I
  gave a nervous laugh. "Don't say that.""Okay,"
  he said, "ever eager to please. Maybe Peter was
  trying to destroy me, or maybe I was trying to
  destroy him, or we were both trying to destroy
  each other, how's that? What does it matter. . .
  you're a consumer."

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5.

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8. The square woman farther down the slope moves
up towards me from under the curly-branched
trees.

• One of her arms is now connected to her shoulder
  by four hooks locked to make a hinge. It dangles
  there as she approaches. She begins to speak but
  the words are so old they cannot be understood.
  There is a calmness in her face as she recites an
  ancient mythical contract made between herself
  and the man so long ago the language has been
  forgotten. . . . . The dream changes now and
  Uncle stands in the depth of the forest. He bows
  a deep ceremonial bow. In his mouth is a red red
  rose with an endless stem. He turns around slowly
  in a flower dance--a ritual of the dead. Behind
  him, someone--I do not know who--is straining to
  speak, but rapidly, softly, a cloud overtakes
  everything. Is it the British officer . . . ?

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C. Race and Gender, Body and Language

• 5. Body, Race and Gender -- Why does Eisha
  Marjara refuse to eat in "Desperately Seeking
  Helen"? And how about Marian in Margaret Atwood's
  The Edible Woman? Compare their reasons and their
  ways of overcoming their food rejection.

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C. Race and Gender, Body and Language

• 6. Language and Racial Identity-- The issues of
  language concern minority writers/filmmakers a
  lot for instance, they or their characters have
  to struggle between their mother tongue(s) and
  English, over their lack of either one, as well
  as through the difficulties in speech,
  communication and the necessity of silence.
  Frequently these conflicts influence their sense
  of identity and their social positions. Choose
  two of the following texts and discuss the
  language issues they deal with.
• Joy Kogawa's Obasan Helen Lee's "Prey" Mina
  Shum's Double Happiness M. Nourbese Philip's
  "Discourse on the Logic of Language," "Universal
  Grammar" Laiwan's "The Imperialism of Syntax"