What is the issue of injustice in your novel?

 

The issue of injustice in “Monkey Beach” by Eden Robinson is trying to cope with the after math of having to live through a Canadian residential school. Surviving afterwards is tough. There were many rules and loads of punishments: physical abuse, sexual abuse leading to alcohol and drug consumption.

In “Monkey Beach” Lisa and Jimmy’s Aunt Trudy was taken from her parents to attend a Canadian residential school. She was raped and beaten and yelled at. She started to drink heavily, in my guess to forget.

In the Canadian residential schools young native children were forced to drop their religion, change their appearance and learn the ways of the white man. If any children showed proof of still knowing their religion or broke any rules the punishments were very harsh.

In the years after the Natives of the residential school either moved on in life (like expected) resorted to drug and/or alcohol use to forget, or committed the worst thing possible, suicide.

The struggles that Canadian Natives have lived through are still going on today and Eden Robinson has told through her characters in “Monkey Beach” some of the experiences the Natives had to go through as children in Canadian residential schools.

-Brittany