Are the characters coping well with their problems? January 15, 2010

I’m not sure that Lisa is coping well with the loss of her brother. She’s always having these nightmares that are seeming to worsen. They usually lead to her seeing the creepy little man who likes to sit on her dresser when she opens her eyes. La’es is one thing she keeps hearing, conscious or not. It means go down to the bottom of the ocean…maybe that’s where her dear brother Jimmy is. Drowned and dead, caught up somewhere like how Uncle Mick had been caught in the fishing net.

Aunt Trudy is still drinking heavily and I’m kind of waiting for her to drink to much and maybe drown in her own vomit or something. I’m also worried about the people around her, mainly Josh and Tab(atha). She is very violent when she is drunk and has minimal control of her actions. She could hurt them…again. She has already beaten Josh, broken a bottle over his head and finally he was pushed down a set of stairs and his leg was broken. Tab is always taking her mothers shit. She’s constantly yelling at her and in a way making fun of her so Tab feels really low. Tab could snap eventually because she just sits there and takes it. I think she should say something back or try to talk it out with her mother…even if she is drunk (which I’m sure is a very hard things to do: reason with a drunk)

 

Since Jimmy is still missing Lisa’s parents are still in a constant state of worry. By now I’m thinking he’s dead and possibly they are too. They just want their son back so they don’t have to worry about his being missing anymore.

I can’t even begin to imagine the torture they are going through.

I can’t imagine how it must feel to be drunk all the time, unaware of what your actions are.

I can’t imagine how it must be to be picked on by your own mother.

I can’t imagine how scary nightmares are when they repeat and say the same message over and over again.

I just can’t imagine.

La’es, la’es, la’es.

How are the characters reacting to the issue of injustice?

 

Aunt Trudy pretty much broke down after being released from her prison like hold in a Canadian Residential school. She had been brutally abused, physically and mentally. She resorted to heavy drinking to forget all the bad things but it still hurts her to talk about it.

Uncle Mick was shot on one of the reserves. The woman he was having tea with had called the police on some Goons (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). They had been doing things she disagreed with and one day over enjoying a simple cup of tea they showed up and decided to shoot their guns off around them to scare her into silence.

Lisa’s Aunt Lisa also went to a residential school but not much was said on what her experiences were. It kind of leaves you to speculate on what happened.

Uncle Mick’s wife/girlfriend Cookie(Cathy) also went to a residential school. She fought against the system and dropped out of at least three. She yelled back at the nuns and told them she’d never be one of those perfect cookies like the high and fancy, well-mannered white girls. She said she was fry bread and she said she was proud of it.

“You honkies want women to be like cookies, all sweet and dainty and easy to eat. But I’m fry bread, you bitch, and I’m proud of it.” (Robinson, 145, 6-7)

 

 

What is the issue of injustice in your novel? January 13, 2010

 

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