Analysis Of Ed Metatawabin's Up Ghost River
Given the current state of First Nations affairs, it is clear that imposing European value structures on traditional Native culture has resulted in the gross disruption of social hierarchy -- however, it is necessary to empathize with individual experiences, such as Ed Metatawabin’s in “Up Ghost River”, to understand how education, abuse of group identity, and silencing of voices allow individual behaviours to reify into the structural imbalances of power that maintain this hierarchy.
In order for an arbitrarily-set hierarchy to be successful, fundamental narratives must be ingrained into the education system. Canada’s attempt to push this narrative was the residential schooling system, and its outcome, the demoralising of generations of First …show more content…
For Ed, the residential school experience was meant to obliterate his Cree way of life. When he first arrives at St. Anne’s, he comments on his first greeting: “Long hair ad been illegal since before I was born… I remembered by grandmother saying our hair is a sign of our strength.” (Metatawabin, 39). The cutting of hair symbolizes a loss of Aboriginal culture. THe result of his loss of value structure is the decline into chaos and disarray, later in his life susceptible to addiction as an alternative. Ed’s experience is not solely unique to him, but part of a broader system of abuse. His parallels the plight experienced by countless other Aboriginals across Canada. In “School Days: The Residential School Experience”, the author comments on the effects of abuse in the future, “...people who were abused as children remain prey to feelings of shame and fear, increased susceptibility to a range of diseases, and emotional distress.” (TRC, 44). It is clear how the lack of traditional identity causes one to seek a new value structure to act out (e.g. alcoholism or drug abuse). But an effect can become a cause, and the results of imbalances of power become sources. Alcohol abuse or emotional instability often When enough take place, these isolated, individual cases of adherence or condemnation of one’s group identity produce oppressive structures on higher levels of
In order for an arbitrarily-set hierarchy to be successful, fundamental narratives must be ingrained into the education system. Canada’s attempt to push this narrative was the residential schooling system, and its outcome, the demoralising of generations of First …show more content…
For Ed, the residential school experience was meant to obliterate his Cree way of life. When he first arrives at St. Anne’s, he comments on his first greeting: “Long hair ad been illegal since before I was born… I remembered by grandmother saying our hair is a sign of our strength.” (Metatawabin, 39). The cutting of hair symbolizes a loss of Aboriginal culture. THe result of his loss of value structure is the decline into chaos and disarray, later in his life susceptible to addiction as an alternative. Ed’s experience is not solely unique to him, but part of a broader system of abuse. His parallels the plight experienced by countless other Aboriginals across Canada. In “School Days: The Residential School Experience”, the author comments on the effects of abuse in the future, “...people who were abused as children remain prey to feelings of shame and fear, increased susceptibility to a range of diseases, and emotional distress.” (TRC, 44). It is clear how the lack of traditional identity causes one to seek a new value structure to act out (e.g. alcoholism or drug abuse). But an effect can become a cause, and the results of imbalances of power become sources. Alcohol abuse or emotional instability often When enough take place, these isolated, individual cases of adherence or condemnation of one’s group identity produce oppressive structures on higher levels of