Undercurrents in Monkey Beach

1. Undercurrents in Monkey Beach As Above; So Below FNAT 102 lecture Spring 2008

2. Review Questions • List the functions of story-telling (according to Dan’s last lecture) • Why is it important that stories act as a guide to understanding change? • Explain the cultural importance of “names” • What does Kleewyck reveal of social relations between First Nations and settler communities? • Outline the ways in which Robinson “centers” Haisla worldview. • What’s wrong with “Imagined Communities”? • How do we counter propaganda & inaccurate stories about our people and families?

3. Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize Giller Prize nominee IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Nominee Traplines won Winifred Holtby Prize;1996 NY Times Editor’s Choice & Notable Book of the Year Prism International Prize for Short Fiction Haisla/Heiltsuk Nations “Eden always had an uncanny ear for how you can build a certain set of rhythms with short, declarative sentences. And how you can build impact and juxtapose pieces of the puzzle together…” Keith Maillard, UBC Eden Robinson

4. Love Like the Ocean The Song of Your Breath In Search of the Elusive Sasquatch The Land of the Dead How is the title approp. for the first section? What does the song of your breath refer to? What happens in the last section? The Four Corners of the World

5. Bildungsroman (coming of age) Gothic Post-Modern Post-Colonial Feminist Monkey Beach can be interpreted using any of the analytical frameworks listed here. But here we get off the bus to use a healing framework to analyze what is happening in the story. Interpretative Frameworks

6. “I Plowed Through My Assignments with an Enthusiasm I Usually Reserved for Partying” (p. 326) sample theme statements • In her novel, Monkey Beach, E. Robinson argues for a healing process through Lisamarie’s connections to her culture, her land and her relationships. • Robinson gradually reveals the under-current of community investment in the collective denial of abuse with her descriptions of the survivors of residential school, namely Joshua and Mick.

7. IBP or integrative body psychotherapy A therapeutic model that rests on the following assumptions: • The essential core Self is sacred • Self comes from the universal energy • Energy flowing thru the body is part of the Universal energy • Relationship patterns are determined in utero & in infancy • Emotional memories reside in the flesh • Healing trauma requires working thru the body using breath & boundaries

8. Josh, Trudy & Mick • Wounded by their experience at residential sch. • Relived their past in the present • Josh’s abuse of Pooch, Karaoke, & Tab is implicit in Lisamarie’s descriptions of their responses to Josh • Why doesn’t Trudy recognize that Josh “isn’t right”?

9. Hill Genealogy

10. Where the bonds are strongest • Lisamarie is strongly bonded with both Ma-ma-oo, Mick • Jimmy & Al (both strive to meet Jimmy’s goal) • Mick & Al (while competitive, care for each other) • Gladys & Al (Gladys is somewhat controlling) • Trudy & Mick (both isolates, addicts)

12. The Song of Your Breath • Outlines lessons in contacting the dead • Describes Mick’s funeral • Recalls Mimayus’ loss & the song composed by Hector in honor of her memory • Details Lisamarie’s journey to Monkey Beach • Introduces the mechanics of heartbreak

13. The Mechanics of Heart/Break • The short heart passages punctuate the longer narrative are written in a mechanical tone of detachment conveying a distance from Lisamarie’s heartbreak. “Heartbreak happens when less than 40% of the heart is damaged…If too much of the heart is damaged, there is usually not enough pumping power left to maintain circulation” (275)

14. Strength of Spirit • Despite the burden of losses that Lisamarie and her family bear, her story guides the reader through stormy waters of chaos & change; reminding the reader of the painful but necessary act of remembering through the private and communal acts of witnessing, communicating, and honoring historical events that took away our loved ones.

15. “A Delicate Haisla Flower”