Racism through the English in Emily Carrs Works - Essay Example

Prof’s Good Intentions and the Path to Hell: Racism through the English in Emily Carr’s Works Emily Carr is one of the most renowned Canadian artists – part of the “group of seven” that helped create and define a uniquely Canadian form of art, separating it from English traditions that came before them and the overwhelming influence of American culture. She was also a writer, and her short stories have many of the same themes that touch on many of the same themes that her paintings do: in particular, she focuses on the aboriginal people of the Pacific North West. The basic question that this essay will attempt to answer is whether Carr’s portrayal of aboriginal, indigenous people in her short stories constitutes racism. “Racism” is an incredibly difficult to define term: whole branches of colonial, post colonial, feminist, gender and queer theory have attempted to take it on, and no one succinct definition can encompass everything that the phrase means. This essay will not attempt to significantly deconstruct the meaning of the term racism: to do so would take many essays much larger than the whole of this one, and thus it would leave next to no room for an actual discussion of Emily Carr. Thus, it may be useful to make reference to the Oxford English dictionary’s definition, simply to have a touchstone from which to move forward. The OED describes racism as “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races,” thus defining racism as primarily relating to the attribution of qualities as a construct of race. Though Emily Carr seems to have attempted to portray indigenous people in a positive light, she still resorted to racial stereotyping that fundamentally makes her works racist and self-serving; furthermore, it seems to be theoretically impossible for a colonizer to portray a colonized people in anything but an appropriative, selfish way. Emily Carr certainly seemed to be sensitive to the plight of indigenous people who lived around her. Throughout the story Sophia, for instance, she goes to great lengths to humanize and relate to indigenous people – in one instance, talking about how her friend Sophie had twins, and named one after Emily – essentially become Emily’s daughter, as the story portrays it. Carr writes simply that “my Em’ly lived three months. Sophie’s Maria lived three weeks” (Carr 50). Emily, by taking a member of Sophie’s family to be her own, connects the reader to Sophie’s plight, to the heartache of having children die in their infancy. In this story Carr also directly shows the plight of many indigenous people: the harm in having to turn to white police officers who often cannot give help or any kind of satisfaction for a plight (Carr 52). Carr also mentions harsh living conditions of indigenous people, especially those that are forced to “go modern” in the short story D’Sonoqua, further reiterating her sympathy for their hardship (Carr). Beyond simply having sympathy for the plight of indigenous peoples, Carr seems interested in preserving their culture and heritage, which she quickly saw eroding around her. This can perhaps best be seen in the short story D’Sonoqua, in which she details carvings she sees of a wild woman, who is an “Indian spiritual being” (Carr 83). She interviews people about the role of that spiritual being, its penchant for stealing children, the fact that it is “sometimes good, sometimes bad” (Carr 82). She then moves on to record the snatches of this character she sees through her own painting, which is certainly an attempt to preserve art that might not otherwise survive. Carr clearly had sympathy with indigenous people, and had an intent to try to preserve, or at very least record, their culture. The problem, however, rests that in doing so she relied on and continued to propagate stereotypes of native people that allow white settler colonists to consider themselves superior – her works in fact propagate a settler colonial system, and help enshrine her and whites like her into places of superiority. One of the ways this is most evident, and unavoidable, is use of language. Carr is a white English speaker, and she writes for white English speakers. This means that she obviously uses English to communicate. The issue is, many of the people she interacts with and portrays speak English as only a second language, and often not very well. Carr’s choice to portray indigenous culture through the lens of the English language inherently co-opts indigenous culture, making it subservient to English culture, much in the same way that translating a song looses the beauty and truth of the original. Furthermore, Carr shows no interest in learning or interacting with native peoples via their own languages, which again speaks to an assumption of the superiority of English. The biggest problem with English, however, is simply that the people she portrays do not have a good command of it. She thus often shows native peoples speaking in simple, broken language. Sophie’s attempts at English are, according to Sophie herself, worthy of ridicule, which she says her husband heaps on her when she attempts to speak English (52). This thus makes native people seem simple, because people tend to inherently connect language ability with intellectual ability (Moray 76): Sophie, by being forced to use simple language, is thus portrayed as simple herself. Carr even seems to fall into this interpretation of Sophie herself, calling the woman “like a child” because of her ability to feel sympathy (Carr 51). But sympathy is not really a childish trait, it is in fact a very mature one – Carr sees her friend as child like because of her inability to express complex thoughts through a foreign tongue. Though Carr’s use of English is the most theoretically damning aspect of her work, she also often resorts to stereotypes that seem to justify the supremacy of white people in Canadian society. In “Sophie,” Carr calls the Indian Reserve “a different world,” and chooses to indicates its differentness by saying that there is “no hurry, no business” (Carr 50). This touches on one of the fundamental justifications for WASP supremacy – the supposed industriousness and ingenuity of white Anglo Saxon people with the so called ‘protestant work ethic,’ and seems to help explain why native people are treated poorly: because they do not work enough. Carr does nothing to deconstruct this, nor many other racial stereotypes through her work, and often reinforces them through their repeated use. Emily Carr was undoubtedly attempting to be a friend and ally to indigenous peoples – the prolific rate of her interaction with them, and passion for preserving their works seems to attest to this fact. But, possibly understandably do to the lack of theory and anti-racist understandings that existed in her time, she fails to be a true ally, and rather puts herself at the centre of the fight rather than leaving herself subservient to the group to which she is an ally. She shows once and for all that Spivak is correct, and that a white colonizer cannot give voice to a colonized people without, whether intentionally or not, acting in an appropriative and selfish manner. Rather than give the native people a voice through translating their words, she chooses to portray them in choppy English, and rather than taking their culture on its own terms, she translates it. Whether intentionally or not, she reinforces racial stereotypes that justify white supremecism in Canadian society. Emily Carr may have been a wonderful woman, but her work is tainted with racism. This does not mean it is evil, but that it must be taken in that light. Works Cited Carr, Emily. “Sophie” in Vancouver Short Stories. Vancouver: UBC UP 1999. Carr, Emily. “D’sonoqua” in Klee Wyck. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 2004. Moray, Greta. “"TOther Emily:" Emily Carr, the Modern Woman and Dilemmas of Gender*” RACAR 26. 71-90. 1999. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 1988. Read More