The Role Of Residential Schools In Eden Robinson's Novel 'Monkey Beach'

In Eden Robinson’s novel, Monkey Beach, there is a reoccurring aspect of the impacts residential schools have on aboriginal people. This viscous cycle of residential schooling involves removing children from their homes, disrupting cultural practices, punishing and abusing helpless children, and then sending them home to their parents who are also taught the same unhealthy behaviours. The purpose of residential school is to assimilate children into western culture, as indigenous cultures are seen as inferior and unequal. Due to residential school systems, there is an opposing force between Haisla culture and settler traditions; settler knowledge being of evident dominance, which results in suffering to the indigenous peoples on various levels:

In residential schools, “there [are] tons of priests… matrons and helpers that ‘helped’ themselves to little kids” (Robinson 254-5) like Josh. From this experience, Josh begins to commit sexual offenses; abusing characters, Karaoke – an incident discovered through “an old photograph and a folded-up card” which is found with “Josh’s head… pasted over a priest’s head [,] and Karaoke’s… pasted over a little boy’s” (Robinson 365) – and Pooch. The photograph is a visual representation of the shift in positions of Josh, as he engrosses the role of the priest as a sexual offender, and Karaoke takes the place of Josh: the victim. As McKegney puts forth, the repetition of past abuse is a “cyclical extension of violence seemingly initiated through residential school abuse” (12).

Overall, individually, the characters Aunt Trudy and Josh have their share of suffering; it is inevitable to attend residential school without experiencing trauma or abuse, all of which leads to needing a source of escape, whether that be through the indulgence of alcohol or continuing the cycle of injustice that they are victims