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Language as a key to identity
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Allistar MacLeod's, “No Great Mischief,” is a story about the Scottish, Highland MacDonald clan, and Calum, who immigrates to Cape Breton Island. The prose has many themes that include, identity, home, and language. This novel promises no greater way to explore them. Identity is represented by the repetitious mention of, “red and black” hair throughout. The colors seem to be a true identification for many specific characters, radiating their origins and historical roots. “When my twin sister was seventeen, she decided for reasons of girlish vanity to dye her hair with a silver-blondish streak which rose from her forehead and swept in undulating waves through the heavy blackness of her own natural hair. Later, tiring of the effect, she attempted …show more content…
to dye the streak back to black, but could find no dye that would make it as black as it was before” (MacLeod 29). This is significant, it shows that sometimes you cannot bring back what is natural, which is an important part of keeping a true identity. The color of hair is also used to describe specific characters.
The main character, Alexander MacDonald is referred to as, “the red-haired boy.” He refers to his maternal grandfather as, “Trimming his neat reddish moustache.” These are all elements of identity. Both the characters and MacLeod, whose last name means “son of Leod,” are Scottish. He used his ancestry to create a family that would be familiar. Although he was born in Saskatchewan, he was buried in Cape Breton. He was known to tell stories about his great-great-great-grandparents and their immigration to …show more content…
Canada. The theme of, “home,” is used throughout the novel in many different instances. Some characters are comfortable being home near their family ties, while others use the word to indicate emptiness or sadness. Family is significantly used when Alexander's sister describes her visits to the departure gates for East coast flights, when she has enough time.“I have no real reason for going except that I want to be in the presence of those people. To listen to their accents and to share in their excitement” (MacLeod 194). That quotes proved that home is not just one place to her, but any place where she is surrounded by loved ones. “This is the man who carried me on his shoulders when I was three.
Carried me across the ice from the island, but could never carry me back again” (MacLeod 283). Alexander is speaking of his older brother, Calum, and their connection to the island, their home. The next time they arrived at the island, Alexander drove Calum there, although he has grown old, their appreciate for the island has not changed. MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. His parents migrated to Saskatchewan from Cape Breton during the Great Depression. However, the family suffered from homesickness and returned to Dunvegan, Cape Breton when he was 10. He remembers some of his old feelings and uses them in the novel. The final theme that was used greatly is both, language and music. Gaelic plays a huge role in the identification of Alexander's family and it reminds them of their Scottish roots. Readers have a greater understanding to the relationship of brothers when drunkenly, Calum begins to sing a song in Gaelic. The song is, “Lament for Cape Breton,” which ties the MacDonald family together. When alone, Alexander surprises himself by finishing the lyrics to the song as it comes from, “somewhere deep within me” (MacLeod 16). He sings the words that are a part of whom he
is. A heartwarming passage takes place when Alexander visits his grandmother in a nursing home. She has no memory of whom he is, but they are able to sing “O Siud An Taobh A Ghabhainn,” a Gaelic song with a verse about the MacDonald's. MacLeod's parents first language was Gaelic, its notable that he incorporates this unique language into the novel. “No Great Mischief,” is magnificent due to its use of themes that are accustomed to the author. He incorporates many realistic events which symbolize Cape Breton Island and its way of life. Though MacLeod wrote fiction, he is a strong author of truth.
The text begins with the speaker musing about how her lineage is related to that of an album cover with one solid identity. In an album, each song forms an idea that is encapsulated in a large pool of its sister tracks to form one singular unit containing an idea or focus. By referring to her family as an album, Harper has directly stated that her family is deeply connected. Above the poem is the subtitle “for my father,” which means that Harper’s message is connected to her father the most. This metaphor strikes even further into the
Known as one of one of the founding fathers of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald helped shape our country into what it is today. During the early 1800s, significant people and events aided the development and growth of Canada. Born on January 11, 1815, Macdonald worked tirelessly to join the provinces of Canada together into one country. He was the first prime minister of Canada, fought for confederation and will continue to be remembered for his contribution to Canadian history. Sir John A. Macdonald is significant to Canadian history because he created the North West Mounted Police, initiated the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and helped Canada achieve confederation and come together as a country.
The novel Fifth Business by Robertson Davies does away with the stigma that Canadian literature is dull and boring. A master of his art, Davies creates a cast of vivid characters and skillfully weaves them into a story about love, guilt, myth and redemption. With the effective use of first-person narrative, Fifth Business is written as a fictional memoir of the character Dunstable Ramsey, who grows up in the small town of Deptford in Ontario, Canada. As a boy, Dunstable was unmistakably very intelligent, gifted with an uncanny ability to read others. He was raised in a Scottish household by strict Presbyterian parents, who into him hammered several religious canons and tenets. Thus, Dunstan understood the importance of respect and moral responsibility from a young age. There would seem to be no reason for such an exemplary youth, gifted with an intelligence exceeding of his small-town upbringing, to not go onto to lead a happy, satisfying life. Yet there is a single incident in Dustan’s boyhood that would define the rest his life. While in a quarrel with his friend and rival, Percy Boyd Staunton, Dustan evades a snowball in which Boyd had hidden a stone. The snowball misses Dunstan and strikes the pregnant wife of the town’s Baptist minister, Mary Dempster, causing her to give birth prematurely and subsequently slip into madness. This marks the beginning of Dustan Ramsey’s lifelong involvement with Mary Dempster, and the beginning of his lifelong struggle with guilt. As he is faced with the outcomes of his actions, Dustan’s core values are called into question. Throughout Fifth Business, Dunstan fails to understand both his true values and true self, which develops as a cons...
Michael Patrick MacDonald lived a frightening life. To turn the book over and read the back cover, one might picture a decidedly idyllic existence. At times frightening, at times splendid, but always full of love. But to open this book is to open the door to Southie's ugly truth, to MacDonald's ugly truth, to take it in for all it's worth, to draw our own conclusions. One boy's hell is another boy's playground. Ma MacDonald is a palm tree in a hurricane, bending and swaying in the violent winds of Southie's interior, even as things are flying at her head, she crouches down to protect her children, to keep them out of harms way. We grew up watching Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Peanuts. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up watching violence, sadness and death.
William Lyon Mackenzie King was born in Kitchener, Ontario on December 17, 1874. His father was an unsuccessful lawyer who was not well off but who continuously provided for his family by living above his means. Mackenzie King’s mother was the daughter of William Lyon Mackenzie who was a leader of the Rebellion of 1837 which was fighting for responsible government. King’s mother continuously reminded her children of the trials her father had gone through and pushed them to continue...
Presentation of Family Relationships in Carol Anne Duffy's Poem Before You Were Mine and in One Poem by Simon Armitage
Social reproduction is examined closely by Jay Macleod in his book "Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood." His study examines two groups of working class teenage boys residing in Clarendon Heights, a housing project in upstate New York. The Hallway Hangers, a predominately white peer group, and the Brothers, an all African American peer group with the exception of one white member. Through the use of multiple social theories, MacLeod explains social reproduction by examining the lives of these groups as they experience it, being members of the working class in society. These social theories are very important in understanding the ways in which social classes are reproduced.
Eichler, Leah. "Alistair MacLeod: Of Scotsmen in Canada." The Publishers Weekly 247.17 (2000): 54. Print.
“ Let us be English or let us be French. . . and above all let us be Canadians.” Born on January 11, 1815, in Glascow, Scotland, Sir John A. Macdonald became the first prime minister of Canada and one of the most transcendent that Canada has ever seen. He immigrated to Canada in 1820, at the age of five, where his family, including his mother, father and two siblings, settled in Kingston, Ontario. He spent his childhood studying at the Midland District Grammar School, where he developed his passion for the English language and at the same time, realizing his new dream of becoming a lawyer.
The two characters come to the realization that they do share a brotherly bond, and that the narrator cares deeply for his brother even after all the time apart. The narrator says, “I don’t give a damn wh...
John Alexander Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on January 11, 1815. His family immigrated to Canada (Kingston, Ontario) in 1820, Macdonald was five years old at the time. In 1829 Macdonald ended his schooling, his parents could not afford to send him to university. Macdonald would later say that if he had went to university he would have ended up in literature, not politics. (Waite, John, 7-10)
boy. Golding is careful in the novel to introduce each of the boys as the picture of
Ian Lennox was born in November 19, 1942, in Toronto. His father was from Scotland while his mother is from Canada. As a child, Lennox grew up in Pape and O’connor. He had a normal childhood. He played hockey and baseball. He attended William Burgess Public School. Later he moved on to his secondary education in Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute. Lennox did not have any further education.
Throughout Oronooko, particularly in this passage, Aphra Behn focuses on identity in both specific characters, such as Oroonoko and Imoinda, and collective terms, such as “Whites” and “Negroes.” In this way, she examines the various aspects of identity, particularly the personal and cultural. Additionally, she underscores the distinctions between man and beast in relation to human identity by exploring their respective definitions. Finally, Behn posits identity as a malleable concept, which changes with context and other external influences.
Between the two tragedies, William Shakespeare's play Macbeth and William Faulkner's novel The Sound and The Fury there are many striking similarities. Both of these tragedies show the struggle of good and evil. The characters in Macbeth and The Sound and The Fury, Macbeth and Quentin Compson show remarkable similarities, but they are unique in their way. This paper discusses how: (1) Quentin Compson and Macbeth show qualities of a tragic hero, (2) Quentin and Macbeth’s guilt leads to their downfall and finally (3) by the end both works of literature Quentin and Macbeth find time meaningless.