All
of the stories today (minus Candide) had the common thread of pride in
nationality. In the Kasaipwalova story, the pride that comes with chewing the
betel nut and standing their ground for their native culture instead of backing
down in the face of the big bad white man. Similarly in Grace’s story, Billy
and his family sought to bring back their native roots by renaming areas of
land and streets to reflect their cultural pride. Once again this theme continues
in King’s short story by not getting through border control because his mother
stubbornly refused to see herself as a Blackfoot only and not as a
Canadian-Blackfoot, or American-Blackfoot, not putting her country in front of
her culture.
But
I think that this theme stretches beyond just cultural pride to make an
otherwise non-humorous discrimination humorous through incongruity and changes
of perception throughout the stories. Kasaipwalova’s character, in the way he
speaks and describes things makes him seem uneducated. This stereotype through
his words and choice phrases is perpetuated throughout the whole story until he
begins to speak to the cop in perfect, advanced-phrasing, English. This moment
of change makes the reader laugh and find humor in the fact that this man seems
to be keeping his secret knowledge
quiet. His funny phrases such as “puppies” when describing the officers,
“dimdims,” and even “the important man” make us laugh but the unexpected language
twist in the story not only makes us laugh harder for being ignorant towards
this character but also combats and defeats the issue of racial or culture
discrimination perpetuated in the story: we come to realize, as the cops should
but don’t, that our stereotypes and assumptions are not always right.
The
general notions of laughter visibly described as “hee hee” and “har har har” in
Grace’s story make the reader laugh almost as an effect made by a laugh track
in TV shows. It is through reading the story to the end however that we realize
the issue at hand and that the laugh track we followed earlier in the story
were a coping mechanism for Billy throughout his cultural issue. Similarly in
in King’s story, we are amused with the Blackfood intentions by the mother and
while it does change in the end and she is let through it is only for the
media: and we, as readers, realized through our satisfaction that this issue is
serious and not humorous. Changing expectations is what Candide is all about
and these stories relate to the last line of the book where he tells
back-from-the-dead-Pangloss that we must “cultivate our garden”—we must be in
the moment and then reflecting realize that we must only focus on one thing at
a time. We must worry about the small things in life—a cultural difference—and address
it (through humor in the case of these stories) in order to make a change, rather
than trying to fix all the problems in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment