Contemporary Canadian Literature and Film:
Nation, Race and Gender

First Draft 2003/6/1
Part II

* Do not use the same text in answering different questions.
I. Identification and Interpretation 30%
(Choose 2;
--Identification: Identify the title and the author/filmmaker's name.
--Interpretation: each with one paragraph interpreting the meanings and the techniques, and one explaining the excerpt/stills' significance to its text as a whole;
-- at least one on a literary text.)

1.
.

Speaker: What about the new shoes, we have ten seconds left, tell us about the new shoes.

Woman: I looked down and I remembered thinking, why would he kill himself if he had on brand new shoes, why would he buy new shoes if he was going to kill himself?


2.

And you lie there, passive and violated, feeling like someone told you you were going to win an award, and then you didn't get it. Except the award was your dignity, your sanity, your middle class inviolability. It was taken away and given to someone else who never made the mistake of going to a hotel room in a strange place with a strange man. And all you were worried about was how to get out of there with your luggage intact, how to avoid upsetting this man who not only had a black belt in Tai Kwon Do but also had your ticket for the boat out of that nightmare land,and how to get somewhere safe to sleep. God, you wanted to sleep, so bad. . . So, you take a picture of yourself so that you can remember what the Mona Lisa looks like when she realizes Leonardo is just another letch.

Part II:

You go home, and get on your bed, and Ross takes a picture of you. You lie there, small and helpless and black and white. And it looks like this: And you think, wow, pictures don't tell you anything.

3.

4.

I wonder if you realize that all of us - Dolores, me, the children who
survived, the children who didn't that we're all citizens of a different town now, where waters gushed and fruit trees grew, and everything is strange and new. . .
5.

6. "We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. . . . I believe in such cartography--to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books."

 

7. " Peter wasn't trying to destroy you. . .Actually you were trying to destroy him."
I had a sinking feeling. "Is that true?" I asked.
. . ."But the real truth is that it wasn't Peter at all. It was me. I was trying to destroy you."
I gave a nervous laugh. "Don't say that."
"Okay," he said, "ever eager to please. Maybe Peter was trying to destroy me, or maybe I was trying to destroy him, or we were both trying to destroy each other, how's that? What does it matter. . . you're a consumer."

 

8. The square woman farther down the slope moves up towards me from under the curly-branched trees. One of her arms is now connected to her shoulder by four hooks locked to make a hinge. It dangles there as she approaches. She begins to speak but the words are so old they cannot be understood. There is a calmness in her face as she recites an ancient mythical contract made between herself and the man so long ago the language has been forgotten.
. . . . The dream changes now and Uncle stands in the depth of the forest. He bows a deep ceremonial bow. In his mouth is a red red rose with an endless stem. He turns around slowly in a flower dance--a ritual of the dead. Behind him, someone--I do not know who--is straining to speak, but rapidly, softly, a cloud overtakes everything. Is it the British officer . . . ?

Good luck and enjoy!!!