Alternatives in Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth

43161

In the Eurocentric tradition, there are four worlds: First World, Second World, Third World and Fourth World which refer to, respectively, Britain, USA, and Europe; the white populations of Canada, Australia and New Zealand; developing nations in Asia, South America, North Africa; and indigenous populations subjugated, colonized and governed today by the white settlers such as Native Americans. In the play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth written by Drew Hayden Taylor, a Native girl, Grace, adopted by a White family, is asked by her birth sister to return to the Reservation for their mother’s funeral. Scared of opening old wounds, Grace refuses to visit the Reserve and her family but her sister, Barb, who has been left behind trying to compete with the memory of her sister who has managed to achieve a level of perfection only possible in the imagination is unwilling to let go of her resentment particularly given that their mother has since passed away. The double visions/double consciousness of these two sisters are juxtaposed in the languages of English and Ojibway. The feeling of being caught between two cultures and two languages leads Janice/Grace to suffer from the trauma of the displacement, which Homi Bhabha refers as unhomeliness. To be unhomed means to feel not at home even in your own home because you are not at home yourself: your cultural identity crisis has made you a psychological refugee. The purpose of the article is to tackle the identity crisis of the Ojibway nation and to dwell upon the alternative solutions brought in the play.

97

identity , Ojibway , ethnic literature

Journal Of Graduate School Of Social Sciences

104

Journal Of Graduate School Of Social Sciences