Comparing Two Brothers in Kiss of the Fur Queen - Book Report/Review Example

 When Compulsion Makes the Life of Youngsters Go Haywire: A Consideration of.....in Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen. A recollection of the negative events of the past is a painful. A deep scar leaves the mark outside and pierces one from within. The book “Kiss of the Fur Queen”, from Tomson Highway is about abuse in the residential schools. The general feeling with the parents is that their wards are able to pay good attention to studies in the protected environment of the residential schools, that too when they are managed and controlled by religious authorities. They hope that students are molded as a disciplined lot and eventually as good human beings of the society. If a youngster with impressionable mind, undergoes bitter experiences, one carries the psychological burden throughout the life, feels hurt and cheated. An inner conviction of uselessness for having met with such unfortunate experiences haunts throughout one’s life. “Cree writer and Residential School survivor Tomson Highway, in his 1998 novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen, enacts a significant intervention into the national discourse on Residential Schooling, combating church and state discursive control, and commandeering for Native survivors the authority to speak their histories and thereby articulate viable post-traumatic Native identities.” (McKegney....) The most difficult issue with an individual is the ill-treatment to one's spirit, being compelled to do something against one's will and inner convictions. The two brothers, Jeremiah and Gabriel have an idyllic childhood and are born, bred and brought up in the Cree culture. Suddenly events with devastating effects on their psyche engulf their lives for which they are least prepared. They are forced to adapt to European culture, accept life-styles which they do not like at all and suffer abuse. Soon the circumstances turn so grim for them that anyone in such a situation will become cynical and everything around will look ignoble. They say, what can not be cured, must be endured. This is true of the life of two brothers, from the beginning of their lives in the residential school. What the future holds for such children? Those who are forcibly removed from their family and natural surroundings, not allowed to communicate in their own language, and compelled to undergo violent process of acculturation to dominant section of the society. Abrupt transition from one culture to another is a tortuous process that kills the spirit of an individual. Jeremiah/Champion The forced changes in Jeremiah’s residential school-life began to occur immediately on his entry. A free-flying bird of the magical Cree world in snowy northern Manitoba is caught into the net of the hostile world of a Catholic residential school. The brothers are abused by priests. At the young age, Champion is re-named as Jeremiah as part of the modernization process-as per the enforced policy of Canadian administration of molding the native children into Christian belief systems in the Catholic residential schools. The priests, who have cross dangling on their necks, but not Christ in their hearts, unleash monstrous acts targeting the young boys. Highway describes the scene of Father Lafluer's unGodly sexual appetite thus. "The notes of the song climbed up and up and up until they reached the silver angel at the top of the Christmas tree, making her wings shimmer and undulate. For all the priest new, Jeremiah Okimasis himself had sprouted wings and was flitting about like a warbler or a finch, lending sparkling light to each golden ball, each silver bell, each piece of tinsel" (66). On the secular side, the history, language and traditions of the native boys are the casualties. As Jeremiah matures into a young man, he begins his career as a pianist. The painful process of breakup from the past continues. But their own heritage is waiting in the wings to re-enter the lives of brothers quite unexpectedly and sometimes tragically. Being a singer, his painful thoughts find reflections in the musical notes through the strings of the piano and that provides some relief to his pent up emotions. In every turn of his life he faces awesome experiences. Do the Christian priests deserve thanks for providing an opportunity to Jeremiah to excel as a pianist? This is a difficult question to answer as we have no evidence to know whether the career is forced upon him against his will. That Jeremiah gives up piano, which is the driving force in the initial phase of his stay at the residential school, indicates that he takes up to that vocation not out of love and conviction, but due to pressure and the compulsion of the circumstances. Ooneemeetoo Okimasis/Gabriel The intensity of suffering of Ooneemeetoo Okimasis, christened as Gabriel, is more severe as compared to his brother. Gabriel, when molestation becomes the inevitable part of his life, is reconciled to his fate. That activity becomes routine part of his life. His description of the priest as tasting like his (he must be recollecting the taste of the native honey) “Most favorite food, warm honey”, reveals his cultivated mind-set--the circumstances that are forced upon him initially which he accepts finally! Is he a born homosexual or molded into one? This is an issue of conjecture. But the feelings willingly expressed by Gabriel do not speak well of him and instead of sympathizing with his condition, the reader is inclined to condemn him... "Yes, father please! Make me bleed! Please, please make me bleed! (Highway 85). And Highway's description that "Gabriel could see the pendulous silver crucifix across the breast of the priest's black cassock. What is it about the naked man nailed to the beam of the wood that caused his pulsing restlessness?" (p. 29) is too hard and repulsive to accept even-though Gabriel can not be blamed for that! They say when perfect discipline is not available, it is better to carry on with the available discipline! That seems to be Gabriel's compromise with his life! But he never recovers fully from the horrors of those bitter experiences and carries the dark cloud permanently floating on his mind's curtain. Compare and contrast: In the fast changing world, when the churning process between cultures takes place, the parents are left with the task of making difficult choices as for the future of their children. Jeremiah and Gabriel were entangled into such a web, whose entry and exist points were unclear to them. The compromise with drastic change of circumstances is difficult for Jeremiah; he has a harrowing time trying to be both Native and part of the White culture. But, Gabriel seems to tolerate White culture. But let it be noted, tolerance is not willing acceptance! The life two brothers is an example, how colonialism made deep impact on native culture. The two important institutions, the education and the church were used as weapons of destruction. The education process finally molds the brothers as incomplete characters groping for their real identities. The relationship of the brothers is interesting, they do not see eye to eye on many issues, but in the end their connection was stressed through love for their common heritage. They team up for their production. Both the brothers find the final reconciliation and come to terms with their double consciousness by publishing plays that highlight their native culture. When they get an opportunity to reconnect to their native culture, they do it willingly and most enthusiastically. Though they were becoming progressive, more and more modernized and urbanized, their inner core was glued to their heritage, inseparably. It was a fitting finale to the complex struggles of Natives. The essential difference between the two brothers was their capacity to meet the challenge of negative consequences thrust upon them. Jeremiah has the capacity for inner resistance, grudgingly accepts his plight,but Gabriel seems to reconcile to the circumstances confronting him. Crop of hair is most dear to the young boys. Highway describes the cutting of the hair episode thus: "He was being skinned alive, in public; the center of his nakedness shriveled to the size and texture of a raisin, the whole world staring, pointing, and laughing" (53). It is a greatly insulting moment in the lives of the boys and in no way they can protest against that humiliating experience. Gabriel somehow, is able to 'transcend' his bitter experiences and it is much easier for him to make a new beginning in life. It is pertinent to note that brothers born in one family, brought up in similar circumstances, with affection and love, and sent to the same boarding school for education, grow up as different type of individuals. In the ultimate analysis what brings them together is their common heritage. The author elucidates how strong the influence of heritage on the society is! That is their common meeting point. The culture gap is the exclusive and common factor that affects both Jeremiah and Gabriel. The identical wound to their psyche remains throughout their college education, and it is part of the bigger social problem, over which both the brothers have no direct control. The level of abuses they suffer through the misdeeds of priests varies and Jeremiah suffers more. Mental make up no two individuals is alike, but the capacity of endurance for the suffering varies. In fine, the only saving grace is, the brothers are finally able to recoup the state of their genuine happiness through the process of interfacing their heritage. But it was not an ordinary process of recovery. They were slipping down through a difficult precipice! When religion and education, the two important foundation stones, are wrongly placed in the edifice of one’s life, the completed mansion shall remain insecure. The position of the two brothers was like that. That is the truth propounded in the novel, and rightly so! In the cultural struggle, the native culture wins and this sort of ending is an achievement that goes to the credit of the author and to his characters! The brothers find the happy reconciliation with life by reverting back to their culture. The author, through the platform of the residential school, highlights how difficult is the process of bridging the culture gap! ************ Works Cited: Article By:McKegney, Sam.[PDF] Claiming Native Narrative Control: Tomson Highway on Residential ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View-Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen.... Retrieved on March 7,2010 Highway, Tomson: Kiss of the Fur Queen (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series); Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press May 2000. Read More