“A Lightning Burst of Knowingness”: What Chris Reveals About the Connor-MacLeod Family in A Bird in the House
In Margaret Laurence’s collection of stories, A Bird in the House, the story “Horses of the Night” begins with Vanessa’s cousin Chris coming to stay at the Brick House while he attends high school in Manawaka.
Impression and Identity: How Margaret Laurence Reveals Character Through Observation and Reflection in A Bird in the House’s “The Mask of the Bear”
First impressions do not fully comprehend identity. They can be effective tools to make basic judgments and broad assumptions; however, in terms of interpretation, their insights are extremely limited. A person’s physical and social traits contribute to these shallow representations of character, while their personal history and motivations are completely excluded from the analysis.
Understanding White
A month ago I thought that I was white—that was until I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. In his book, Coates doesn’t refer to people who look like me as ‘white’, but as “those Americans who believe that they are white” (Between 6), as “these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white” (7).
Alienation and Belonging in Authority and Resistance
There are few things worse than feeling alone. Believing there is nobody to share life with, no group to which you belong, is a terrifying and crippling emptiness. This sense of isolation is often seen as a personal problem, a weakness caused and experienced individually. Framing isolation always in this way, however, ignores its prominent role as a social and political sedative.
Love is Where Edges Meet
“The Promise” is a contract that tied the Hmong of Laos with the C.I.A. personnel during the Vietnam War. In exchange for this ethnic minority’s loyalty in the fight that the Americans led until 1975—and the resulting persecutions and mass migrations that followed their loss—it is still unclear what the imperial power guaranteed to them: this pact only rescued Hmong high officers from Long Tieng, hardly accepted the rest as refugees, and gradually withdrew welfare from the ones who landed in the United States (Fadiman 201).