Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer looks chiefly at the native girl syndrome as it makes its appearance in the text and how the use of this slur by whites complicates the lives of the two protagonist, Cheryl and April Raintree. The writer discusses that part of the horror of the native girl syndrome is that it renders aboriginal women and young girls into little more than intemperate, slovenly and incontinent children who possess a "bad seed" that makes them susceptible to wrong-doing and also highly susceptible to being a drain upon the public purse. The writer maintains that the native girl syndrome, inasmuch as it reduces aboriginal women to lesser moral, intellectual and emotional beings than their white counterparts - also de-legitimates their voices and makes it more probable that they will be compelled to suffer injustice in silence. The paper explores these issues and also looks at how the native girl syndrome came about - it may even still be the case today - a rationale for tearing apart native families.

From the Paper:

"Cheryl and April are two young girls who suffer a great deal in Beatrice Culleton Mosionier's, In Search of April Raintree. For one thing, Culleton Mosionier's work describes in painful detail the various ways in which aboriginal peoples coming of age in 1950s and 1960s Canada were infantilized by the dominant culture. For one thing, the intrusion of Child Welfare Services into the inner goings-on of the Raintree family reveals the callous manner in which aboriginal peoples were perceived as "wards" who could do nothing - be nothing - without the mainstream culture imposing itself upon them. The book, at least in the view of one perceptive critic, suggests that the violence of the troubled aboriginal home is equaled by the more subtle violence of Child Services, a dark and dubious entity that tears children from their families or at least did in the 1950s and 1960s and undermines the autonomy and, indeed, the adult personages of aboriginal parents. The book is also painful in the sense that it captures how the "culture of violence" ascribed to the native culture is a designation better ascribed to the dominant culture of the age. To wit, April and Cheryl experience racism and ageism and sexism in the dominant culture and face punishment from that culture at every turn; in fact, there is even a frightening instance wherein April is brutally raped by a gang of men who react explosively when she denies their advances. In this sense, part of the native girl syndrome is to be viewed as an inferior being - emotionally, intellectually, morally - and therefore deserving of such brutal mistreatment."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Culleton Mosionier, Beatrice. In Search of April Raintree. Winnipeg, MB: Pemmican Publications, 1983.
• Hoy, Helen. "Nothing but the Truth: Beatrice Culleton's In Search of April Raintree." How Should I Read These? Helen Hoy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, no date provided by client. 81-104.
• Mountford, C.H. "In Search of April Raintree." CM Archive: A Reviewing Journal of Canadian Materials for Young People. Jan. 1984 (n.d.). Manitoba Library Association. 27 Mar. 2007 <http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/cmarchive/vol12no1/searchaprilraintree.html>
• Smulders, Sharon. "A double Assault": The Victimization of Aboriginal Women and Children in In Search of April Raintree." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 39.2 (2006): 37-55

Visitors who viewed this Book Review also liked these:

• Book Review # 132747 : "The "Native Girl Syndrome"
• Essay # 32072 : "Who Are The Native Americans?"
• Essay # 86005 : "The Native American Spirit World"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: