Sujet: Anglais Mon profil pour cette activité: Penseur Les savoir-être utilisés: L'engagement - La créativité - L'enthousiasme J'ai choisi ce travail parce que c'était une de mes meilleures présentations. Touching Spirit Bear; Myth and Creation
By : D. K.
Grade 9
English ENG1D
Teacher : Mrs. H
School : Académie de la Capitale
October 25, 2012
Table of Contents
1. Summary of the Myth “Mayuk The Grizzly Bear”
2. How the myth helps us better understand the book
3.1. Introduction for creation
3. 2. Creation + Name of creation
3. 3. Numbered list of parts of creation
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
Myth
Among the Sechelt people, there is a myth about the great grizzly bear; Mayuk.
A long time ago, on the Shores of the Sunshine Coast, there lived many Sechelt people. Those people were the best hunters, “because the animals they hunted were swift and fierce, and the best weapon they had was the simple bow and arrow[1].” Amongst those animals, the grizzly bear Mayuk was the most challenging to hunt because he was ferocious, powerful and clever. The best hunters of the best were three brothers that were huge, with wrists the width of a man’s palm. Those brothers were off hunting Mayuk, when one caught a glimpse of him and shot him in the side. The bear lumbered off into the forest. The youngest brother went off in pursuit, when suddenly Mayuk jumped out of the bushes and started mauling him. His brothers rushed to his aid and killed the great bear with two more arrows.
How the myth helps us understand the book
The first thing that came to my mind when reading this myth, was how similar it was to the book “Touching Spirit Bear”. The bear in the myth, Mayuk, was said to be powerful, ferocious and clever. I believe that the Spirit Bear also has those characteristics. The younger hunter wanted to kill the Mayuk, as Cole wanted to kill the Spirit Bear. When both bears were mauling[2] those individuals, the two older men came to their rescue. The myth links to my artifact, because my artifact has a bear (which is the main character in the myth) and the animals on my totem have characteristics that go well with the myth. I think that this myth helps us understand the book because it shows that Aboriginals also had meetings with smart bears, and they didn’t always end well for the characters. I find it a bit strange that out of the four stories (Mayuk, Cole, Edwin and Garvey’s) only the non-native one ended well.
My Creation (Cheltyu’Gwai) Totem poles were made for many different reasons. Some were made for celebrations, events or even family lineage. Sometimes the order of symbols represent importance. Here, the most important symbol is the bear, so it’s at the top, but the other animals are in no significant order. Further description of the symbols can be found in the section 3.3., “Numbered list of parts of creation” page 4. I named my totem pole Cheltyu’Gwai because it’s a mix of these three names: Sechelt, Mayuk and Haida Gwaii. I chose these names because I liked the sounds they made and I wanted my name to have aboriginal sounds in it. The name is doesn’t mean anything. Conclusion
At the beginning of this project, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I started by looking for a myth because I thought that I would then be able to find a fitting artifact. I started by reading a few stories from a big book of myths, without any success. I then read “Mayuk the Grizzly Bear” and I thought it was perfect for this project. I decided to make a totem pole with a bear on top, because bears were one of the main characters it both stories. I decided on the circle because Cole had one on his totem pole, and I find that it is a concept that was repeated a lot in the book. I chose the other animals on the totem pole because even though some were not in the book, I find that their characteristics were present in both stories a few times. I really enjoyed doing this project. I liked discovering things about Native American symbols and myths. I also find that I did really well in time management and planning. Bibliography
Craigan, Charlie. Mayuk the Grizzly Bear. Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 1993.
Gulli, George. “Totem Pole symbols and their mythological meaning” TOTEM POLES & CARVINGS (2007). 23 Oct. 2012 <http://www.gullitotempoles.com/TotemPoleSymbols.html>
“Native American Totems & Their Meanings” NATIVE AMERICAN LEGENDS (2003-2012). 23 Oct. 2012 <http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-totems.html>
Totem pole (2012) 23 Oct. 2012 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem_pole> [1] Craigan, Charlie. Mayuk the Grizzly Bear. Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 1993. [2] It said that exact word in both books Sujet: Anglais Mon profil pour cette activité: Communicateur Les savoir-être utilisés: L'indépendance - La confiance en soi J'ai choisi ce travail parce que pour ma deuxième dissertation en anglais, je pense que c'était excellent. Changing Mental Health has Consequences By : D. K. English, Grade 9 Teacher : Linda Halberstadt Académie de la Capitale April 5, 2013 Outline for Comparative Essay 1. Introduction 1.1. Attention grabbing sentence 1.2. Names of books 1.3. Themes talked about (Brain issues or mental health) 1.3.1. Mental capacity 1.3.2. Memory loss 2. Comparative points 2.1. Background and short summary of stories 2.2. Perceptions of other characters about main characters 2.3. Behavior different because of environment 2.4. Degree of change and effects of those changes 2.5. The love life of the two individuals 2.6. Affection for smaller creatures and why 3. Conclusion: What do we learn about mental health Changing Mental Health has Consequences Can an operation actually triple someone’s intelligence, or can an accident actually leave someone with a memory that lasts only 80 minutes? The two books Flowers for Algernon and The Housekeeper and the Professor seem to propose those things can happen. The two fictional books are very similar but at the same time very different. They both deal with brain issues and how they affect two individuals, Charlie, in Flowers for Algernon, and the Professor, in The Housekeeper and the Professor. One of the important ideas in both novels is change and its effects. Some of the effects of those changes are in the two men, as well as in the people around them. Mental health, as in mental capacity and memory loss, is another important subject mentioned in these two books. The books show what happens if mental capacity is altered and how it can ruin people’s lives. In the beginning of each book, we learn that both characters have problems with their mental capacity. Charlie is “retarded”, and has been so since birth. The book begins with him working at a bakery with people who make fun of him because of his disability. He, however, thinks that they are laughing with him, rather than at him. He had a very difficult childhood, with a mother who refused to acknowledge his disability, and normal younger sister who hated him for having mental problems. At the age of 32, after working at the bakery for about 17 years, he undergoes brain surgery at Beekman College in an attempt to reverse his disability. The main person in charge of this operation was Professor Nemur. The operation was a success and he reached an IQ of 185 before he dropped back down to his former IQ. In the other book, we meet the Professor a few years after a car accident where he lost his memory. The Professor can remember everything before this accident. Unfortunately, his memory is only 80 minutes long for events after the accident. Fortunately, he has a sister-in-law that pays for all his needs and who hires housekeepers for him. The housekeeper in this story is the tenth one working for the Professor, which confirms how challenging it is to take care of him. Over the course of the two books, one sees how perceptions about the two main characters change. After Charlie’s metamorphosis, everyone seemed to resent and dislike him. The people at the bakery changed their perceptions first, since they disliked that he was now smarter than they were, and they could no longer make fun of him. They bullied him until he quit the bakery. This shows how spiteful people can be when they are jealous. The professors at Beekman College, especially Professor Nemur, began to act spitefully as well. They resented how smart he had become, and Charlie’s condescending attitude towards them made matters worse. Alice Kinnian, his former reading tutor and at later his girlfriend, found that when he became smarter, he lost the “warmth” that people felt when near him. The only person who did not act negatively towards Charlie was his sister. She liked him more after the surgery because she was finally able to have a real big brother, not a brother who was handicapped and took all the attention away from her. In the other book, the Professor had the opposite effect on people. People liked him more afterwards. If his accident had not happened, Root, the Housekeeper’s 10-year old son, would not have become so close to him. The Housekeeper would not have been as interested in him either, because he might not have been as excited to teach her the “Art of Mathematics”. The Professor might have acted condescending as did Charlie after his surgery. One of the reasons that the attitude of the two men was so different was because their lives were very different. In Charlie’s case, everything was so complicated. He felt a myriad of different emotions with no one to help him understand them. He also had not learned how to react to situations as most people had. Thus, he had to start his emotional learning from scratch and learn very quickly. For example, he said “Ironic that all my intelligence doesn’t help me solve a problem like this.” Everyone expected him to behave well, be polite, be cooperative, as someone who was as intelligent as him would have been. Sadly, he had never learned these behaviors. On the other hand, the Professor had his nice sister-in-law who took care of him financially, the Housekeeper who took care of his daily needs, and Root, the ten-year old, who made him happy. Root transformed the way the Professor acted, even to the extent that the Housekeeper thought that she should bring Root along with the Professor for errands because “The Professor would [feel] compelled to behave more like an adult with a child present.” The change that the Professor underwent was more significant and more life-changing than Charlie’s although it might appear to have been the opposite. The Professor, before the accident, had a good life and was an important person. After the accident, he lost a lot of mental capacity and abilities, and thus he lost his position at the university and everything he had been accustomed to. Charlie, on the other hand, had almost nothing. When he became smart, it was an overwhelming change. In the end, the operation hardly changed his life. After he became “retarded” for the second time, he scarcely remembered getting smarter previously. Another reason that the Professor’s change seemed less life-changing was because most of the book was written about a later part of his life. His early life was not well described and we did not learn enough about the Professor’s early life. Therefore, it appeared as though he had always had his disability. Another important subject in the book is the two mens’ love life. The Professor seemed to have had an affair with his sister-in-law, the widow of his brother. Some proof is that when the Housekeeper found the Professor’s thesis, there was a picture inside it with the message “For N, with my eternal love. Never forget.” After the accident, the relationship could not have worked out because of his disability. Nevertheless the sister-in-law took care of him to the end, although sometimes indirectly, by hiring housekeeper. For Charlie, his love life was very complicated. He once said to Alice Kinnian “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved” although he also appeared to like Fay a lot. He did a lot of work and spent a lot of time at the college, so that was his third passion. He seemed to have trouble balancing all three. To make matters worse, he drank a lot. He learned this unhealthy addiction from Fay. It may appear improbable, but both men had a great affection for smaller and more vulnerable creatures. The Professor’s “weak” spot was Root. The Housekeeper once thought “Though he had always hated to have his ‘thinking’ interrupted, he now seemed more than willing to give it up for my son.” The Professor was always willing to answer Root’s questions, no matter how frivolous. This behavior seemed odd, although according to Root’s mother, it might come from a “deep fear” that came from the Professor’s youth. Charlie had an affection for Algernon, the mouse, in a different way. Algernon had the same surgery as Charlie, so Charlie saw himself in Algernon. Algernon is a metaphor for Charlie. While protecting Algernon and later putting flowers on his grave, he was protecting and pitying himself. Charlie felt that Algernon was the only real friend he had ever had. The moral of these two stories is that mental capacity is not something we want to deliberately alter. Although amazing things can happen, as in Charlie’s case, getting his intelligence tripled, meddling with the mind likely will backfire. The two books Flowers for Algernon and The Housekeeper and the Professor are great examples of why it’s better to leave mental capacity untouched to avoid unexpected consequences. Bibliography Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. Orlando: Harvest, 2004. Print.
Ogawa, Yoko. The Housekeeper and the Professor. New York: Picador, 2009. Print. http://citationmachine.net/index2.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon |
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