A Tool Kit: Twenty Strategies for Reading Life Narratives

Introduction

In this paper we analyze the biography of Emily Carr by Maria Tippet by using a toolkit on reading narratives. Discussion

With several biographies, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues already devoted to British Columbia's most well-known artist, Maria Tippet wanted to take a different approach to Emily Carr. The biographical account is mundane and adds nothing to our understanding of Carr. Maria does not, however, eschew the historical approach altogether. She provides lengthy passages on such issues as native land claims and native protest, with little attempt at integrating them into the subject of her book - Emily Carr. There is some evidence that for Carr - the youngest daughter in a large family, very much tier father's favourite - a particular incident influenced her developing sense of identity as a woman and as an artist. From her father, Carr learned a strong Protestant religious tradition and sense of the importance of work, and an equally strong sense of individuality. But then came 'the brutal telling': the most controversial aspect of Carr's story, first recorded in Maria Tippett's landmark biography, with reference to a crucially important psychological moment in Carr's life: when she was 14 years old, not long after the death of her mother, her father appears to have explained sexual intercourse to her perhaps using more than words to make his point. What exactly he did or said, with language or body language, is not known. Carr never spoke of it at the time, not for some 50 years; not during the entire period of her artistic and written productivity. But a few years before her death, she wrote to her close friend Ira Dilworth, who in turn was to write the Foreword to Mee Wyck: 'I couldn't forgive father I ...