Is Adorno being elitist when he criticises the culture industry Essay

Is Adorno being elitist when he criticises the culture industry - Essay Example ts came from educated-in-elite-school-system Germans such as Schopenhauer, Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bach, Beethoven and Goethe. There was a point in time where the German elite formed the main part of the intelligentsia. â€Å"The Germans are literary people. The country is after all das Land der Dichter und Denker, the land of poets and thinkers.† (Wasser, 2006) To understand whether Theodore Adorno in his criticism of art, music and culture was guided by the moralist, egalitarian, capitalist or totalitarian stance, this paper will focus on Adorno’s biography and his contributions to the development of the culture industry as well as his critical views on music and popular culture. For the purpose of clarity and space, Adorno’s early works (1941-1941) will be used as reference to build the entire paper. In 1903 in Frankfurt, Germany, Theodore Adorno opened his eyes to an affluent and educated family. Both â€Å"his mother and sister were accomplished musicians and it was from them that he received his initial training and encouragement in his life-long love for music† (Jay, 1973). His Jewish roots ultimately became the deciding factor in his philosophical writings and thoughts, especially after Hitler’s totalitarian regime and the Nazi Holocaust swept over Germany with millions of Jews persecuted under it. During this time, Adorno was forced into exile and spent the next 16 years of his life in England and the US before returning to Germany to complete his doctorate in Philosophy from Frankfurt University. Adorno’s position on culture and the music industry has managed to establish key influences in the domain of media studies. His ideas about these industries were critical and in some cases, pessimistic. Adorno analyses the dynamics of the culture industry in the context of ‘standardization’ underlining it as a fundamental characteristic of pop music. He quotes himself: â€Å"A clear judgment concerning the

The Current Trends In Computer Hardware Platforms Computer Science Essay

The Current Trends In Computer Hardware Platforms Computer Science Essay Mobile platform: more and more business computing is moving from PCs and desktop machines to mobile devices like cell phones and smartphones. Data transmissions, Web surfing, e-mail and instant messaging, digital content displays, and data exchanges with internal corporate systems are all available through a mobile digital platform. Netbooks, small low-cost lightweight subnotebooks that are optimized for wireless communication and Internet access, are included. The current version is called Windows Mobile 6.5. It is based on the Windows CE 5.2 kernel, and features a suite of basic applications developed using the Microsoft Windows API. It is designed to be somewhat similar to desktop versions of Windows, feature-wise and aesthetically. Additionally, third-party software development is available for Windows Mobile, and software applications can be purchased via the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Originally appearing as the Pocket PC 2000 operating system, most Windows Mobile devices come with a stylus pen, which is used to enter commands by tapping it on the screen.[3] Microsoft announced a completely new phone platform, Windows Phone 7, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 15, 2010. Phones running Windows Mobile 6.x will not be upgradeable to version 7.[4] Windows Mobiles share of the Smartphone market has fallen year-on-year,[5] decreasing 20% in Q3 2009.[6] It is the 5th most popular smartphone operating system, with a 5% share of the worldwide smartphone market (after Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Android and iPhone).[7] In the United States, it is the 3rd most popular smartphone operating system for business use (after BlackBerry OS and iPhone), with a 24% share among enterprise users.[8] Microsoft is phasing out Windows Mobile to specialized markets, such as rugged devices, and focusing on its new mobile platform, Windows Phone 7.[2] Common features Windows Mobile for Pocket PC carries these standard features in most of its versions: Today Screen shows the current date, owner information, upcoming appointments, e-mail messages, and tasks. (Is now Home screen in later WM6.5 builds) The taskbar shows the current time and the volume. Office Mobile a suite of Mobile versions of Microsoft Office applications Outlook Mobile comes with Windows Mobile. Internet Explorer Mobile is an Internet browser developed by Microsoft for Pocket PC and Handheld PC that comes loaded by default with Windows Mobile and Windows CE for Handheld PC. Windows Media Player for Windows Mobile. Client for PPTP VPNs. Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which in mobile phones allows attached computers to share internet connections via USB and Bluetooth. Coherent file system similar to that of Windows 9x/Windows NT and support for many of the same file types. Ability to multitask. Hardware See also: List of Windows Mobile devices There are three versions of Windows Mobile for various hardware devices:[9] Windows Mobile Professional runs on (smartphones) with touchscreens Windows Mobile Standard runs on phones with regular screens Windows Mobile Classic which runs on Windows Mobile Classic devices (Pocket PCs). An O2 Pocket PC phone A Smartphone (T-Mobile Dash) Windows Mobile Classic devices (Pocket PC) A Windows Mobile Classic device is a Windows Mobile personal digital assistant (PDA) that does not have telephone functionality. It was formerly known as the Pocket PC. It was the original intended platform for the Windows Mobile operating system. These devices consisted of both standalone Pocket PC devices without mobile phone capabilities, and those that included mobile phone capabilities. The most current name of Windows Mobile intended for use on Pocket PCs is officially Windows Mobile 6 Professional for devices with mobile phone capabilities and Windows Mobile 6 Classic for devices without mobile phone capabilities. Windows Mobile Smartphones The Windows Mobile (Microsofts term for its range of smartphones) became the next hardware platform after the Pocket PC to run Windows Mobile, and debuted with the release of Pocket PC 2002. Although in the broad sense of the term Smartphone, both Pocket PC phones and Microsoft branded Smartphones each fit into this category, it should be noted that Microsofts use of the term Smartphone includes only more specific hardware devices that differ from Pocket PC phones. Such Smartphones were originally designed without touchscreens, intended to be operated more efficiently with only one hand, and typically had lower display resolution than Pocket PCs. Microsofts focus for the Smartphone platform was to create a device that functioned well as a phone and data device in a more integrated manner.[10] Version history Pocket PC 2000 Grid computing: connects geographically remote computers into a single network to create a virtual supercomputer by combining the computational power of all computers on the grid. Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The Grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files. What distinguishes grid computing from conventional high performance computing systems such as cluster computing is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Although a grid can be dedicated to a specialized application, it is more common that a single grid will be used for a variety of different purposes. Grids are often constructed with the aid of general-purpose grid software libraries known as middleware. Grid size can vary by a considerable amount. Grids are a form of distributed computing whereby a super virtual computer is composed of many networked loosely coupled computers acting together to perform very large tasks. Furthermore, Distributed or grid computing in general is a special type of parallel computing that relies on complete computers (with onboard CPUs, storage, power supplies, network interfaces, etc.) connected to a network (private, public or the Internet) by a conventional network interface, such as Ethernet. This is in contrast to the traditional notion of a supercomputer, which has many processors connected by a local high-speed computer bus. Overview Grid computing combines computers from multiple administrative domains to reach common goal.[1] to solve a single task and may then disappear just as quickly. One of the main strategies of grid computing is to use middleware to divide and apportion pieces of a program among several computers, sometimes up to many thousands. Grid computing involves computation in a distributed fashion, which may also involve the aggregation of large-scale cluster computing-based systems. The size of a grid may vary from small-confined to a network of computer workstations within a corporation, for example-to large, public collaborations across many companies and networks. The notion of a confined grid may also be known as an intra-nodes cooperation whilst the notion of a larger, wider grid may thus refer to an inter-nodes cooperation.[2] Grids are a form of distributed computing whereby a super virtual computer is composed of many networked loosely coupled computers acting together to perform very large tasks. This technology has been applied to computationally intensive scientific, mathematical, and academic problems through volunteer computing, and it is used in commercial enterprises for such diverse applications as drug discovery, economic forecasting, seismic analysis, and back office data processing in support for e-commerce and Web servic Cloud computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. A simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. You dont need a software or a server to use them. All a consumer would need is just an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud ( internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo , Google etc. The consumer gets to use the software alone and enjoy the benefits. The analogy is , If you only need milk , would you buy a cow  ? All the users or consumers need is to get the benefits of using the software or hardware of the computer like sending emails etc. Just to get this benefit (milk) why should a consumer buy a (cow) software /hardware  ? Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: applications, platforms, and infrastructure. Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world. In June 2009, a study conducted by VersionOne found that 41% of senior IT professionals actually dont know what cloud computing is and two-thirds of senior finance professionals are confused by the concept,[1] highlighting the young nature of the technology. In Sept 2009, an Aberdeen Group study found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data center power costs.[2] Cloud Computing Segments Applications: Its all On Demand So far the applications segment of cloud computing is the only segment that has proven useful as a business model.The Cloud Wars: $100 Billion at Stake, Published by Merrill Lynch, May 7, 2008 By running business applications over the internet from centralized servers rather than from on-site servers, companies can cut some serious costs. Furthermore, while avoiding maintenance costs, licensing costs and the costs of the hardware required to run servers on-site, companies are able to run applications much more efficiently from a computing standpoint. Who is Offering On Demand Software? The companies below are already established in the On-Demand software or SaaS business. These companies charge their customers a subscription fee and in return host software on central servers that are accessed by the end user via the internet. Salesforce.com (CRM) Google (GOOG) NetSuite (N) Cordys Taleo (TLEO) Concur Technologies (CNQR) Who is Offering Traditional Software? The following companies have established themselves as traditional software providers. These companies sell licenses to their users, who then run the software from on premise servers. SAP AG (SAP) Oracle (ORCL) Blackbaud (BLKB) Lawson Software (LWSN) Blackboard (BBBB) Platforms: Many of the companies that started out providing On Demand application services have developed platform services as well. The platform segment of cloud computing refers to products that are used to deploy internet. NetSuite, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have also developed platforms that allow users to access applications from centralized servers. In July 2008, HP, Yahoo! (YHOO), and Intel (INTC) announced a joint cloud computing research project called the Cloud Computing Test Bed. The companies are jointly designing and producing the internet based testing utilizing HP hardware and Intel processors.[3] Active platforms The following companies are some that have developed platforms that allow end users to access applications from centralized servers using the internet. Next to each company is the name of their platform. Google (GOOG) Apps Engine Amazon.com (AMZN) EC2 Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Azure SAVVIS (SVVS) Symphony VPDC Terremark Worldwide (TMRK) The Enterprise Cloud Salesforce.com (CRM) Force.com NetSuite (N) Suiteflex Rackspace Cloud cloudservers, cloudsites, cloudfiles Metrisoft Metrisoft SaaS Platform [1] SUN Oracle direct link Cordys Process Factory The Enterprise Cloud Platform Infrastructure: The final segment in cloud computing, known as the infrastructure, is very much the backbone of the entire concept. Infrastructure vendors environments (such as Google gears) that allow users to build applications. Cloud storage, such as Amazons S3, is also considered to be part of the infrastructure segment. Major Infrastructure Vendors Below are companies that provide infrastructure services: Google (GOOG) Managed hosting, development environment International Business Machines (IBM) Managed hosting SAVVIS (SVVS) Managed hosting cloud computing Terremark Worldwide (TMRK) Managed hosting Amazon.com (AMZN) Cloud storage Rackspace Hosting (RAX) Managed hosting cloud computing Explain how businesses can benefit from autonomic computing, virtualization, and multicore processors. Autonomic computing Benefits of autonomic computing include systems that automatically do the following: Configure themselves Optimize and tune themselves Heal themselves when broken Protect themselves from outside intruders and self-destruction Reduces maintenance costs Reduces downtime from system crashes Virtualization Benefits of server virtualization include: Run more than one operating system at the same time on a single machine. Increase server utilization rates to 70 percent or higher. Reduce hardware expenditures. Higher utilization rates translate into fewer computers required to process the same amount of work. Mask server resources from server users. Reduce power expenditures. Run legacy applications on older versions of an operating system on the same server as newer applications. Facilitates centralization of hardware administration. Multicore processors Benefits of multi-core processors: Cost savings by reducing power requirements and hardware sprawl Less costly to maintain as fewer systems need to be monitored. Performance and productivity benefits beyond the capabilities of todays single-core processors. Able to handle the exponential growth of digital data and the globalization of the Internet. Able to meet the demands of sophisticated software applications under development. Run applications more efficiently than single-core processors giving users the ability to keep working even while running the most processor intensive task in the background. Able to increase performance in areas such as data mining, mathematical analysis, and Web serving. What are the current trends in software platforms? Define and describe open source software and Linux and explain their business benefits. Open-source software provides all computer users with free access to the program code so they can modify the code, fix errors in it, or to make improvements. Open-source software is not owned by any company or individual. A global network of programmers and users manage and modify the software. By definition, open-source software is not restricted to any specific operating system or hardware technology. Several large software companies are converting some of their commercial programs to open source. Linux is the most well-known open-source software. Its a UNIX-like operating system that can be downloaded from the Internet, free of charge, or purchased for a small fee from companies that provide additional tools for the software. It is reliable, compactly designed, and capable of running on many different hardware platforms, including servers, handheld computers, and consumer electronics. Linux has become popular during the past few years as a robust low-cost alternative to UNIX and the Windows operating system. Thousands of open-source programs are available from hundreds of Web sites. Businesses can choose from a range of open-source software including operating systems, office suites, Web browsers, and games. Open-source software allows businesses to reduce the total cost of ownership. It provides more robust software thats often more secure than proprietary software. Define and describe Web services and the role played by XML. Web services offer a standardized alternative for dealing with integration across various computer platforms. Web services are loosely coupled software components based on XML and open Web standards that are not product specific and can work with any application software and operating system. They can be used as components of Web-based applications linking the systems of two different organizations or to link disparate systems of a single company. Web services are not tied to a particular operating system or programming language. Different applications can use them to communicate with each other in a standard way without time-consuming custom coding. XML provides a standard format for data exchange, enabling Web services to pass data from one process to another Businesses use Web services to tie their Web sites with external Web sites creating an apparently seamless experience for users. The benefit derives from not having to re-create applications for each business partner or specific functions within a single compan Name and describe the three external sources for software. Software packages from a commercial software vendor: prewritten commercially available set of software programs that eliminates the need for a firm to write its own software program for certain functions, such as payroll processing or order handling. Software-as-a-service: a business that delivers and manages applications and computer services from remote computer centers to multiple users using the Internet or a private network. Instead of buying and installing software programs, subscribing companies can rent the same functions from these services. Users pay for the use of this software either on a subscription or a per-transaction basis. The business must carefully assess the costs and benefits of the service, weighing all people, organizational, and technology issues. It must ensure it can integrate the software with its existing systems and deliver a level of service and performance that is acceptable for the business. Outsourcing custom application development: an organization contracts its custom software development or maintenance of existing legacy programs to outside firms, frequently firms that operate offshore in low-wage areas of the world An outsourcer often has the technical and management skills to do the job better, faster, and more efficiently. Even though its often cheaper to outsource the maintenance of an IT infrastructure and the development of new systems to external vendors, a business must weight the pros and cons carefully. Service level agreements are formal contracts between customers and service providers that define the specific responsibilities of the service provider and the level of service expected by the customer. QNO:5(B) Network economics refers to business economics that benefit from the network effect. This is when the value of a good or service increases when others buy the same good or service. Examples are website such as EBay, or iVillage where the community comes together and shares thoughts to help the website become a better business organization. In sustainability, network economics refers to multiple professionals (architects, designers, or related businesses) all working together to develop sustainable products and technologies. The more companies are involved in environmentally friendly production, the easier and cheaper it becomes to produce new sustainable products. For instance, if no one produces sustainable products, it is difficult and expensive to design a sustainable house with custom materials and technology. But due to network economics, the more industries are involved in creating such products, the easier it is to design an environmentally sustainable building. Another benefit of network economics in a certain field is improvement that results from competition and networking within an industry. Network Interactions Clearly, one of the principal facets of the Network Econ- omy is the interaction among the networks themselves. For example, the increasing use of e-commerce espe- cially in business to business transactions is changing not only the utilization and structure of the underlying logistical networks but is also revolutionizing how busi- ness itself is transacted and the structure of _rms and industries. Cellular phones are being using as vehicles move dynam- ically over transportation networks resulting in dynamic evolutions of the topologies themselves. This course also, under advanced topics explores the network interactions among such networks as transporta- tion networks and telecommunication networks, as well as _nancial networks

Matrix Metalloproteinases Essay -- Biology, Science Experiments

Matrix metalloproteinases are members of a large family of enzymes that can degrade extracellular matrix as well as other molecules [1]. MMPs participate in a broad variety of normal and pathologic states [2], and have been implicated as potential mediators of cardiac dilation and heart failure. Indeed, in culture cells [3,4], animal models mimicking the CHF syndrome [5,6] and CHF patients [7-9], a mechanistic relationship has been demonstrated respect to myocardial MMP expression and left ventricular (LV) remodeling process [3-9]. Likewise, recent reports on endothelial culture cells [10-12] and animal models of CHF [13,14] have shown that the increase of expression and activity of MMP-2 and MMP-9 (called gelatinases) might also play an important role in the impairement of endothelial function, a key event contributing on morbidity and mortality in CHF patients [15]. However, data respect to the role of MMPs on endothelial dysfunction in the setting of human CHF is completely unknow n. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the association between the activity of gelatinases and endothelial dysfunction in patients with CHF. We hypothesized that a higher plasma MMP-2 and MMP-9 activities correlate with a lower endothelial function in patients with CHF. We included CHF patients, NYHA functional class II-III controlled in a university clinical center. All patients signed an informed consent approved by our institutional Review Board and Ethics Committee. Inclusion criteria were left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ...esented here share new clinical evidence suggesting a possible participation of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in the genesis and progression of endothelial dysfunction, suggesting an active role of MMPs in this event. The main limitations of the present study were the limited number of patients, the presence of standard pharmacological therapy administered that may influence our results and such a correlations reported here did not demostrate a cause-effect relationship, but there is experimental evidence that could sustain our results. Further studies are clearly required to address this issue for exploring the causal relationships between these proteases and the pathophysiology of endothelial function. Acknowledgements The authors of this manuscript have certified that they comply with the Principles of Ethical Publishing in the International Journal of Cardiology [20].

Cast System in india

History of the Indian caste system From Wikipedia, the tree encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Indian society has consisted of thousands of endogamous clans and groups called latis since ancient times. The Brahmlnlcal scriptures and texts tried to bring this diversity under a comprehensible scheme which hypothesised four Idealised meta groups called varna.The first mention of the formal varna Indian caste system Is in the famous Purusha Sukta of the Rigveda, although it is the only mention in the entire body of the Vedas and has been decried as a much later, non-Vedic insertion y numerous Indologists like Max M?ller and also by Ambedkar. [citation needed] Contents 1 Hindu scriptures 2 Emergence of rigid caste structures 2. Mobility across the castes 3 Reform movements 4 Reterences 5 External links Hindu scriptures In the Vedic period, there also seems to have been no dlscrlmlnatlon against the Shudras on the Issue of hearing the sacred words of the Vedas and fully participating in all religious rituals, something which became progressively restricted in the later citation needed] Manusmriti, dated between 200 BCE and 100 CE, ontains some laws that codified the caste system. The Manu Smriti belongs to a class of books that are geared towards ethics, morals. nd social conduct – not spirituality or religion. Emergence of rigid caste structures In its later stages, the caste system is said to have become rigid, and caste began to be inherited rather than acquired by merit. In the past, members of dfferent castes would not partake in various activities, such as dining and religious gatherings, together. In addition, the performance of religious rites and rituals were restricted to Brahmins, who were the designated priesthood. Mobility across the castes The view ot the caste system as â€Å"static and unchanging† has been disputed by many scholars.For Instance, sociologists such as Bernard Buber and Marriott McKlm describe how the perception of th e caste system as a static and textual stratification has given way to the perception of the caste system as a more processual, empirical and contextual stratification. Other sociologists such as Y. B Damle have applied theoretical models to explain mobility and flexibility in the caste system in India. [2] According to these scholars, groups of lower-caste individuals could seek to elevate the status of their caste by attempting to emulate the practices of higher castes.Some scholars believe that the relative ranking of other castes was fluid or differed from one place to another prior to the arrival of the British. [3] According to some psychologists, mobility across broad caste lines may have been â€Å"minimal†, though sub-castes (Jatis) may change their social status over the generations by fission, re- the question of rigidity in Caste. In an ethnographic study of the Coorgs of Karnataka, e observed considerable flexibility and mobility in their caste hierarchies. [5][6 ] He asserts that the caste system is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time.Movement has always been possible, and especially in the middle regions of the hierarchy. It was always possible for groups born into a lower caste to â€Å"rise to a higher position by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism† i. e. adopt the customs of the higher castes. While theoretically â€Å"forbidden†, the process was not uncommon in practice. The concept of anskritization, or the adoption of upper-caste norms by the lower castes, addressed the actual complexity and fluidity of caste relations. Historical examples of mobility in the Indian Caste System among Hindus have been researched.There is also precedent of certain Shudra families within the temples of the Shrivaishava sect in South India elevating their caste. [2] Reform movements There have been cases of upper caste Hindus warming to the Dalits and Hindu priests, demoted to outc aste ranks, who continued practising the religion. An example of the latter was Dnyaneshwar, who was excommunicated from society in he 13th century, but continued to compose the Dnyaneshwari, a Dharmic commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Other excommunicated Brahmins, such as Eknath, fought for the rights of untouchables during the Bhakti period.Historical examples of Dalit priests include Chokhamela in the 14th century, who was India's first recorded Dalit poet, Raidas, born into Dalit cobblers, and others. The 1 5th- century saint Ramananda also accepted all castes, including untouchables, into his fold. Most of these saints subscribed to the Bhakti movements in Hinduism during he medieval period that rejected casteism. Nandanar, a low-caste Hindu cleric, also rejected casteism and accepted Dalits. [7] In the 19th century, the Brahmo SamaJ under Raja Ram Mohan Roy, actively campaigned against untouchability.The Arya SamaJ founded by Swami Dayanand also renounced discrimination agains t Dalits. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa founded the Ramakrishna Mission that participated in the emancipation of Dalits. Upper caste Hindus, such as Mannathu Padmanabhan also participated in movements to abolish Untouchability against Dalits, opening his amily temple for Dalits to worship. While there always have been places for Dalits to worship, the first â€Å"upper-caste† temple to openly welcome Dalits into their fold was the Laxminarayan Temple in Wardha in the year 1928 (the move was spearheaded by reformer Jamnalal Baja]).Also, the Satnami movement was founded by Guru Ghasidas, a Dalit himself. Other reformers, such as Mahatma Jyotirao Phule also worked for the emancipation of Dalits. Another example of Dalit emancipation was the Temple Entry Proclamation issued by the last Maharaja of Travancore in the Indian state of Kerala in the year 1936. The Maharaja proclaimed that â€Å"outcastes should not be denied the consolations and the solace of the Hindu faith†. Ev en today, the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple that first welcomed Dalits in the state of Kerala is revered by the Dalit Hindu community.The 1930s saw key struggles between Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar, most notably over whether Dalits would have separate electorates or Joint electorates with reserved seats. The Indian National Congress was the only national organisation with a large Dalit following, but Gandhi nalysis of Untouchability, but lacked a workable political strategy: his conversion to Buddhism in 1956, along with millions of followers, highlighted the failure of his political endeavours. 8] India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, based on his own relationship with Dalit reformer Ambedkar, also spread information about the dire need to eradicate untouchability for the benefit of the Dalit community. In addition, other Hindu groups have reached out to the Dalit community in an effort to reconcile with them, with productive results.

The Loons

Journal of the Short Story in English 48   (Spring 2007) Varia †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Jennifer MurrayNegotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã ¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Electronic reference Jennifer Murray,  «Ã‚  Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons†Ã‚  Ã‚ », Journal of the Short Story in English [Online], 48  |  Spring 2007, Online since 01 juin 2009, Connection on 01 avril 2013. URL  : http:// jsse. revues. org/index858. html Publisher: Presses universitaires d'Angers http://jsse. revues. org http://www. revues. org Document available online on: http://jsse. revues. org/index858. html Document automatically generated on 01 avril 2013.The page numbering does not match that of the print edition.  © All rights reserved Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 2 Jennifer Murray Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† : p. 71-80 1 2 3 4 5 â€Å"The Loons† belongs to Margaret Laurence’s story-sequence A Bird in the House which is built around the character Vanessa MacLeod and her growing-up years in the fictional town of Manawaka, Manitoba. Following on from the collection’s title story which has the death of Vanessa’s father as its central event, â€Å"The Loons† is set in a time prior to the father’s death and is the first of three stories which deal with Vanessa’s progressive opening up to the world around her and her increasing awareness of the suffering, poverty and forms of oppression outside of her family circle (Stovel 92). More specifically, â€Å"The Loons† gives us Vanessa’s perception of a young girl called Piquette Tonnerre who is of Metis descent and who accumulates the social disadvantages of poverty, illness, ethnic discrimination and being female.The story has been taken to task for the questionable values attached to its u se of Piquette as the stereotype of the doomed minority figure, most notably by Tracy Ware who asks: â€Å"To what extent [does this short story] confirm a debased master narrative that regards Natives as victims of a triumphant white civilization? † (71). At the same time, Ware recognizes the â€Å"enduring sense of [the] aesthetic merit† (71) of this story which so clearly has its place within the canon of Canadian literature.Evaluating the text against its depiction of the Metis can only lead to the negative conclusions that Ware arrives at, namely, that Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† falls ideologically short of the expectations of today’s politically-conscious reader. What this reading of â€Å"The Loons† does not take into account is that the â€Å"aesthetic merit† of the story is situated elsewhere—not in the portrait or role of Piquette as such, but in the story’s treatment of loss and in the central role of the fat her in the symbolics of this particular knot of meaning.In the context of the full story-sequence, loss and the father would seem more naturally associated in â€Å"A Bird in the House,† where the death of the father is the central event. In â€Å"The Loons,† the death of the father is recalled and reactivated as an informing event related to other moments in Vanessa’s life and to her relationship to others, Piquette bearing the weight of this role as ‘other’. On one level—that of Vanessa’s childhood perception of Piquette2—the story is about incomprehension, misconstruction, defensiveness and the impossibility of communication between the two girls.But the entire history of this failed relationship is revisited through the narrating voice of the adult Vanessa; in the telling of the story, she reshapes past events through the experience of loss provoked by her father’s death and invests them with symbolic value. Like the dreamer and the dream, Vanessa’s story is more about Vanessa than about those around her; it is her attempt to fit her own sense of loss into a world which is, more than she knows, beyond her.The father’s role in giving Vanessa access to symbolic values is central to the story; indeed, the first ‘event’ in the story is the father’s announcement of his concern (as a doctor) for the health of the young Piquette, who is in his care. After having prepared the ground briefly, he asks his wife: â€Å"Beth, I was thinking—what about taking her up to Diamond Lake with us this summer? A couple of months rest would give that bone a much better chance† (110).This act of social generosity, which is to involve his whole family, introduces the reader to the father’s values; it also inaugurates the continuing association in the text between the father and Piquette. The father is a reference point for Piquette; she invokes him to justify her re fusal to accompany Vanessa on a short walk: â€Å"Your dad said I ain’t supposed to do no more walking than I got to† (113), and in later years, Piquette tells Vanessa, â€Å"Your dad was the only person in Manawaka that ever done anything good to me† (116). This positive assessment of the father is Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 3 6 the only shared ground between the girls. In response to the comment above, Vanessa â€Å"nodded speechlessly [†¦ ] certain that [Piquette] was speaking the truth† (116). In the name of her love for her father, Vanessa will make several attempts at approaching Piquette: these attempts are regularly met with rejection, leading to a moment of hurt for Vanessa: ‘Want to come and play? ’ Piquette looked at me with a sudden flash of scorn. ‘I ain’t a kid,’ she said. Wounded, I stamped a ngrily away [†¦]. 112) 7 8 This pattern recurs twice on the following page, with Piquette’s â€Å"scorn† taking on other forms —â€Å"Her voice was distant† (113); â€Å"her large dark unsmiling eyes† (113)—and her refusals becoming more verbally aggressive: â€Å"You nuts or somethin’? † (113); â€Å"Who gives a good goddamn? † (114). The impossibility of sharing between the girls is seen both from the perspective of the child Vanessa, who is mystified, â€Å"wondering what I could have said wrong† (113), and from the more experienced perspective offered by the narrated construction of events.This double vision allows the reader to see the misperceptions and involuntary insensitivity on which Vanessa’s attempts at communication are based. Where Vanessa fantasizes Piquette into â€Å"a real Indian† (112) and projects onto her the knowledge of the ‘secrets’ of nature, Piquette lives her identity as a Metis through the social rejection which characterizes Manawaka’s view of her family:   Ã¢â‚¬ËœI bet you know a lot about the woods and all that, eh? ’ I began respectfully. †¦] ‘I don’t know what in hell you’re talkin’ about,’ she replied. [†¦] If you mean where my old man, and me, and all them live, you better shut up, by Jesus, you hear? ’ (113) 9 While the child cannot understand the defensiveness of Piquette, as readers, our knowledge of Piquette’s social conditions, outlined in the opening paragraphs of the story, leads us to a position of empathy with the offended girl. Similar effects are produced by Vanessa’s enthusiasm about her summer cottage, —â€Å"‘I love it,’ I said. We come here every summer,’† (113)—expressed in the face of Piquette’s poverty, which habitually excludes her from the world of lakeside summer homes. Just as much as Piquette’s social disadvantages, Vanessa’s self-absorbed immersion in the comforts of middle-class Manawaka is the source of the girls’ mutual wariness. As the narrator of the story, the older version of Vanessa puts forward expressions of regret at the failure of the relationship between herself as a child, and Piquette.This regret, however, is not distinct from childhood, but a part of it, recounted in the past tense: â€Å"Piquette and I remained ill at ease with one another. I felt I had somehow failed my father, but I did not know what was the matter, nor why she would not or could not respond† (115). The linguistic markers â€Å"somehow† and â€Å"did not know† suggest that the emotional experience of failure remained confusing for the child, but the ability to formulate this metadiscourse indicates that things have become clearer to the adult Vanessa.This acquired comprehension allows the narrator to develop the expression of failure once again, two pages further on, including, this time, more details about the possible expectations of the father: Yet I felt no real warmth towards her—I only felt that I ought to, because of that distant summer and because my father had hoped she would be company for me, or perhaps that I would be for her, but it had not happened that way. (117) 10 Through the voice of the more experienced Vanessa, the regret of the past is understood to have been intimately related to a sense of having failed not herself, nor Piquette, but her father.The focus is on the father’s symbolic role in attributing potential value to the possibility of their friendship. Along with the father’s generosity towards Piquette, a series of other values related to the father are offered in the short story. The father’s name, MacLeod, is also the name which designates the family cottage (111), which itself is associated with nature and authenticity: it Journal of the Short St ory in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 4 11 s the father who comes and sits by the lake with Vanessa to listen to the loons (114); the lake, the nighttime, the loons, all come to signify intuitive communication (â€Å"we waited, without speaking†), mystery and transcendence (â€Å"They rose like phantom birds†), a reproach to human civilization (â€Å"Plaintive, and yet with a quality of chilling mockery, those voices belonged to a world separated by aeons from our neat world of summer cottages and the lighted lamps of home†) (114). The idea that the loons belong to a separate world is reinforced by the father’s comment that the loons had been there â€Å"before any person ever set foot here† (114).The loons are both a form of access to the continuum of natural time as opposed to civilized time, and a reminder that man cannot bridge that gap; there is therefore a form of retrospective loss attached to the image of the loons: the imagined loss of what came before and is now inaccessible. However, the birds also prefigure future loss—the enduring presence of the loons is endangered, as Vanessa tells Piquette: My dad says we should listen and try to remember how they sound, because in a few years when more cottages are built at Diamond Lake and more people come in, the loons will go away. 114) 12 We can also see the metonymic association between this loss and the approaching end of the permanence of Vanessa’s world; her father, associated with the loons in Vanessa’s childhood, is soon to disappear: â€Å"Neither of us suspected that this would be the last time we would ever sit here together on the shore, listening† (115). The symbolic charge of the loss of the loons is therefore great for Vanessa, but meaningless to young Piquette, who, on learning of the precarious situation of the birds, says: â€Å"Who gives a good god damn? (114). For Piquette, they are literally, â€Å"a bunch of squawkin’ birds† (115). Meaning is to do with symbolic construction and â€Å"The Loons†, for all of its focus on Piquette, is about Vanessa’s construction of personal meaning. Coral Ann Howells notes that Vanessa’s choosing to write about Piquette is a way of â€Å"silently displacing her own feelings into [Piquette’s] story† (41). This process is clearest in the paragraph which announces the father’s death: That winter my father died of pneumonia, after less than a week’s illness.For some time I saw nothing around me, being completely immersed in my own pain and my mother’s. When I looked outward once more, I scarcely noticed that Piquette Tonnerre was no longer at school. (115) 13 14 The words which tell of the loss of the father are almost immediately followed by words which tell of the disappearance of Piquette. This is given in the form of a neg ation: â€Å"I scarcely noticed†¦,† but what the young Vanessa had â€Å"scarcely noticed,† the narrating Vanessa gives weight to by placing it in verbal proximity to the death of the father, obliquely associating the two events.Through indirection, therefore, Vanessa speaks of her own loss. But the process is not entirely parasitic; in the telling, she also constructs Piquette. Piquette is, in some ways, a difficult character for today’s reader to take on board: like Pique, the daughter of Morag Gunn in the final Manawaka story, â€Å"The Diviners†, she â€Å"suffers from the weight of too much thematic relevance† (Howells 51) since, as I noted earlier, she accumulates an extraordinary number of handicaps, all of which are seen to be indirectly related to her Metis origins.In spite of the older Vanessa’s gentle mocking of her earlier self in her desire to ‘naturalize’ Piquette into a folkloric Indian, the story does imply that part of Piquette’s tragedy is that, like the loons, she belongs to a more ‘authentic’ heritage which has been/is being destroyed. 3 The romanticism which the narrating voice mocks is nonetheless supported by the story’s symbolism, as is the attempt to fix Piquette into a sterile, stereotyped role of ‘representativity,’ something that Piquette’s direct discourse has violently rejected.Yet, we do have access to a more tenacious Piquette; in her silences, rejections, and refusals, she is a character who is fighting for her own survival in a world clearly divided along class lines and this tenacity is seen principally in her rejection of Vanessa’s self-satisfaction. Vanessa’s sense of superiority over Piquette is implicit in the narrator’s comments about the Metis girl’s invisibility to her younger self; at that time, Piquette was but â€Å"a vaguely embarrassing presence† who â€Å"moved somewhere w ithin my scope of vision† (109). Moreover, Piquette can drop out of sight for years without notice: â€Å"I do not remember seeing her at allJournal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 5 until four years later† (115). It would seem to be the total separateness of their social worlds that creates and sustains what might be experienced as a ‘lack of affinity’. Whereas these social differences remain unformulated to the child Vanessa, they are close to the surface for Piquette whose discourse refuses to endorse the smugness of the well-off Vanessa: ‘Do you like this place,’ I asked [†¦] Piquette shrugged. It’s okay. Good as anywhere. ’ ‘I love it,’ I said, ‘We come here every summer. ’ ‘So what? ’ (113) 15 Other details suggest a Piquette who has dreams of her own, but who cannot allow herself t o expose them to others: â€Å"When she saw me approaching, her hand squashed flat the sand castle she had been building, and she looked at me sullenly, without speaking† (113). For Piquette, the child Vanessa is a potential enemy, someone to guard oneself against. Dreams cannot be shared, and cannot even be envisaged within the society of which Vanessa is a part.Indeed, even in her later teenage years, Piquette holds no hope of improvement for herself within the confines of small-town Manawaka: â€Å"Boy, you couldn’t catch me stayin’ here. I don’ give a shit about this place. It stinks† (116). Piquette knows that Manawaka holds nothing for her in the sense that no one there believes in her chances for a better future. When she becomes engaged to be married, she remarks that, â€Å"All the bitches an’ biddies in this town will sure be surprised† (117).The implication that the town gossips have nothing good to say about Piquette is un derscored by Vanessa’s own reactions. On seeing Piquette several years after the summer at the cottage, Vanessa is â€Å"repelled† and â€Å"embarrassed† by her, and although she is â€Å"ashamed† at her own attitude, she gives way to an emphatic outpouring of animosity towards the teenage girl:   Ã‚  Ã‚  I could not help despising the self-pity in her voice. I wished she would go away. I did not want to see her. I did not know what to say to her.It seemed that we had nothing to say to one another. (117) 16 The force of this expression suggests a negative identification with Piquette on Vanessa’s part. It is as if Piquette represents the photo negative of Vanessa’s life; the result of poverty, illness, and lack of education made flesh and standing there as a threat to the integrity of Vanessa’s identity as a middle-class, reasonably well-educated girl with a future. There is no indication in the story that Vanessa ever overcomes thi s violent rejection of Piquette during the Metis girl’s lifetime.This moment of intense emotional confrontation is followed by what may be seen as the story’s signature moment: For the merest instant, then, I saw her. I really did see her, for the first and only time in all the years we had both lived in the same town. Her defiant face, momentarily, became unguarded and unmasked, and in her eyes there was a terrifying hope. (117) 17 These last two words encapsulate the relative positions of the two girls.Where Piquette ‘reveals’ her most guarded treasure—hope, arguably the most positive emotion which exists, Vanessa reproduces the condemning judgement of the town; with the word â€Å"terrifying,† she declares this hope to be without any ground. It is therefore coherent with Vanessa’s view of Piquette’s life that the Metis woman should be left as a single mother, follow in the drunken path of her father, and finally die in a hous e fire along with her two children. Vanessa’s reaction to this news is, â€Å"I did not say anything. As so often with Piquette, there did not seem to be anything to say† (119).It is not that there is ‘nothing to say’ about Piquette, but rather, that what there is to say would involve a questioning of community values which would also have to be a form of self-questioning. The narrative does not take the direction of a critique of human and social relationships; it deals with the vague sense of guilt expressed by the narrator—â€Å"I wished I could put from my memory the look that I had seen once in Piquette’s eyes† (119)—by sublimating Piquette into the symbol (along with the loons) of something lost.The ground is prepared through the falling action of the story which lists the avalanche of losses which Vanessa experiences after having heard about Piquette’s death: â€Å"The MacLeod cottage had been sold after my father ’s Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 6 death†; â€Å"The small pier which my father had built was gone†; â€Å"Diamond Lake had been renamed Lake Wapakata†; and finally, â€Å"I realized that the loons were no longer there† (119).These different elements reinstall the triad of the father, the loons and nature as the paradigm of loss and the narrator then brings Piquette into this sphere of symbolism: I remember how Piquette had scorned to come along when my father and I sat there and listened to the lake birds. It seemed to me now that in some unconscious and totally unrecognised way, Piquette might have been the only one, after all, who had heard the crying of the loons. (120) 18 19 â€Å"Piquette,† â€Å"father,† â€Å"lake,† â€Å"birds,† â€Å"loons†: all of these words are given a place in the final parag raph.The narrator too, is present amongst these elements, and her place as the one who reconstructs meaning is affirmed: â€Å"I remember how [†¦]. † But it is affirmed, finally, as a process of questioning: in the phrase, â€Å"It seemed to me now that in some unconscious and totally unrecognised way,† (where it is uncertain as to whether it is the narrator’s unconscious or Piquette’s which is being invoked), the narrator seems to romanticize Piquette’s Metis status into the ‘natural’ world and confer on her the positive charge of nostalgia related to loss. In this statement of restricted awareness, it would seem that the narrator is trying to resolve the problem of her own position in relation to Piquette; the irreconcilable distinction between how she felt towards Piquette and how she felt she should have felt, if only for her father’s sake. The solution to this is to transform Piquette from the living girl—judged by society, including Vanessa and her mother—as â€Å"sullen and gauche and badly dressed,† â€Å"a real slattern,† â€Å"a mess† (118), into a symbol: a young girl, representative of an oppressed minority, with a tragic destiny, doomed to die. In this form, the loss of Piquette can be associated with both the death of the father and the disappearance of the loons; the desire to bring Piquette into this association suggests an unresolved sense of guilt—towards the girl character, on the level of the diegesis, but also towards the Metis people, whose â€Å"long silence† (108) is echoed in the â€Å"quiet all around me† experienced by Vanessa (119) as she becomes aware of the disappearance of the loons.Silenced by death, Piquette’s ‘otherness’ can be neutralized and romanticized into nostalgia. The contradictions which structure â€Å"The Loons† give the story its force. In spite of the control of the adult n arrator in the choice and ordering of memory, there is no attempt to beautify the emotions of her childhood self. The limited, often egocentric aspects of her childhood perspective are rendered, so that the reader’s sympathy goes out towards the other girl, Piquette. This construction of perspective may be een as a form of generosity, whereby, in spite of Vanessa’s statement that â€Å"there was nothing to say,† the narrator’s rendering of the past has allowed the reader to achieve an awareness of Piquette’s specificity as a character: she has moved from the general sense of absence which characterizes her in Vanessa’s memory, to a form of visibility in which the reader may see her as the victim of multiple vectors of oppression; in this context, her ‘defiance’ and ‘sullenness’ become the marks of a fighting spirit, and her ‘hope,’ the sign of her humanity.Through these effects constructed by the narrat ing voice, the earlier generosity of the father is ultimately echoed and loss takes on its complex human dimension. Bibliography Howells, Coral Ann. Private and Fictional Words : Canadian Women Novelists of the 1970s and 1980s. London: Methuen, 1987. Laurence, Margaret. A Bird in the House (1970). Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Stovel, Bruce. â€Å"Coherence in A Bird in the House,† in New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence : Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism.Ed. Greta McCormick Coger. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996. Vauthier, Simone. â€Å"‘A Momentary Stay Against Confusion’ : A Reading of Margaret Laurence’s ‘To Set Our House in Order. ’† The Journal of the Short Story in English vol. 3 (1984): 87-108. Ware, Tracy. â€Å"Race and Conflict in Garner’s ‘One-Two-Three Little Indians’ and Laurence’s ‘The Loons. ’† Studies in Canadian Literature vol. 23:2 (199 8) : 71-84. Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 7 Notes   I am grateful to my colleagues in Besancon who participated in a discussion on â€Å"The Loons. † 2   See Vauthier (96-99) for a detailed analysis of Vanessa’s function as narrator (based on the short story â€Å"To Set Our House in Order,† but equally valid here). 3    Indeed, Tracy Ware argues that the association of Piquette with nature, on the basis of her Metis origins, â€Å"den[ies] Piquette her full humanity, [and it also] makes a tragic outcome inevitable. We will never be able to imagine a future for people whom we regard as separate[d] from us ‘by aeons’† (80).   Margery Fee’s comment, quoted in Ware, that â€Å"Native people [†¦] are so rarely depicted as individuals, because they must bear the burden of the Other—of representing all that the modern person has lost† (Ware 82), seems relevant to the construction of Piquette as a character who comes to bear the symbolic weight of the very idea of loss. 5   Ware declares that this symbol is â€Å"a misrecognition because it ignores the historical struggles of both Natives and Metis† (79). References Electronic referenceJennifer Murray,  «Ã‚  Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons†Ã‚  Ã‚ », Journal of the Short Story in English [Online], 48  |  Spring 2007, Online since 01 juin 2009, Connection on 01 avril 2013. URL  : http://jsse. revues. org/index858. html Bibliographical reference Jennifer Murray,  «Ã‚  Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons†Ã‚  Ã‚ », Journal of the Short Story in English, 48  |  2007, 71-80. Jennifer Murray Jennifer Murray is an associate professor at the University of Franche-Comte.Her research is focused primarily on Canadian literatur e and on American writers from the South. Ms. Murray’s publications include articles on Margaret Atwood, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor and Tennessee Williams. She is currently working on the short stories of Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro. Copyright  © All rights reserved Abstract Je me propose ici d’etudier l’impact symbolique de la disparition du pere dans â€Å"  The Loons  Ã¢â‚¬ , une nouvelle de Margaret Laurence.Au niveau de l’intrigue, l’histoire est celle d’une amitie impossible entre la narratrice, Vanessa, fille de medecin, et une jeune metisse, Piquette, soignee par le pere de Vanessa. Les differences de niveau social, d’education et d’origine ethnique creent une incomprehension fondamentale entre les deux filles et vouent a l’echec les tentatives de Vanessa de sympathiser avec Piquette. Cet insucces attriste Vanessa  ; elle pense avoir decu son pere qui esperait que le sort de sa jeu ne patiente serait adouci par le contact avec sa famille.Devant son incapacite a transformer la realite et le remords qu’elle en eprouve, la narratrice transforme son souvenir de Piquette, l’exclue, en symbole. Ce symbole se developpe autour d’un noyau d’elements semantiques associes a l’authenticite, la nature, et la nostalgie du passe  ; des concepts valorises par le pere, et qui, pour la narratrice sont lies au sentiment de perte occasionne par sa mort Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007