Analysis Of Totem By Thomas King

Museums serve as a way to connect with the public on a large scale, and the knowledge held within exhibits can be a fruitful experience for those who choose to visit these institutions. Experiencing all that a museum has to offer, no matter how well intentioned, can at times be confusing and overwhelming to the individuals visiting the site. The Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian dedicates itself to Native Americans in North and South America, and worked tirelessly with varying tribes to create a new standard. Some visitors and scholars found their work to be successful in design and approach while others found it to be lacking in execution. This institution does not approach Native American history in a familiar fashion; however it does cover an expansive period of time, and produces a great amount of detail while generating powerful emotions.

In the short story “Totem” by Thomas King, the relationship between the totem pole and the museum workers is negative. The relationship is depicted as being overpowering, authoritative, and entitled when the workers continually try to remove the totem pole from the museum. Ultimately, the totem pole symbolizes the struggles and perseverance of the Indigenous people in Canada.

Through his creative non-fiction piece “Going to Canada”, Warren Cariou proposes that our traditional view of Canada is superficial and fabricated from cover-up stories; we need to look beneath the surface of central issues to construct a well-rounded understanding. Cariou travels to Auschwitz and is quite intrigued by the warehouse called Canada, which is used to store stolen goods from prisoners. He questions how the ‘Canada’ located in the internment camp got its name and what significance the name plays. Initial reflection upon the meaning of Canada suggests the prisoners named it as a place for freedom and solace. However, later evidence suggested that it was actually named by Nazi Commanders. There seemed to be no direct connection between the warehouse and the country until Cariou returned to Canada and visited several northern Aboriginal communities. Cariou emphasizes the significance of stories of First Nations as agents of remembering and forgetting; they show the theft and dehumanization that Aboriginals are subjected to. Through the numerous parallels, it became evident that there is a clear connection between the warehouse and the country. Cariou claims that as Canadians, our perspective is shaped from cover-up stories and prevents us from seeing the connection that exists between the two. The corporate exploitation of Aboriginal communities and natural resources is analogous to the behavior of the Nazis during the holocaust. Through this piece, Cariou wishes to

Quoted by Handler and Gable, critic Ada Louise Huxtable declares the newly constructed reproduction of Colonial Williamsburg as “too clean,” arguing that it “does not include the filth and stench that would have been commonplace.” (Source E) This sanitation of the truth completely misrepresents history, and the educational value greatly suffers. Conversely, the National Museum of the American Indian hopes to avoid this lack of judgment by dedicating itself to the “preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and Arts of Native Americans.” (Source C) The main goal of the museum is to “span all major cultural areas” (C) and educate the public about and preserve the rich history of such a vast culture. The authenticity and significance of artifacts are important to representing culture and history, and the ability of these artifacts to educate should be a key factor of the selection process.

In the short story “Totem” by Thomas King, it is very evident that the relationship between the totem pole and the museum workers is a rather negative relationship. The relationship is depicted in “Totem” as an overpowering, authoritative, and entitled relationship. The relationship between the totem pole and the museum workers is depicted through the museum workers such as Mrs. Hill, Walter Hooton, and the other worker’s reaction and constant need to remove the totem pole.

Leila Aboulela writes “The Museum” in a way that can make the reader feel like they are connected and present with the characters. Held in a prestigious university in Scotland, the University of Aberdeen, “The Museum” highlights many difficult challenges that can be faced in a lifetime, and that makes the story even more relatable. Leila Aboulela really knows how to capture her readers, which makes her story so memorable. Aboulela uses explicit adjectives to describe common things that advance the story even more. For example the reoccuring color blue on page 372 that evokes the sad feeling that Shadia develops throughout the story.

The University of Washington, Seattle is a renowned institution with an extensive research facility placed at the disposal in conjunction with the Burke memorial museum. The imperative scientific “necessity” for further research of the remains has placed the museum as an institution in the wake of a highly controversial set of issues. The university has the initiative to perpetuate the sciences conducive to the study of anthropology, providing educational biases. The requests made on the behalf of the Native communities has a true claim to the respectful treatment of said human remains that is directly conflicting with the claims the scientific community has proclaimed. The definitions of respectful treatment are disputant amongst the two groups and continue to place the Burke Museum in the middle ground of a severe conflict. The university and the museum have taken the situation as an opportunity to educate the public to a degree, launching a section on the museum’s web cite that chronicles the displacement of “Kennewick Man”.

On January 27th, 2015 I went to the Waterloo Regional Museum located in the city of Kitchener, Ontario. The museum scrutinizes the First Nations people, European settlement at the start of the 1800, the manufacturing peak of the 1900`s and the high sector boom of recent years. Many of the historical artifacts and paintings reminded me of some of the themes discussed in the Discovering the Humanities course. The story of human social development as displayed in the Waterloo Regional Museum focuses on the transition to European settlements. This gradual development can be connected to two main modules in the humanities course: the Iroquian creation story and the modern scientific advancement.

While the exhibition had its fair share of people who supported it, a large group of individuals did not, and they were not afraid to make their voices heard. The issue at hand was the way the objects had historically been possessed and controlled. The artefacts had been collected through the military; they were responsible for stripping African countries of anything and everything they deemed valuable, even religious idol and sacred objects. ‘Collectively, they left nothing in Africa which struck them as valuable’. And so since the artefacts remained in the possession of the more dominant peoples, the objects were not able to tell the true story, they were being limited as it was being told through the lens of Dr. David Livingstone, a

I hope to see museums make more concerted efforts to educate the public. Too many exhibits are of the “passive, didactic looking” than like the engaging Object Stories program (Dartt, Murawski). Exhibits should seek to tell untold narratives, and programs should be places of communication and cross-cultural encounters. For too long, difficult confrontations have been avoided, both inside the museum, and by dominant communities

After arriving and going through the security screenings, I proceeded to go down the stairs, entering the exhibit itself. Before even observing anything specific, it was immediately realized that this was no typical museum. Most people know that upon arrival, but only when you first enter the exhibit do you realize that this museum is not one that inspects the past, but one that reminds us of it.

Together, the museums from the college, trustee offices, and the woman’s apartment act as an effective method to convey the narrator’s views of power and how others duped him into thinking differently from what he believed. Often the narrator is not allowed to view the museum settings he encounters without the preconceived ideas from others like Dr. Bledsoe and the Brotherhood, which together impacts the narrator’s thoughts on his own invisibility. The narrator’s preconceived notion of power and success is what really draws the narrator to form his observations in the museum settings. Without these elements from the museums, portions of the narrator’s narrative towards his path of disillusionment would be incomplete. The museum setting collectively showcases the narrator’s thoughts on his perception of power and authority. Therefore, from Ellison’s various influences of art and museum settings, the narrator’s museum observations reflect the perception of the struggles of invisibility and views of disillusionment the narrator gains from authoritative

Using symbolism, Susan Power shows how non-indian people have a biased view of American Indians and that Indians are displayed as museum exhibits. On the first page she explains how there is a statue depicting an indian about to kill a white woman and her children, her mom says that, “Children who see this will think this is what indians are all about”(1). Later, Power and her Mom are walking together in the egyptian exhibit. Her mom points out the mummies and says, “[the mummies] were a lot like us….and now just look at them”(2). The mummies represent people’s beliefs that indians are people of the past. Later in the story Power explains how they “stand before the [buckskin dress in the glass case] as we would before a grave”(2). This shows

In Source A, Rockfeller addresses two core issues for museums to recognize. The two key problems that “threatened the instruction” were both “money and management.” With Rockefeller as a primary financial donor for the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, he yearned for his money to be used wisely. This restoration reflected the problematic nature of “a poor management structure.” Less outstanding pieces of art were chosen. The purpose of this memoir was to advocate for the severe need for productive management for a museum to run smoothly and secure wanted art pieces and

‘Imagine you were in charge of a museum’s collecting policy. What would you chose to collect and how would you justify these decisions?’