Toronto At Dreamer's Rock By Drew Taylor

Oscar Wilde once said “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”. Joseph Boyden describes the devastating impact that colonialism had on the Wendat people through his novel The Orenda, which explores the collisions of worlds of the Huron, Iroquois, and French. Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock by Drew Taylor illustrates the plight of the Odawa tribe, through a magical encounter of three members - one from past, present, and the future. The stripping of an identity leads to a deprivation of culture, emotional stability and spirit that has long-standing repercussions. Brainwashing through colonial education, assimilates the Wendat and Odawa to European values, eventually …show more content…
In Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock, the absence of culture within the present-day Odawa tribe becomes evident after Rusty says that the boys are all Odawa and Kessic retorts in disbelief, “I am so Odawa and Ojibway. I got a card and everything… Then why are we speaking this English? Do we have not have our old tongue? The Odawa Tongue” (Taylor 65). European hegemony over the Odawa allows them to indoctrinate individuals like Rusty through colonial education. Rusty’s assimilation to European ideologies causes him to lose his identity as he can only define himself through a trivial piece of paper, his reserve card. Rusty has been robbed of his people’s rich and unique culture as he has a minimal connection with the lands, symbols and language of the Odawa. Rusty's dissociation from his culture has the effect of a loss of alterity and becoming a subaltern. Rusty has lost the ability to speak Odawa, his native language and has become dependent on English as a mode of communication. His dependence on English has the consequence of an inability to communicate with his own tribe members and express