Talk:The Language

From Wikousta

Literary Forms/Descriptions Modern literary tastes tend to run towards the spunky and snarky, often graphic but tending to be more superficial and pulpy in their approach to the material than substantive and thought-provoking. Most works are romantic, comedic, or thrilling. Wacousta initially seems like it would fit in well within the adventure genre of today. The first image Richardson gives in Wacousta is of a ghostly group of “savages,” whose character and demeanour are exaggerated by the “ghastly, sickly hue” that the “faint light of the dawning day” provides (Richardson 3). The reader is introduced to the concept of Indians as an inhuman or subhuman race—as savage-like monsters, like what might be found in Goya’s imagination when reason sleeps.

However, Richardson instantly throws the reader a curve as he introduces Wacousta—the strange “savage” who speaks perfectly pure English to the captive captain De Haldimar. The tone of the novel instantly changes from a kind of lurid pulpiness to one of a more elevated character, especially as Wacousta explains a bit of his own background and the reasons for his hatred for the man—revenge against the man’s father: “For this have I forsworn my race, and become—what you now behold me—a savage both in garb and character” (Richardson 10). In other words, this is a complex character, and there is more going on in the novel in terms of social content and understanding than one might find in a pulpy thriller of today.

At the heart of Wacousta is a problematic approach to colonization, which is seen in the way Richardson represents this time in history. Wacousta is a representation of a clash between two “civilized” nations attempting to gain sway over what they perceive to be as “savages,” which is the language of the time that was accepted and which is why Richardson uses it.