3.7–Sample Analysis of a Short Story

Hannah Elizabeth Bowling
Dr. Travis Rozier
ENGL 203
14 June 2021

“Blood for Blood”: Marital Conflict in “A Red Girl’s Reasoning”

Using a brief, attention-grabbing quote is a common way to write an engaging title. The quote should be followed by a colon and a clear statement about the subject of the essay. This title is a good example of this technique.

Despite being predominantly white by blood, Pauline Johnson considered herself a Native American Indian, as did the Canadian government of the early twentieth century (Betty 1). She spent much of her life writing and performing poetry, acting as a type of sensationalist because of her Indian ancestry. Keller Betty, a biographer, writes, “Many people in her audiences paid to see her mainly because they wanted to see an Indian. She was perfectly aware of this and though at times she felt like some kind of freak side-show attraction, she willingly capitalized on her Indian identity” (64). In writing “A Red Girl’s Reasoning,” Johnson explores this liminality, her existence in the space between belonging and unbelonging through Christie McDonald, a mixed-race young woman like herself. Like Christie, Johnson was both a part of and yet separate from Canadian middle-class society in the early 1900s because of her Indian heritage. Christie, unlike Johnson, marries a young white man named Charlie McDonald. In Charlie, though, Christie does not find mooring for her liminality. In his treatment of her in the time leading up to the party and their conversation immediately afterward, Charlie shows himself to fetishize Christie for her Indigenousness rather than actually love her.

The writer introduces the essay with some biographical context, showing the reader that the author of the story had a personal connection to the subject matter. They even do some light research into the author’s biography to support this claim.

At the beginning of “A Red Girl’s Reasoning,” Charlie is introduced to the reader in conversation with his father-in-law while waiting for Christie to appear. When Jimmy Robinson tells Charlie that he does not understand Indigenous people or their cultures as well Robinson, who has lived over twenty years in native lands, Charlie balks at this assessment: “But I’m just as fond of them” and “I get on with them too, now, don’t I?” are his cries in response (Johnson 1). This incident highlights Charlie’s insistence on always being correct, regardless of whether or not he is actually right or not. It also foreshadows how his insistence at always being right will later create marital conflict with his new bride.

Notice a tiny proofreading error—the word “as” is missing after the word “well”; while it’s a small oversight, it still causes the reader to have to work to figure out what’s missing in the sentence.

After their brief wedding and before the pivotal party scene, Charlie becomes vain at his new-found celebrity, thanks to Christie’s Indigenousness: “He was proud that she had ‘taken’ so well among his friends, proud that she bore herself so complacently in the drawing-rooms of the wives of pompous Government officials, but doubly proud of her almost abject devotion to him” (Johnson 3). He also becomes jealous; at the thought, instigated by Mrs. Stuart, that Joe does not love Christie nearly as much as she deserves, he confronts his brother about the matter. “I’ve never asked you yet what you thought of her, Joe,” he ponders with his brother (4). Unsatisfied with his brother’s answer of “I’m glad she loves you,” Charlie tells Joe that “If she hated you, you’d get out. If she loved you I’d make you get out” (4). This scene, while seemingly a minor incident in the text, becomes alarming when coupled with Charlie’s discussion with Jimmy Robinson. Both incidents highlight that Charlie views Christie as an object: he balks at the idea that she exists outside of his narrow understanding of what an Indian is, and he is primarily interested in the social advancement opportunity she presents to him as “the rage” of polite society that winter (3). Like everyone else in Ottawa, he perceives her as “a potent charm to acquire popularity” (3). It is not until the social faux pas she makes at the Lieutenant-Governor’s dance that his good opinion of her is tarnished.

The writer begins this paragraph by making a claim and immediately providing textual evidence to support it. Notice, too, that they vary the way they introduce quotes throughout the paper, sometimes using colons and at other times blending quoted material with their own writing. This variety is important in making your writing dynamic and engaging.

At the party, when confronted by numerous individuals as to the nature of her father and mother’s marriage, Christie admits that they were not married by a priest. Horrified by this lack of propriety and despite her clarification that “the marriage was performed by Indian rites,” guests like Captain Logan and Mrs. Stuart immediately begin to gossip at hints of impropriety in Christie and Charlie’s marriage itself (Johnson 6). “Poor old Charlie has always thought so much of honorable birth,” Captain Logan says, perhaps the most damning indictment of Charlie’s character in the short story (6). Charlie, who was not made privy to this information before his marriage, is beyond angry by this news. What he is angry about is not the information being withheld from him, though; instead, he is angry with Christie at ruining her, and therefore his, reputation.

Immediately after the disastrous party, Charlies skulks off by himself before returning home to confront Christie. At the sight of her, he cries “You have disgraced me; and, moreover, you have disgraced yourself and both your parents” (Johnson 7). When Christie throws in his face the fact that he “who [has] studied my race and their laws for years” accuses her of bastardry, Charlie is affronted: “Your father was a fool not to insist upon the law, and so was the priest” (6-7). Despite studying and understanding Indian culture for years and marrying an Indian woman, Charlie insists that Christie’s parents “live in more civilized times” and should therefore have had a Christian wedding with a priest in order to authorize their marriage (8). Ultimately, however, Christie wears down Charlie’s ignorant arguments until he cries “the trouble is they won’t keep their mouths shut” (8). Even in this moment of intense argument with Christie over a subject that ultimately proves the end of their marriage, Charlie cannot stop prioritizing the opinions of those in white Ottawan society. Because of her announcement, Charlie has been made a fool in front of his friends, colleagues, and the city writ-large, and his anger at this prompts him to announce “God knows” when Christie asks whether it would have made a difference when deciding to marry her (8).

In conclusion, Charlie views Christie as an object by which to buy social favor in white Canadian society by virtue of her Indigenousness; this fetishization of her fame as a “civilized” Indian woman ultimately proves the undoing of their marriage when he cannot cope with her lack of conformity. He alienates Christie from white society by castigating her for her parents’ lack of “propriety” (by a white man’s standard) and refusing to recognize the validity of her people’s customs. Christie occupies a liminal space between being white and being Indigenous that cannot support Charlie’s racist attempts to capitalize on her beauty and appeal to society as the new “rage” for his own social gain. Through Christie, Pauline Johnson explores the fraught nature of being an Indian in a white man’s world, while through Charlie, Johnson exposes how white society commodifies the lives and cultures of Indigenous people during the early twentieth century.

The conclusion wraps up the essay nicely by going back through the argument and restating it in new language.

Works Cited