Keeper 'n Me: Plot, Characterization, and Overall Evaluation

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Summary of "Keeper's Me"
Keeper'n Me by Richard Wagamese is a fictional novel that accentuates the importance of identity, culture, and background. The book revolves around Garnet, who was robbed by his parents in Ojibway Reserve by child services to send in foster care when he was 2-3 years old. After experiencing traumatic life in different foster homes, he escaped the system when he was 16 years old and started hitchhiking in search of identity. Getting involved in the black community, he takes an interest in drugs and is soon imprisoned while making a drug deal. In his five years imprisonment, his missing brother Stanley attempts to communicate with him through letters. He invites him to Qhite Dog Reserve after his discharge from the lockup, and Garnet does so. On coming home and meeting his people, he realizes that his indigenous ways of living were the way of life he was always connected to and searching for. The climax occurs when the protagonist's clothing is reformed into his native clothing to give him a more native look. On meeting Keeper, he discovers more about his cultural identity through the lake trip, providing him with spiritual relief and positivity (Wagamese 143). The story ends with a note of hope and happiness at the party organized by Garnet's mother for his son's return home.
The story is set in Ontario on a little primitive reserve on the verge of White Dog Lake. It is a lonely place where Garnet has much time to think and reflect on his life, discoveries and search for identity. The story references foster homes where the protagonist was taken as a child and the tribal life of American Africans he discovered in hitchhiking (Wagamese 14). The time set in the story was approximately the 1960s when the period of Sixties Scoop impacted the social life of Aboriginal Canadians along with colonization. It shows the First Nations at the hands of cultural exploitation by colonization and legal kidnapping of children with its social, physical, and psychological consequences in that era.
The story has two narrators, while Garnet remains the main narrator, telling things from his perspective. Keeper also explains many things from his point of view, but most of the story gives an adventurous and painful journey of Garnet to find his roots through his lens.
I enjoy the plot because it gives appropriate insight into Canada's social history during the country's historical period, the "Sixties Scoop." It unveils the worst intention of colonial imperialists to spread their culture and identity and the suppression of native traditions in the tribal life of Canada in the 1950s. Also, the story ends with an optimistic tone that makes it more enjoyable rather than distressing.
232575779375Keeper 00Keeper Sociogram
2955323243428100-2782952682875Chief Isaac 00Chief Isaac 5207000349250Lonnie Flowers00Lonnie Flowers
25243462981712Garnet’s teacher 00Garnet’s teacher
73516415027500
12480323731741Chief of the White dog house 00Chief of the White dog house 3596309566530040530163978876Garnet’s friend 00Garnet’s friend
23257584093845 Garnet Raven 00 Garnet Raven
89452153257170034785306794500
30440531417420012121055684879Garnet’s mother 00Garnet’s mother 38553085659395Garnet’s lost brother0Garnet’s lost brother
49992696179082Stanley 00Stanley -157977367665Alice‘MA’Raven 00Alice‘MA’Raven
27802706759146Garnet’s Uncle0Garnet’s Uncle
25892557952088Archie 00Archie
Work Cited
Wagamese, Richard. Keepr'n Me. 1994.
Answers to the Questions (Evaluation)
The books were available so that I could read them thoroughly. In my opinion, the best part of the book is when Garnet receives the letter from his long-gone brother Stanley (Wagamese 25). It was also a surprise for him and the audience because everybody felt that Garnet might meet the worst fate like many other Sixties Scoop survivor children with lost parents till death. It gives the novel an optimistic turn and creates curiosity in the audience about whether the protagonist will successfully return to his hometown. Also, this part begins to connect Garnet to the aboriginal root he has been exploring since childhood. I think the worst part of the book is when the protagonist indulges in illegal activities like drug purchasing for club parties (Wagamese 27). It stains his character and the sanctity of the children rippled and traumatized during twentieth-century colonization in Canada.
The title suits the book because it signifies the importance of the character of Keeper for the hero of the fiction. Keeper metaphorically represents the lost cultural values of the First Nations that Garnet explores throughout his life without knowing that his culture is waiting for him on his land. Although he reaches home after communicating with his brother, Keeper plays the role of a bridge between the past and present of the protagonist. Overwhelmed by the information he gets about his native traditions and lifestyle, he completes his spiritual journey through his lake trip with the help of Keeper (Wagamese 117). Hence, Keeper plays a pivotal role in reuniting Garnet with his identity and family values, becoming more important than any other fictional character and incident.
The author makes identity and culture the heart of human life and living. By portraying a hero from colonization in Canada, which deprived thousands of children of their cultural unity, the author provokes a sense of pity for the people who miserably search for their originality. The accomplishment of Garnet's journey to know himself socially and from the inside conveys that human beings are firmly bound by their traditional values. Garnet feels safe while sitting in his native reserve "because of that growing sense inside me that I was part of it all" (Wagamese 135). After spending all his childhood and partial youth among physically and culturally different people, he felt an emptiness inside him, although he adopted their ways of living. He tells the reader, "thinking and reacting all-white himself after a while…I was a brown white guy" (Wagamese 11). This dialogue specifies his utmost desire to discover the truth of his existence regardless of how much he had assim...