Encountered Cultures Through Vancouver Narratives: In Vancouver Short Stories and Innocent Traveler

As the course draws to an end the time has come to reflect on some of the works read and the different authors’ unique representations of their Vancouver. We’ve explored a collection of different cultures in Vancouver Short Stories, and the English to Canadian Culture of Ethel Wilson. These texts each showed a distinguishing narrative or writing style that represented a different culture or group of people.

Starting with the short stories, four main ones stood out being able to identify their authors’ culture and unique writing style. First “In Vancouver” by Martin Allerdale Grainger, represented a narrative of early English settlers and society, enticing them to come to where one could find rugged adventure, very different from their traditional English lifestyles. Next came the unique views and story telling of Pauline Johnson and Emily Car. Through their works one could illustrate the landscape, legends and people of the Native American culture and early Vancouver from their descriptions. The Asian- Canadian culture was represented by the works of Wayson Choy and Sky Lee, in which their characters struggled to, assimilate into Canadian society due to their cultural traditions and differences. Also usually the characters were divided in assimilation, the younger generations managed to slip into Canadian society with ease, while older people struggled to let go of their customs. Moving to Ethel Wilson, we got a view of the English- Canadian culture, somewhat different from that of Grainger. Wilson’s work was different because as the story progressed we saw how she slowly immersed herself within the Canadian culture, learning to love the city immensely. This differs from Grainger’s work because in his works only an advertisement was made not a story of his assimilation into the culture and Canadian society.