Jamila Ben\ The clash of culture has been intense that it achieves the climax

Jamila Ben

The Relationship Between Environment and Character in Agoak and TheWhite Dawn Pr jamila Benabou FLSH, Ain Chock, Hassan II University Of Casablanca jamillabenabou@gmail.com Abstract :

The clash of culture has been intense that it achieves the climax. So, comparison between the two novels « Agoak, the Legacy Agaguk » and « the white Dawn » is very significant related to the origin and the dignity of Eskimos. « Agoak » is an Inuit novel. It is about human nature and the limits of civilization. It is about the savage that lurks in us all beneath the surface. Agoak is the grandson of Agaguk. Agoak manages to find a job in a bank in Frobisher; he marries Judith and makes friends with whites. Agoak’s ambition promotes him to a responsible job at the bank due to his competence in data processing. At one moment he turns to his savage nature by killing two Americans whom he finds raping his wife. Agoak has to flee to the North in escape from the police, and in confrontation with the wilderness and snow. Struggling for survival, Agoak finds himself in the same situation as that of his great-grand fathers the lnuits. The white dawn is an account of a peaceful village destroyed by the intrusion of three friendly American guests who were lost in the wilderness. The three whalers are brought back to the camp by Sarkok, the leader of camp, and host them waiting no more from them than respect to his generosity. The white hunters are infracting the Eskimos’ traditions, imposing on the community their free life-style. They introduce alcohol, they sleep with their women, they gamble and steal.

I find it interesting to make a comparative analysis of Theriault’s Agoak and Houston’s White Dawn and to shed light on the relationship between environment and character in both texts. There are broad similarities and differences in the two books; yet will focus more on plot and characterization. In Agoak, the protagonist is Agoak himself. He is an Eskimo; he comes to Frobisher to take a job in the bank. There is this civilized aspect in him. He is intellectual, he is very intelligent. He was lucky to go to Montréal and to Toronto to continue his studies. Yet; through this peaceful flowing of events in a single hour he turns things upside down and the book takes another perspective. Agoak the protagonist has to flee to the North, to the wilderness. He has to escape with his wife to return back to his ancestors the lnuits, to the harshness of weather, to the building of igloos. In Agoak (the book) we are confronted with two contradictory scenes contrary to Houston’s white Dawn. The story runs from the beginning to the end narrated by an Inuit. It takes the point of view of an Inuit who has witnessed the arrival of three foreigners to their camp and has followed their gradual evolution and their sense of integrity among the Inuits. The story becomes more authentic. In Agoak, the protagonist is an Eskimo among the white men, which means that he is from the North, the primitive, the wild world; he must be looked at inferior by the white men in the sense that his ancestor’s way of life is still controlled by nature. The inuit is totally idle before the power of snow storms, the freezing wind, he is all the time waiting for nature’s gift, he is in constant hunting and fishing to provide his food. For Agoak and in the first part of the book he is considered privileged, not many of Inuits have obtained the same merits. Unlikely; in white Dawn three white men are whalers ‘hunters. They are strangers in the Arctic. It is for them an exploration of this remote North where men is taking a serious risk. Still, being saved by Inuits and being invited in their camp is to adapt the Inuit’s way of living. They are coming from civilization to wilderness; they have left all the simple easy life of the South, preferring to share the hard experience of the Inuits. In the first novel at the first part Agoak is given the opportunity to achieve a sophisticated life. It is an onward movement. Unlike the three foreigners in the second novel, there is deterioration in their handling of life. They prefer barbaric wild miserable life to their civilized one. Though; we can say it is a discovery of certain kind of human being living in a remote place, cherishing the freezing to death weather and managing in their own way to survive. If we consider characterization in both books and environmental influence we see that in Agoak, the protagonist arrives to Frobisher, he takes a job in the bank, he is ambitious and he lives among the white men. Agoak has approximately the same advantages as the whites. He lives in an apartment with his wife Judith, they are well equipped, he is successful in his job at the bank that he is envied by the whites. He makes a good example of an Inuit well adapted to his new environment. Accordingly, we can see the protagonist shaped and modeled by what surround him. Yet; under his peaceful sober attitude there is another Agoak who is all fire and flame. The environment has shaped Agoak during certain period of time to establish his social carrier but not forever. Nonetheless, in the white Dawn, the three strangers establish themselves among the Inuits. They are idlers; they are given shelter, food and distractions in the camp. Unlike Agoak, they have not to prove themselves to survive. « These strangers having nothing and knowing nothing seemed very inferior to us like overgrown children who one must care for and protect against harm ». (p48) « The strangers could not help us, for of course, they did not know to build a snow house » (p142). These strangers have been brought to the camp as the victims of snow wilderness. The weather was deadly freezing that they have lost their fourth friend and the three of them were wandering aimlessly in the vagueness of the white world. If the Inuits hadn’t found them at the last moment, they were already dead. They were at the edge of freezing. They were totally unfamiliar with the environment that they were sacrificing their ignorance to the snow plains. Still, their adaptability to the Inuit’s environment was slow; after all they are surviving but trying to abuse of the Inuit’s generosity and hospitality. They are seen by the Inuits as strangers. They have their strange language they try to understand each other; the two counterparts find it difficult to live in the same place. « The strangers don’t know to play our games. They do everything wrong. They surprise us every day by their differences…after all, you must remember that these foreigners know very little about life. They are violent, savage people ». (p113) « …they believed themselves to be their masters, three people somehow apart from us ». (p226) « The strangers walked among us like alien God ». (p227). The three strangers are bad omens to the Inuits’hunting and fishing. Every time the Inuits come short of meat and fish they rely it to the strangers’ arrival in their camp and their awful behavior:

What people said about these kalvaitis was true. Whenever We tried to like them, they would do something offensive, Something disgusting to remind us they were foreigners after all. They had been born in some far off outlandish place, and perhaps they could never be one with us. (p104)

At the end, the strangers were cut off from the camp. They are ignored, they are left without women to sleep with, to prepare their meal and to sew their clothes though their jovial nature and though they are living with Inuits, they cannot merge in their everyday life. The white men have abused of their host’s hospitality. Imposed themselves upon them that they have caused the dispersion of the camp. « Indeed, our village was changing. The coming of these foreigners had altered everything for us in the camp ». (p146) « These dog children who had come so weakly among us had somehow gained enough strength to change our lives ». (p147), also:

I believed then as I do now that our troubles had been caused by the three foreigners. They had come to us like helpless children, and we had fed them and clothed and had even taught them to speak a few words with us, we had gladly shared our food, our house and our women with them. In return for this they still believed themselves to be their own masters; three people somehow apart from us. (p226)

Unlike Agoak who is a hard worker, he is sober and extremely serious. He respects the others and he is respected. He says about the whites in (p26) chapter 4. « the whites had to give us houses they greet us in the street, they let us go anywhere they don’t make life too difficult for us, our children go to their schools. Here everything is fine ». Agoak is grateful to the whites, he doesn’t abuse of their kindness. On the contrary, he is working for them, he is a good citizen; nevertheless things go upside down for him the moment he has committed murder. He has killed, butchered two Americans whom he has surprised raping his wife. For this act, he is far from being shaped by the environment. In (p146) he says to one of his friends. « Your ancestors were savages and regardless of what happened to you in your life you’re savage too ; and always will ». In Agoak the effect of the surrounding on the protagonist is not lasting, he has proved to be well at the first part ; yet in one decisive moment he becomes a true Inuit. He gives up his intellectual refined way, he turns to a maniac, he flees to the North.

Environment effect on human’s life Reality is hard to accept because an Inuit is not a white man. To commit a homicide in South is not like to kill an Inuit or another person in North ,and killing a human being is not as a dangerous act as in South. Thus, environment cannot shape the destiny of human kind or pardon his crime. He is an Eskimo and he remains till the end of his life. Still, in the white Dawn the three strangers want to impose their ways on the Inuits, in (p208). « They could not even fed themselves, and yet they almost ruled us » also in (p147). « I wished to understand everything i could about these strangers, these dog children, who had come so weakly among us and somehow gained enough strength to change our lives. » The three strangers are able to rule the Inuits. They have the power to manipulate them. The fact of being from the South makes them gaining the esteem of the leaders of the camp and the friendship of the other Inuits. They stay idly waiting to be served they don’t feel obliged to work. They are at their ease. They are in a relaxed mood. It becomes for the three hunters an excursion than a dangerous trip. They don’t respect the Inuit’s beliefs. They behave the way they were accustomed to do in their countries. They don’t care to irritate the relatives by their rudeness.

We knew that the waters must have been swarming with the souls of dead walrus, and at time, it was important that we show them respect not triumph. For had they not come to us from some distant place and given their flesh to us so that we might live? Still even with the foreigners rudely singing, we managed to reach the shore without another mishap, which make me think again that these three round eyed people lived by other rules and perhaps would not be hurt by disobeying our taboos. (p130)

It is clear from the paragraph above that the white man is ignorant of the Inuit’s bad and good deed; nevertheless, they behave according to their own way and to what they used to practice earlier. According to the text the strangers don’t believe in the Inuit’s myth and the story of the walrus to be angry and won’t give them his flesh any more. On the contrary, the three strangers are spontaneous they show their cheerfulness and their achievement. They are not trying to understand the meaning of things. They take what they are given without criticizing. They organize a dancing feast, they play music. They don’t endure the continuous sobriety of the Inuit’s. On the other side, in Agoak especially in the first part of the book, he is adapting the white man’s ways. He works in an office; he wears on the white man’s clothes. He is more than that surprised to see his wife attached to their origin. For example when the couple were discussing the coming of a new born, he was ashamed to see that his wife announcing. « Do you plan to carry the baby in your hood certainly the traditional way…yes ! (p5) Agoak was totally merged in his new environment that he rejects all their traditions and also in the scene when his wife wants to flense the seal in the house : - Something’s, come over you, said Judith. Look at yourself…Agoak was pouting - What’s the matter? asked Judith. « Do you realize what butchering it in the house will involve? - Yes, - We have to be our roots by splattering blood and guts all over the place? For God’s sake, Agoak let’s just do it. You are like a dog that is afraid of his own shadow. - No, really, do you have any idea what kind of a mess a butchered seal is going to make in here? - The white man’s outlook has apparently so affected Agoak’s thinking that Judith and Nochasak felt cause for concern over his reaction powerless to overcome his aversion. (p85)

We can see that Agoak is detached totally from what his ancestors find natural, he feels disgusting to have a seal in their house. We notice to what extent he has proved to be able to change from his ancestor’s traditions. An Eskimo in South is unlike a white man in the North. An Eskimo can easily turns into a white man. Agoak is attracted by the developed industrialized life that he plans to go further to Toronto. His intellectual capacities allow him to achieve higher scale in social life. Unlike the foreigners, Agoak has gained the white man’s respect; he is very polite with them. If the two Americans haven’t stirred his manhood’s dignity and haven’t humiliated him by intruding his house and raping his wife he would have been the excellent example of the successful and brilliant Eskimo. He was full of ambition that he dreams for a better life. His adaptability stopped and turned to savage gestures the time the white man has tried to undermine him. It was a crucial moment in his life. After discussing the differences in both texts, I notice that are broad similarities which rely the two stories, both similarities emerge at roughly the same moment in both books. Considering the beginning of the two books, I find that there is the same confrontation; though it differs in places and characters. Yet, it is important to stress that for both Agoak and the white Dawn is completely new and unfamiliar. In Agoak in P(2), Agoak was anxious to explore the new Territory for himself. After freshening up in his room, shaving and preening as Much as he thought necessary, he headed off on foot into the fresh windy Weather. He had begun by strolling around inside the hotel and the shopping Complex. Once outside he surveyed Frobisher itself down to the ground, doing perfect justice to his heritage, he looked over the town’s amenities, put his nose to the wind and come very close to examining the ground for track, all in order to acquire a gut awareness of what this new world held in store for him, the pleasant surprises as well as the dangers.

For Agoak, the first time he is in Frobisher it is an exploration for him he is before a new environment, he doesn’t know if it will be pleasant or dull. Being in Frobisher it is the first step he makes for his settlement in the white man’s city, office, and hotel. The city is manmade place. He is in a place controlled and Governed by man, similarly in The White Dawn, we see three white men journeying in the Arctic; they have endured the hardship of weather. They are in front of a cruel scene of whiteness. They have left the South where life is made easy for them to sacrifice themselves to a bare land. In (p29)

Sometimes now we would also see the three strangers in front of the leader’s big snow house, standing awkwardly like black shadows in their foreign clothing. But for many days they scarcely moved or spoke to each other. They seemed afraid to venture far away, yet their eyes endlessly searched the open water beyond the frozen sea, but because the strangers were surrounded by such plenty and the safety of our igloo, they could not help but relax with us. I could see they watched us closely, trying to understand our ways.

At the first contact with Inuits, the foreigners are in a state of amazement. They don’t know how to cope with the Inuits. The second similarity is the ending of two books. It is a tragic ending. After the metamorphosis of the protagonist in Agoak, after killing the two Americans Agoak becomes a homicide maniac ; he turns from the intellectual, refined, considerate Eskimo to a barbaric Inuit. To save himself from prison he flees with his wife to the North where nobody can see him. He was obliged to save his honor by committing murder. He says to his friend:

Yes, kigugtak, you can mutilate and torture them because you just don’t know what you are doing at that point! You lose your senses. And once you come to again, the horror is lying there starring you in the face. And you know there is nothing you can do to change it. Your ancestors were savages and regardless of what happened to you in your life, you’re savage too and always will be. (p146).

For Agoak killing is done instinctively, he doesn’t know what he was doing. Killing is inherited from his ancestors. It is beyond himself. He has no control of himself when he has butchered the two Americans. Later, killing becomes obsession. He has killed a whole family and at the end he has killed his new born daughter.

A girl had been born to him all she represented was a useless extra mouth to feed, a burden, an imposition. Agoak could not defy destiny a moment longer he knew in his guts what he had to do. He took the bloody mass of flesh which lay between Judith’s thigh and dashes out its brains on the butt of his gun (p160)

Agoak cannot do otherwise; he is in a constant escape. It is an escape from the white man, from society, from all human being. It is an escape from the self. He is in a total revolution that he cannot accept his new born daughter. He cannot bring up a daughter in a horrible state. What she would say about her father if she was left alive. Also, in The White Dawn the three strangers are killed by the Inuits. These latters conspirated a plot against the foreigners. The foreigners are unfit in their camp, they are bad omens, they have caused dispersion of the group of Inuits. Sometimes after the drinking, the villagers had met and decided that the foreigners were dangerous in the camp. For one thing, these visitors of ours had taken our food and our women and clothing and had given us nothing in exchange not even clever songs or stories, they had demonstrated their power by forcing Sarkak, the strongest man we had ever know, to flee from his own Camp (p261).

The foreigners don’t respect the rules of the natives, so they are rejected from the camp, their presence does no well for the prosper of the inuits, on the Contrary, bad hunting dominate, the leader can’t stand the disintegration and the disorganization that he leaves the camp. After all, killing the foreigners was the perfect way to get rid of them. In both texts, it is the Inuits who have committed murder against foreigners. The Inuits can’t bear the selfishness and the geocentricism of the white men. In other words, the stranger’s rudeness and intrusion in the private life of the Inuit’s precipitate their death. Thus, if in Agoak we have a confrontation with civilization in the white dawn we have a confrontation with wilderness. Also, if in Agoak civilization cannot change the inuit’s traditions and customs. In white dawn, the hard ship, misery and cold cannot affect the three foreigners ‘way of life.

Works cited 1- Theriault, yves. « Agoak ; the legacy of Agaguk ». toronto, Mcgraw-hil ryerson, 1979. Translated by john David Allan. 2- Houston, James « the white dawn ». Don Mills : 1971 3- Herman, Rick. Review : the white Dawn, published in movie tone news 36, October 1974. 4- Staines, David. The True North : approcoaching canadian literature ; journal article : vol, 40 N° 1, Novembre 1977. 5- Hulan, Renée. Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture. Mcgill-Queen’s press MQUP, 26 March 2002.