A WOMAN'S BRIDGE

Julie of the Wolves

8/31/2015

 
PicturePhoto by Robin Silver
By Jean Craighead George encompasses the circular nature of survival and reveals how much humankind needs the earth by portraying a single girl, Miyax, whose personal life falls apart and who then befriends a wolfpack to become a member of their family by learning how to communicate with them in her own manner in ways they will understand.

Miyax is 13 and has run away from a child marriage to a boy named Daniel who seems to have a borderline IQ or some sort of mental difference. He is described as "dull" but Miyax still finds a fair enough home with him and his family at first, as she learns to sew professionally and enjoys school. The tourists need parkas to survive the winter, ones made by Eskimos as their store bought jackets are usually never enough for Alaskan winters.

But then Daniel begins to expect sex from Julie as he is teased for not really being married to his wife. This scares the girl and she runs away with the hope of reaching San Francisco.


Long before her marriage to Daniel, Julie had been told by her stepmother, Martha that her father was dead, that he and his kayak went into the sea and only broken pieces of the vessel were ever found. When life became unbearable with her stepmother, the young teenager began to view
marriage as a way out for her father told her she could marry Daniel, who she had never met and knew nothing about. There is no high school in Mekoryuk and Martha could not afford to send Julie to the mainland to further the girl's education.

Miyax began to wonder that if she wed Daniel, perhaps the boy's father, Naka would send her to school. It is hard to believe that the matter was decided by the Head of the Indian Affairs in Mekoryuk, who says, " 'You are now thirteen and I have in my files an agreement for this arrangement signed by Kapugen and Naka.' "

The circumstances seem impossible that such a marriage would take place in the 1950s or 1960s, much less that the head of Indian Affairs would insist on it based on paperwork signed by the children's fathers. Perhaps this did happen though.

Transportation is paid for and provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to take Miyax from the port in Mekoryuk, and after a couple of transfers to Barrow. George is mocking of the gussak's sensibilities toward the Eskimo and nature as the airline pilot describes the world below: " ' The Arctic Research Laboratory, where scientists study the Arctic. People from all over the world come here to investigate the top of the world. We now know a lot about living in the cold.' " I doubt few things sound more stupid to an Eskimo than a laboratory building built to study how to live in the cold.

Overall, with alcoholism and child marriage at the forefront of problems in Julie's world, it cannot be said that the Eskimos are portrayed well. Julie's best family situation is among the wolves, after she runs away from Daniel. But her favorite, Amaroq, the leader of the pack and her adopted father, is gunned down by gussak shooters for their own sense of random amusement.

The shooting from the air darkens Miyax's world and she no longer wishes to go to San Francisco, where Amy, her pen pal lives. She finds her father alive and with a new partner named Ellen, but she runs away again as the father's Westernized lifestyle reminds her too much of the blood behind it all. Julie is a byproduct of a dying world that seems to have trouble economically assimilating within the culture that was raped of its independence many years before. Julie is very pretty and intelligent, but perhaps her inability to make a home in the new modern world comes from the fact that she does not want to.

By Sarah Bahl





Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010

    Categories

    All
    70s
    80s
    90s
    Adoption
    Africa
    Age Of Innocence
    Agnes Grey
    Alice Walker
    All American Girls Baseball League
    American South
    Amit Peled
    Ancient Egyptian Fashion
    Angela Lansbury
    Anna Sewell
    Anne Bronte
    Annie Hall
    Art
    Asia
    Audrey Hepburn
    Australia
    Ballet
    Baseball
    Basketball
    Bastard Out Of Carolina
    Beauty
    Beauty From Omo Valley
    Bell Jar
    Black Beauty
    Black History Month
    Blue Jasmine
    Born Into Brothels
    Brand New Life
    Bronte Sisters
    Canada
    Cancer
    Cate Blanchett
    Catherine Deneuve
    Catherine Frot
    Catherine Mcgraw
    Catherine The Great
    Cats
    Center For American Progress
    Charlotte Bronte
    Cheongsam
    Child Marriage
    China
    Christmas
    Cinderella
    Civil Rights Movement
    Civil War
    Classics
    Cleopatra
    Coco Before Chanel
    Coco Chanel
    Communism
    Dangerous Liaisons
    DC Film Festival
    Dennis McGraw
    Dian Fossey
    Domestic Violence
    Doris Lessing
    Dorothy Allison
    Edith Head
    Edith Wharton
    Edwardian Era
    Egypt
    Elizabeth Taylor
    Emily Blunt
    Emma Thompson
    England
    Europe
    Execution
    Fanny Price
    Farewell My Queen
    Fashion
    Film
    Flamenco
    Food
    France
    Fried Green Tomatoes
    Geisha
    Genji
    Gibson Girl
    Giselle
    Global North
    Global South
    Gone With The Wind
    Gorillas In The Mist
    Grace Kelly
    Great Depression
    Halloween Costume
    Hans Silvester
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Heian
    Help
    Her Name Is Sabrine
    History
    Hitchcock
    Hong Kong
    Horses
    Iberian Suite
    India
    In The Mood For Love
    Ireland
    Islam
    Jane Austin
    Jane Eyre
    Japan
    Jean Craighead George
    Josephine Baker
    Julia Alvarez
    Julie Of The Wolves
    Jung Chang
    Kar Wai Wong
    Kathryn Stockett
    Kennedy Center
    Lady Audley's Secret
    League Of Their Own
    Lesbian
    Liberia
    Lion In Winter
    Little Women
    Long Walk Home
    Lost German Slave Girl
    Louisa May Alcott
    Lucy Kemp Welch
    Madeleine Albright
    Magdalene Laundry
    Magdalene Sisters
    Maggie Cheung
    Mansfield Park
    Margaret Mitchell
    Margarita
    Maria Rasputin
    Marie Antoinette
    Marie Arana
    Mariinsky Ballet
    Marilyn Mccully
    Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
    Marta Casals Istomin
    Mary Mcgraw
    Memoirs Of A Geisha
    Mental Illness
    Middle East
    Mineko Iwasaki
    Movie
    Mozart's Sister
    Mursi Tribe
    My Big Fat Greek Wedding
    My Fair Lady
    Nancy Price
    Napoleonic Era
    National Velvet
    N.C. Wyeth
    Nia Vardolos
    Odette Toulemonde
    Ounie Lecomte
    Pablo Picasso
    Particularly Cats And Rufus
    Patricia Highsmith
    Persepolis
    Persuasion
    Photography
    P.L. Travers
    Politics
    Potiche
    Pray The Devil Back To Hell
    Psychological Abuse
    Pulp Fiction
    Queen Victoria
    Race
    Rasputin's Daughter
    Rear Window
    Russia
    Ruth Schell
    Sabine Bonnaire
    Sandrine Bonnaire
    Sara Baras
    Saving Mr Banks
    Sense And Sensibility
    Sex In A Cold Climate
    Simplon Pass
    Sisters
    Slavery
    Sleeping With The Enemy
    Spanish Civil War
    Sports
    Stacy Schiff
    Surma Tribe
    Sylvia Plath
    The Color Purple
    Their Eyes Were Watching God
    The Talented Mr. Ripley
    Tony Leung
    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Victorian Era
    Viva Laldjerie
    War And Revolution
    Wild Swans
    William Zhang
    Wings Of The Dove
    Woody Allen
    WWII
    Yearling
    Zana Briski
    Zora Neale Hurston