Analysis Of Birdie By Tracey Lindberg

Tracey Lindberg’s novel Birdie is narratively constructed in a contorting and poetic manner yet illustrates the seriousness of violence experience by Indigenous females. The novel is about a young Cree woman Bernice Meetoos (Birdie) recalling her devasting past and visionary journey to places she has lived and the search for home and family. Lindberg captures Bernice’s internal therapeutic journey to recover from childhood traumas of incest, sexual abuse, and social dysfunctions. She also presents Bernice’s self-determination to achieve a standard of good health and well-being. The narrative presents Bernice for the most part lying in bed and reflecting on her dark life in the form of dreams. The dreams are presented in different time frames, beginning with Bernice travelling from Northern Alberta to Gibson British (BC) in search of her fantasy teenage love, Pat John, who she considers to be a “healthy, working Indian man” (7). Pat John plays Jesse in Beachcombers a TV show that was aired on CBC (p.7). The novel then goes back to Bernice’s childhood traumas of incest, sexual abuse and social dysfunctions. The dreams are structed in poetic forms and precede almost all the chapters in the novel and here and there throughout the novel. For example, chapter two begins with “She feels a caress on her cheek, a cool hand on her

The negligence of women doing nothing about sexual abuse and incest. Her aunty Val brining all those boyfriends around that sexually abuse Bernice (p.182). She refused to go back to her uncle Larry’s place, yet no one asked why (p.12). Valene herself is guilty of poor parenting that cause Bernice to end up in foster care (p.183). it calls for concern as to how they attend to their issues to in turn help