Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves is a fast-paced story narrated in the first person by Francis–nicknamed French or Frenchie–the Métis protagonist. One reviewer describes The Marrow Thieves as a “novel that is set in an apocalyptic dystopian future where Canada has been so damaged by global warming that everyone has been impacted by the consequences. The water level is rising, continents are being fully submerged, and everyone is forced to migrate in order to survive. As a result, the majority of the population has lost the ability to dream, and are now experiencing severe psychological distress, which makes them difficult to govern. The only people who still have the ability to dream are Indigenous people” (Alessandra Di Simone, “Review #1,” York University Campus Lit, online). This circumstance is what sends “the marrow thieves,” or “Recruiters,” out to catch Indigenous people with the goal of stealing their bone marrow for themselves.
For your “Impressions & Character Study” writing on roughly the first 2/3 of the novel, respond to at least three of the following topics, themes, questions or ideas. You may combine more than one topic and/or write, or speak, about something else that catches your interest or that you have questions about from these pages. You have two options for this Reading Response: a standard written response, or a verbal audio clip.
For Option 1: Write a minimum of two full pages (about 500 words), organized into clear, separate paragraphs, formatted in the usual style. Use brief quotations from the novel to offer support for your ideas and impressions. Please make it clear which topics you’re discussing.
For Option 2: Record an audio response that addresses the same topics as you would for the written assignment. You might consider making notes or a rough “script” before you record, but this option lets you talk to me about your responses instead of write them. You still need to use brief quotations from the novel to offer support for your ideas and impressions, and to clearly identify which topics you’re discussing. Tell me the page number/s and chapter/s for your quotes, and whether you’re using the print or eBook version of the novel. You can record media directly on Canvas in the assignment submission link.
Response topics:
- Discuss your impressions of the novel’s structure: chapter length, pacing, dialogue. What effects do some or all of these structural elements have on the story Frenchie is telling?
- Discuss your impressions of how Dimaline is writing family and kinship so far in the novel.
- Discuss your impressions of the physical environment/s in the novel (an ecocritical reading of the story so far–click this link for the meaning of “ecocriticsmLinks to an external site.“).
- Discuss your impressions of the circumstance of Indigenous bone marrow extraction by non-Indigenous “Recruiters” as a metaphor for a range of historical and/or contemporary exploitation of Indigenous peoples.
- Discuss your impressions of the characters’ individual “coming-to” stories and “Story” as Miigwans practices this with the collective.
- How is love a powerful force so far in the novel?
- Why are dreams so powerful?
- Choose an important character that stands out to you, and describe in detail who this character is in the novel, what are their characteristics and actions, and why you believe they’re important.
For either Option 1 or Option 2, your response must include examples from throughout “Frenchie’s Coming To Story” through “The Long Stumble” to make it clear to me you have done the reading.