Teaching the Mirror to Reflect the Truth is my teaching statement because in the novel Truth and Bright Water the general argument made by Thomas King is that ones reality may not be the truth but has been created by what appears to be true. The narrator is a prime example of the reoccurring theme of appearance versus reality. Tecumseh is becoming a young man and trying to figure out his families secrets and why thing are the way they are. The images on the mirror represent what Tecumseh believed was true from what he had learned. The images hanging in front of the mirror represent the reality of what was going on in the book. The first image represents the mystery of the baby clothes, which were made blue in the mirror because Tecumseh believed that they were his old baby clothes, yet “A few still in cellophane wrapping as if they have never been used.” (121) which is represented by the pink clothes wrapped in saran wrap. The hole punch on the left side of the baby clothes represents the hole left in Aunt Cassie’s heart, and the pain from losing a child. The cultural attitude toward blue clothes being for a baby boy, and pink clothes being for a baby girl. AIM is what Tecumseh sees Aunt Cassie’s tattoo is, always assuming she was part of the American Indian Movement. Represented in the mirror, but hanging is what her tattoo truly meant, “MIA. Its supposed to say AIM, but what it says in the mirror is MIA.”(246) As you grow up the reality comes out in somethings, individuals must just look past the distorted appearance. “When I did this, I was drunk. And I did it in a mirror.” (242) was my reason for including mirrors, which represent a major theme of appearance versus reality. Also representing the distortion that can happen when an indviduals reality is based on what appears to be. Aunt Cassie’s missing child MIA (Missing in Action) is the archetype of the hurt created by a lost child. The skull and murder scene on the mirror is how Lum and Tecumseh viewed the child skull they found. Monroe Swimmer was the one who threw the bones into the river putting them to rest and they were from museums. I chose the picture of the bones in the drawer because, “I found them in drawers and boxes and stuck away on dusty shelves. Indian Children.” (265) and is the lack of sense of place that was created for the Indians when Whites came to North America, and put them in residential schools. The last picture I used was to represent Tecumseh’s sense of place, in his mind Truth and Bright Water was only separated by a river, not by a country border like in reality. As “Whites” we have the cultural attitude that a border between countries is a very distinctly marked area, and must go through customs to get from one country to another. I attached everything with red ribbon because in the book the skull had red ribbon attached to it “the ribbon flutters out like wings.” (266), and was used as a symbol of the beauty that can be found or come out of bad situations. The color red can represent love and pain. The letters and ribbon both being red represent the pain that came with the mysteries Tecumseh endured as well as the love he had found throughout his life. The lettering of the title on my presentation is wavy to represent how reflections can be distorted in our perception, like many of the things that Tecumseh perceived in the story were off from reality. I used the Blackfoot colors on the back of my poster to represent that throughout life you’re identity will change as you grow and learn, but what you are native too will not. The black boarders around my project represent the darkness and mystery in Truth and Bright Water, as well as any families secrets. The visual based on appearance versus reality which was a main theme in Truth and Bright Water and tied together every aspect of the book.
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