In the novel, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Margaret Craven introduces the reader to the lives, culture and history of the Kwakiutl Native Americans, whose village, Kingcome, is located in British Colombia.
Tyler Hockaday
1/12/04
Introduction to Fiction
Olafson
I Heard the Owl Call My Name
In the novel, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Margaret Craven introduces the reader to the lives, culture and history of the Kwakiutl Native Americans, whose village, Kingcome, is located in British Colombia. In the beginning of the novel, the reader finds out that Mark, a vicar, is dying. He has no more than two years left to live, although he doesn’t know it. The Bishop, his superior, decided to send him to his “hardest parish,” located in the Indian village, Kingcome—without telling him about his dying condition. In my opinion, the book and the movie are two different stories in that the movie leaves out so many key points that made the book a lot easier to understand. I believe that the film producers did a very poor job in writing the movie.
One of the first things that you find totally different from the book and the movie is the way that Mark Bryan, the main character, is portrayed and described in the two different versions. In the book, they describe Bryan and being very drawn back and patient with the village people as he waits for them to ask him to join in different ceremonies that the village has. He is also very passive with the way he handles himself and is very one with nature and his environment that he is thrown into. He isn’t too pushy because he knows that he is a visitor in another word if you will. In the movie however, Bryan is very outgoing and persistent in his intent to change to many things in such a short amount of time. He is also very aggressive and demanding in that he all of a sudden expects the village people to build boats to send their children to the States. So in two different versions it seems like you are reading and watching two different people. One of the examples of this that I noticed in the two versions is the part where the village people go to the burial ground of their people. In the book, Bryan is kind of hesitant in a way and doesn’t want to jump right in the celebration in that he felt it would be wrong of him to interfere with a sacred ceremony that the people hold. He waits until they offer him the chance to join in the celebration. The movie on the other hand paints a different picture in that it shows Bryan leading that village people to the ceremony while they are holding hands and skipping through a field. The viewer just kind of asks themselves, “When did this come about?” Another change in characterization is the way Jim is portrayed. In the book he seems very peaceful and a person willing to help Bryan in anything that he needs. Then in the movie it seems that he hates the white man for all the things that they have done to his people. It’s kind of like he is stereotyped in a way being that that how most of those people felt in the time that this movie was made.
