Open Collections

Abstract

This thesis both tells a story and examines a story. It analyzes the graphic novel genre to answer the question of ‘How are Indigenous artists and creatives representing girlhood?’. It weaves the story of my own journey as an Indigenous girl, what I did not see growing up, and how the creations that exist today offer felt possibilities of Indigenous girlhood. The thesis begins by laying out the construction of childhood and the categories it relies on such as innocence. These categories include but are not limited to racial and political innocence creating a collective racial memory of what childhood and therefore girlhood should look like; this racial memory is one that is steeped in whiteness. I then explore how Indigenous women writers and feminists recall and discuss Indigenous girlhood in writings by Lee Maracle, Leanne Simpson and Pauline Johnson. Centering two Indigenous-created graphic novel series: Surviving the City written by Tasha Spillett, illustrated by Natasha Donovan and A girl called Echo written by Katherena Vermette and illustrated by Scott B. Henderson; I discuss these series in terms of themes deducted from the above-mentioned Indigenous scholars and merging them with ongoing discussions of the graphic novel genre’s hallmarks, I explore how these series offer Dian Millions idea of felt history, in that they offer a history that literally feels different than the one as told by what white racial memory says girlhood should look and feel like. These series offer felt futures and possibilities, answering the research question through closely examining one genre and two specific stories of Indigenous girlhood. The series explored in this thesis demonstrate that graphic novels are a legitimate form of literature and should be considered as such, and that they offer and can offer seeing and feeling various ways of doing Indigenous girlhood. There is no one way to experience girlhood and it takes showing these stories across multiple genres to defeat the collective white racial memory.