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Alienation and Displacement

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Essay #1 Various conditions of Alienation and Displacement Alienation and displacement is common among culturally-diverse learners. People who move from one Country to another often experience feelings of alienation and displacement. These people have to deal with separation from their native culture. They have to live in a society established by foreigners. Along with this, most have to learn a new language as well. In Clark Blaise’s short story titled: A Class of New Canadians, the main character is a young man in his thirties living in Montreal. He is teaching English as a foreign language to a variety of foreign students, two days a week. His name is Norman Dyer. Dyer seems to see himself as a “god”(34) to his students.They need to learn this new language and he is the one to teach them. His students come from a variety of different backgrounds. Some are French Canadians, more are South Americans. Others are Greeks, Germans, Spanish and French. One student, Mr. Weinrot, is from Israel and is having a difficult time with the course. He tells Dyer that he is not speaking much English at his job. He talks about when he went to work in Italy he spoke Italian. Other places he spoke Russian, German, Hebrew, Arabic in five dialects, and Danish. “So what’s the matter I can’t learn English?”(36) This particular student believes that “two years in a Country I don’t learn the language means it isn’t a Country.” (36)

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Dyer is frustrated. He is an American himself and has been living in Montreal for the last eighteen months. He cannot understand why his students want to learn just enough English to be able to get a job in the United States or elsewhere. Dyer thought “Montreal was the greatest city on the continent, if only they knew it as well as he did.”(37) One student named Miguel Mayor is looking to find employment in Cleveland, Ohio. He asks Mr. Dyer to proof read his letter he has written to apply for a job. Dyer was curious as to why Miguel was applying for a job in Cleveland. Miguel stated that “they have a blackman mayor”(38), or so he had read. But why did he want to move from Montreal? “Montreal is big port like Barcelona. Everybody mixed together and having no money. It’s just a place to land, no?”(39) Again Miguel is another student who is not speaking much English at work. He is getting by with his Spanish and French. This man seemed very confident and Dyer thought “he would pass his interview, if he got one.”(39) These students that come from other countries are just looking to find a new place that they can call ‘home’. They attempt to learn the language of the Country and find decent jobs. It is understood through Clark Blaise’s descriptions of teaching multicultural groups with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, it is very difficult for those that have to experience that in life. Having to be put into a position of feeling alienated and\or dispositioned, Dyer’s students do not appreciate the world around them as he expects they should. I can only hope that for each of the characters, as they fully learn the English language and move into their new lives and careers that they begin to adapt and appreciate their new world around them.

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Works Cited Blaise, Clark. “ A Class of New Canadians.” The Art of Short Fiction. Brief Edition. Edited by Gary Geddes.1999. 33-40

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