Memories, Manifestation, and Finding a Way Forward

Developing Agency through Spiralling Time in Michelle Good’s Five Little Indians

Abstract

The frequent linear framing of Indigenous identity in relation to residential schools as one of before, during, and after continues to be reinforced through literary analyses of residential school narratives. This paper argues that Cree author Michelle Good disrupts such thinking in her novel Five Little Indians by deploying “spiralling time” in her narration of Clara, a residential school survivor character. Building from Paula Gunn Allen’s theory of ceremonial time, I demonstrate how “spiralling time” complicates the “coming full circle” model that is often presented to learners by settler educators. Good’s use of this temporality permits an exploration of the past that informs the present and future with greater integrity, acknowledging the fragmentary dimensions of Clara’s residential school experiences while simultaneously refusing the premise that those experiences deny her access to knowledges and ways of being that, in Good’s narration, precede and exceed the coercive interventions of the state.