Olivia Strittmatter - Black Robe Response

April 12, 2020

From in class readings/movies 4

For our third writing assignment we watched the movie Black Robe, which was adapted from the book Black Robe by Brian Moore, the link to the Amazon page is linked below in case anyone wants to read the book. 

Throughout this movie a lot of the topics that we discussed in class were shown. Such as the separation between oral (primal) and literate (contemporary) cultures, the concepts of dreams, writing, nature, magic, and myth. The major thing about this movie that I noticed though was Father LaForgue’s disrespect towards the natives and their religious practices. Father LaForgue referred to them as “savages” and repeatedly commented on their beliefs in rude ways, such as when he says “What can we say to people who think that dreams are the real world; this one is an illusion.” He thinks that just because they don’t practice the same religion as him that they are uncivilized, which is also shown when he says to Daniel that the Huron people have no concept of an afterlife, when Daniel corrects him Father LaForgue says that it is a childish belief. I noticed that this negative view of the natives’ culture reflected back onto Father LaForgue, and made the Hurons think that he is a demon, I would assume that if he was more respectful of their culture and practices and instead just taught them about Christianity that they would have been more receptive.


Black Robe book link:   
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Robe-Novel-Brian-Moore/dp/0452278651/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32GPSCFLEBMIQ&dchild=1&keywords=black+robe+brian+moore&qid=1586734274&sprefix=Black+Robe+by+Brian+%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1

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