Fatty Legs

Jordan-Fenton, Christy

Vancouver: Annick Press, 2010

Book summary

Fatty legs is the story of Olemaun (Margaret) Pokiak, an Inuvialuit  girl whose stubborn ways lead her to attend the outsiders school  against her family’s wishes. Her main goal is to learn to read in order to discover why Alice follows the rabbit down the hole in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Upon her arrival at the outsiders’ school she discovers that reading will be the last thing she will learn to do. Her daily duties include cleaning the board, the refectory and even emptying the ‘honey’ buckets. Margaret spends a total of two years at the residential school under the supervision of nuns. It is one of the nuns who make her two years more difficult as she picks on Olemaun for being “a willful child”, p.50. The title of the book comes from an incident where the nun gives Olemaun a pair of red socks while all the other girls receive grey stockings. It is these red stockings that give Margaret her nickname of Fatty Legs, as the red highlights her very muscular legs. In a final attempt to overcome her dissatisfaction with the schools nuns, she burns her stockings in order to make her life better.

The Seeker/Explorer archetype:

Margaret or Olemaun, as she is known  in her family, is the seeker/ explorer archetypes as she continually pushes her father to let her go to the outsiders school, sensing a new opportunity arising. Olemaun, who is the narrator of the story know that the greatest thing she can learn from such school is reading. “They held the key to the greatest of the outsiders’ mysteries—reading.” P. 4 The notion of reading as a magical adventure was constant as her older sister read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and to which Olemaun says “I tried to imagine being Alice… She was brave to go into that long, dark tunnel, all for curiosity.” P.5 It is this curiosity she yearns to satisfy, by going to school she looks for a way to end her restlessness. Olemaun insists on asking her father and older sister, Rosie, about what the outsiders’ school is like. Rosie, unwilling to disclose her experience responds to Olemaun’s queries by saying, if “You want to know about the school so much, you can go there and learn to read for yourself.” P. 7 This answer propels Olemaun’s interest in the outsiders’ school.

Olemaun’s dissatisfied feelings and the need for wanting things to be different   as clearly seen in the following quotes: “But my heart would not give up hope” (p. 8); as well as: “I knew the topic was forbidden, but I could not silence y heart another day. I asked him once again to allow me to go to school” (p.10). Her feeling to explore continue throughout the book: “I would be patient, but I would not give up” (p.12), “I was determined and ready to ask again” (p.13), “I am strong” (p. 19).

Olemaun’s search for meaning came not only by wanting to attend the school but by wanting to read books. “How distinguished he looked [with] a book in his hand. Soon, I, too, would be able to read” (p.20) as she notices a RCMP member reading. Prior to entering the school Olemaun says “change my mind? I could manage. I would read myself to sleep like Rosie did. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. I couldn’t wait to go inside.” P. 26 Once she is at school she continues on the path for exploration, “I perched myself in one of the small wooden desks to see how it would feel” (p. 39).

While her time in the school is difficult her inner voice tells her that life can better. “I didn’t need a lesson on how to wash my face. I already knew how to do that. What I needed was to learn how to read” (p. 36). This is idea of becoming better is clearly portrayed as Olemaun acknowledges that more outsiders are staying in her area and that further more she does not want to make mistakes like her mother. Over more she wants to make a difference. They were laughing at her. I wanted to tell the nun that it was not funny. My mother could not read. How was she to know that she was buying shaving cream and not toothpaste?” (p. 37). She goes on to talk about the nun who picks on her and is also her teacher, “I wasn’t sure what she meant to teach me, but I had something to teach her about the spirit of us Inuvialuit” (p.49). “Not only did I enjoy proving my teacher wrong, but I figured I had to learn as much as I could that year” (p. 52).

While Olemaun’s ideal of exploration changes from going to school, at first, to going back home with her parent, and focuses on overcoming adversity and continuing to seek new adventures. “Each morning as I pulled up my red stockings, my spirit rose. All I needed was opportunity” (p.70).