The central themes of the prairie and westwards migration in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie is presented through the perspective of a young girl, Laura, as she navigates her way through the unknown dangers of the environment. This perspective is illuminated through Laura’s vision of the prairie as a mythical and mysterious place where she must abandon the comforts she has always known to adapt to the demands of prairie life. As she uncovers the enigmatic prairie and westward migration, Laura’s self-awareness develops leading to a greater appreciation for life on the prairie.
From the perspective of Laura, the prairie and westward migration is a mythical and curious place that evokes a sense of adventure and excitement
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As Laura lives on the prairie, her self-awareness develops as she becomes more acclimated to the environment. In the beginning of the novel, Laura has little control over herself or her actions. For example, she gripes on the voyage, “I want to camp, now! I’m so tired”, to which Ma responds with a swift scold indicating she is not to complain (15). However, as she progresses through the trials and tribulations of the prairie, she becomes more accustomed to survival on the prairie as a young child. When a fire escapes from the hearth inside the house, Mary is frozen in fear. It is because of Laura’s growing self-awareness that she is able to save her sisters and put out the fire before the entire house becomes engulfed in flames. Something that would have once terrorized her into non-action, is now something she handled in a swift and collected manner. The novel claimed Laura “didn’t know what to do” and she “was too scared to think”, but her experience in the prairie allowed her to react without needing to process the situation (202-203). The prairie presents harms to Laura, but it is because of these dangers she is able to develop through her childhood into a self-aware individual. Additionally, the fever that struck the family is another instance when Laura exhibits self-control against the prairie. She is fighting against an illness induced by the …show more content…
This beauty is non-existent to the unknowing eye. However, for someone like Laura, who has been challenged and overcome by the prairie, the beauty is evident all around her: “She liked the enormous sky and the winds, and the land that you couldn’t see to the end of. Everything was so fresh and clean and big and splendid.” (75) What started as a childish excitement for something new and unknown, developed into a deep appreciation for the nothingness and open skies that seemed to go on
This book report deal with the Native American culture and how a girl named Taylor got away from what was expected of her as a part of her rural town in Pittman, Kentucky. She struggles along the way with her old beat up car and gets as far west as she can. Along the way she take care of an abandoned child which she found in the backseat of her car and decides to take care of her. She end up in a town outside Tucson and soon makes friends which she will consider family in the end.
A number of ideas, suggestions, and points can be extracted from “Illinois Bus Ride,” a passage from Aldo Leopold’s collection of essays entitled A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. However, there must be one main thesis that the author is attempting to get through to his audience. Leopold argues that we Americans have manipulated the landscape and ecosystem of the prairie so that it seems to be nothing more that a tool at our disposal. All aspects of what was once a beautiful, untamed frontier have been driven back further and further, until they were trapped in the ditches.
This passage gives readers an enhanced understanding of this talented author, as they see her passion for the wilderness during childhood.
Bobbie Ann Mason and Sherman Alexie are two modern authors who write about their different childhood experiences and their hopes and desires for futures outside of the customs they were accustomed to. In her 1999 excerpt “Being Country” from her book Clear Springs: A Memoir, author and essayist Mason describes her childhood on a farm in rural Kentucky. Despite her childhood being pleasant, she rebelled against the simplistic confines that type of lifestyle demanded (106). Alexie writes in his essay from 1997 “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” of life on the Spokane Indian Reservation where he was born. He tells us how he used his love of reading as a way to escape from the Indian world and found success outside of the reservation. Even though they came from different cultures, Alexie and Mason were exposed at a young age to similar outside influences that helped shape their self-identities. As a result, they both envisioned futures that were not only ambitious but different from the lives they had been born into.
Of the two sisters Lizzie and Laura, Laura is the one whose curious desires get the best of her. She and her sister encounter the goblin men and Lizzie just “thrust a dimpled finger / In each ear, shut her eyes and ran” (67 – 68); however, Laura’s curiosity gets the best of her and she chooses to stay: “Curious Laura chose to linger / Wondering at each merchant man” (69 – 70). These goblin men are selling fruit, and once Laura gets her hands on it, she is hardly able to stop herself. Quenching her desire is overwhelming for her, so much so that when she is finally done she “knew not was it night or day” (139). When she arrives home later, she tells her sister, “I ate and ate my fill, / Yet my mouth waters still; / Tomorrow night I ...
Little House on the Prairie was first challenged in 1993 by parents of students at Lafourche Parish elementary schools in Thibodaux, Louisiana. They were requesting the novel be removed on the grounds of it being "offensive to Indians." Parents recited excerpts from the book supporting their objections as follows: "naked wild men", "terrible men", and "glittering black eyes". A phrase repeated several times the Ingalls neighbor, Mrs. Scott, was also cited, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Further, another quote was given to the school board from when Ma and the girls were alone in the cabin since Pa was gone hunting. Two men from the Osage tribe visited the cabin in which Laura describes them as, "Those Indians were dirty and scowling and mean. They acted as if the house belonged to them." Wilder then goes on to describe how the Indians went through their cupboards and began to take food and tobacco and fur that was to be traded for plows and seeds until the Indian's companion stopped him. The school board denied the request and the book was retained. In 1994, the book was banned from elementary schools in Sturgis, South Dakota again on the grounds that "it contains statements that are considered derogatory to Native Americans." The objection presented to the Sturgis School Board were mainly cited in the Lafourche Parish challenge, and Sturgis evidenced significantly greater public support for the ban.
The coldness felt in the house as the sheriff and court attorney entered the house symbolized the same coldness brought about by Mr. Wright. For the house to be cold and gloomy and everything else outside the total opposite, was much more than just coincidence. It was as if when you entered the house a cadaver, cold and clammy, had embraced you in its arms. “ I don’t think a place’d be any cheerfuller for John Wright’s being in it”, Mrs. Hale told the court attorney (11). Mrs. Hale knew perfectly well what kind of personality Mr. Wright had, which is why she specified that she wished that she had gone to visit Mrs. Wright when only she was there. “There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm”, says Mrs. Hale, yet they are seen as mere trifles because it is the women who take on these tasks.
Narrated by the mother of two daughters, the story opens with an examination of one daughter's favoring of appearances over substance, and the effect this has on her relatives. The mother and her younger daughter, Maggie, live in an impoverished rural area. They anticipate the arrival of the elder daughter, Dee, who left home for college and is bringing her new husband with her for a visit. The mother recalls how, as a child, Dee hated the house in which she was raised. It was destroyed in a fire, and as it was burning, Dee "(stood) off under the sweet gum tree... a look of concentration on her face", tempting her mother to ask, "'why don't you do a dance around the ashes?'" (Walker 91) She expects Dee will hate their current house, also. The small, three-room house sits in a pasture, with "no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides" (Walker 92), and although, as Dee asserts, they "choose to live" in such a place, Dee keeps her promise to visit them (Walker 92). Her distaste for her origins is felt by her mother and Maggie, who, in anticipation of Dee's arrival, internalize her attitudes. They feel to some extent their own unworthiness. The mother envisions a reunion in which her educated, urbane daughter would be proud of her. In reality, she describes her...
The drive to cross the Kentucky border had taken hours and hours of strenuous patience to finally arrive in another state. The view was by far country like as hints of cow manure could be smelled far from a distance. We drive through small towns, half the size of our hometown of Glen Ellyn had been the biggest town we've seen if not smaller. The scenery had overwhelmed us, as lumps of Earth from a great distance turned to perfectly molded hills, but as we got closer and closer to our destination the hills no longer were hills anymore, instead the hills had transformed to massive mountains of various sizes. These mountains surrounded our every view as if we had sunken into a great big deep hole of green pastures. Our path of direction was seen, as the trails of our road that had followed for numerous hours ended up winding up the mountainous mountains in a corkscrew dizzy-like matter.
The United States is a nation deeply committed to the proposition that “all men are created equal” and that all lives matter. We are enthralled by tales of individuals willing to take great risks for great rewards, confident in their ability to make their dreams come true, and willing to constantly reinvent themselves in the pursuit of success and personal fulfillment. Laura Ingalls Wilder is just such an individual. As a young pioneer on the Western frontier, she lived a life of great risk, requiring her and her family to rely almost entirely on their own ingenuity and effort to survive. In her later years, she again took great risk and reinvented herself as a children’s writer, sharing her stories of the American Frontier with new generations. Laura Ingalls Wilder has become an American Icon due to her life-long willingness to take risks, practice self-reliance, and repeatedly reinvent herself.
"The Prairies," however, takes on a little bit of a different perspective. Instead of using nature as a morality lesson, "The Prairies" is more of an account of the way of nature.
Being invited to a friend’s house the other day, I began to get excited about the journey through the woods to their cabin. The cabin, nestled back in the woods overlooking a pond, is something that you would dream about. There is a winding trail that takes you back in the woods were their cabin sits. The cabin sits on top of a mountain raised up above everything, as if it was sitting on the clouds.
We slowly crept around the corner, finally sneaking a peek at our cabin. As I hopped out of the front seat of the truck, a sharp sense of loneliness came over me. I looked around and saw nothing but the leaves on the trees glittering from the constant blowing wind. Catching myself standing staring around me at all the beautiful trees, I noticed that the trees have not changed at all, but still stand tall and as close as usual. I realized that the trees surrounding the cabin are similar to the being of my family: the feelings of never being parted when were all together staying at our cabin.
Fortunately, I wake every morning to the most beautiful sun lit house. I sit on my porch sipping coffee, while I drink in an atmosphere that steals my breath away. Rolling hills lay before me that undulate until they crash into golden purple mountains. Oh how they are covered in spectacular fauna, ever blooming foliage, and trees that are heavy with pungent fruit. Green it is always so green here at my house. Here where the air lays heavy and cool on my skin as does the striking rays of the sun upon my cheeks. I know in my soul why I choose to be here every day. Pocketed in all the nooks and crannies of these valleys and hills are stately homes, rich with architecture resplendent. Diversity is the palate here; ...
This area of the world is so foreign to my Oklahoma life; it infuses me with awe, and with an eerie feeling of being strongly enclosed by huge mountains, and the mass of tall trees. However, when my foot first steps onto the dusty trail it feels crazily magical. The clean, crisp air, the new smell of evergreen trees and freshly fallen rain is mixed with fragrances I can only guess at. It is like the world has just taken a steroid of enchantment! I take it all in, and embrace this new place before it leaves like a dream and reality robs the moment. As I turn and look at my family, I was caught by my reflection in their impressions. The hair raising mischief in the car was forgotten and now it was time to be caught up in this newness of life. It was as if the whole world around us had changed and everyone was ready to engulf themselves in it. The trickling of water somewhere in the distance and the faint noise of animals all brought the mountains to