Thematic Synthesis Essay

592 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Narrative and gender roles

“Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective” an essay written by Leslie Marmon Silko brings to life the diversified facets of the Pueblo Indian culture, sharing with readers the infrastructure of Puebloan dialect and folklore. Likewise, Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” details a series of prominent reflections of the nurturing voice responsible for constructing the author’s perceptions of the world. Both of these essays share a corresponding theme of the influence one’s culture can have on can have on individual styles of communication. The implication of the nonfiction elements plot and setting throughout the piece allows the author to adequately reinforce the theme of each piece. Each essay embodies commonalities, as well as, differences in the nonfiction elements used to depict the common theme.
The plot in each of the essays emphasizes the theme as they each refer to stories of language that have molded the author into the individual they are today. In Silko’s piece, the plot includes various examples of how the Pueblo people use storytelling as a form of language....

Show More
Related

  • Perpetuation of Native American Stereotypes in Children's Literature

    2192 Words  | 5 Pages

    219-224. Library Services Institutefor Minnesota Indians. Guidelines for Evaluating Multicultural Literature: 1970, pp. iv-v. Norton, Donna. 'Through the Eyes of a Child. Prentice Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffes, New Jersey: 1995.

    Read More

  • How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

    1942 Words  | 4 Pages

    of the native tongue is lost , certain holidays may not be celebrated the same , and American born generations feel that they might have lost their identity , making it hard to fit in either cultures . Was is significant about this book is the fact it’s like telling a story to someone about something that happened when they were kid . Anyone can relate because we all have stories from when we were kids . Alvarez presents this method of writing by making it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s a story about Latin Americans , when

    Read More

  • A Rhetorical Analysis Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

    222 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the article Mother Tongue, Amy Tan indicates that American immigrants have limitations on speaking English and emphasizes the fact that different language styles interpret people’s unique identities. Tan’s personal experiences show that mother’s “imperfect” English influences her for a life time, and even changes her writing languages.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Sherman Alexie's The School Days Of An Indian Girl By Zitkala

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    Culture has the power and ability to give someone spiritual and emotional distinction which shapes one's identity. Without culture, society would be less and less diverse. Culture is what gives this earth warmth and color that expands across miles and miles. The author of “The School Days of an Indian Girl”, Zitkala Sa, incorporates the ideals of Native American culture into her writing. Similarly, Sherman Alexie sheds light onto the hardships he struggled through growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in a chapter titled “Indian Education”.

    Read More

  • Final Project Essay: Silko's Ceremony

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ceremony is very much a story about stories, with Tayo’s story interspersed with Silko’s poetic re-telling of Pueblo myths, and the side by side of the two, emphasizes many of the novel’s themes. It reveals the connection between all things, the healing power of storytelling, and the circular nature in history. You cannot help but to root for Tayo throughout the story, from a little boy struggling to prove is worth to his dismissive and prejudiced Auntie, through constant obedience and love, to the traumatized army veteran of mixed ancestry who returns to the reservation of the Laguna Pueblo Indians, in the New Mexico desert. Scarred and physically sick by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese, his only redemption is to immerse himself in the Indian traditions of his past ancestors. His journey of redemption is the driving plot that depends on Tayo’s interaction with the land, the soil, wind, weather, and the scared topography of the northern New Mexico desert, which is charged with a peculiar, bittersweet magic. Silko’s novel is a beautiful reflection on the ways in which we are interconnected as humans and all of nature.

    Read More

  • Southeastern Native American Literature

    1226 Words  | 3 Pages

    Native American literature from the Southeastern United States is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the various tribes that have historically called that region home. While the tribes most integrally associated with the Southeastern U.S. in the American popular mind--the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole)--were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) from their ancestral territories in the American South, descendents of those tribes have created compelling literary works that have kept alive their tribal identities and histories by incorporating traditional themes and narrative elements. While reflecting profound awareness of the value of the Native American past, these literary works have also revealed knowing perspectives on the meaning of the modern world in the lives of contemporary Native Americans.

    Read More

  • Thematic Analysis Essay

    1280 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thematic analysis is espoused to be the foundational approach to qualitative analysis and methods (Saunders et al., 2016 as stated in Braun and Clarke, 2006: 78) and it is a useful method used to identify and analyse the order and patterns of qualitative data (Attride-Stirling, 2001). Qualitative research method depicts the correlation that exists between data and events, creating the pictorial representation of what one thinks a given data says (Saunders et al., 2016). They also opined that, qualitative data analysis is cogent, interactive and iterative. Also, Joana and Jill (2011) and Saunders et al (2016) postulate that, qualitative research brings meanings from words and images as opposed to numbers. However, despite its robustness and rigour of its application, it is skewed more to the interpretivist ideologies since researchers draw conclusion from participants and the hypothesis being forecasted (Joana and Jill, 2011; Saunders et al., 2016).

    Read More

  • The Earthboy Place by James Welch

    1672 Words  | 4 Pages

    McNickle, D'Arcy. "A Different World." Native American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Vizenor, Gerald. United States of America: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1995, 111-119.

    Read More

  • Dunbar-Ortiz Analysis

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nevertheless, in the author’s note, Dunbar-Ortiz promises to provide a unique perspective that she did not gain from secondary texts, sources, or even her own formal education but rather from outside the academy. Furthermore, in her introduction, she claims her work to “be a history of the United States from an Indigenous peoples’ perspective but there is no such thing as a collective Indigenous peoples’ perspective (13).” She states in the next paragraph that her focus is to discuss the colonist settler state, but the previous statement raises flags for how and why she attempts to write it through an Indigenous perspective. Dunbar-Ortiz appears to anchor herself in this Indian identity but at the same time raises question about Indigenous perspective. Dunbar-Ortiz must be careful not to assume that just because her mother was “most likely Cherokee,” her voice automatically resonates and serves as an Indigenous perspective. These confusing and contradictory statements do raise interesting questions about Indigenous identity that Dunbar-Ortiz should have further examined. Are

    Read More

  • The First-generation Immigrant in America

    2126 Words  | 5 Pages

    Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. 2nd ed. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. 603-07.

    Read More

  • House Made Of Dawn

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    Momaday forces upon the reader the idea of language as a remedy for sickness; not only of the mind, but of the heart, also. If a speaker can reach a listener and show the listener what she means, then that is the most honorable achievement. Momaday wants the reader to know the importance of word weaving, of weaving the words to form a beautiful picture that can heal souls if spoken correctly. Momaday believes that the Native Americans who never bothered to learn to read and write, those who depend on their words, are those whose words are most powerful. The love for words, spoken with passion, makes them take on a three-dimensional quality. The words become the images and show a listener instead of telling, making the moment an experience instead of just a moment. The listener can feel what the speaker is trying to say; there is no need for interpretation, everything is already understood. Momaday convinces the reader that the spoken language goes beyond what words are being said; the words become their meaning, transcend into complete understanding and clarity. The experience should be remembered as one of self-revelation and understanding, not a moment filled with monotonous words. Momaday does not think it should be about memorizing the words for intellect, but about seeing the image they create. He wants the reader to know how important the woven web of words is so that the reader is able to understand how Native American tradition has lasted so long without words being written; that it is not the remembrance of words, but the remembranc...

    Read More

  • Language Preservation of the Coushatta Peoples

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Contemporary Issues in Native American Culture provides a lot of varied topics and interests. In this paper, the main issue will be the topic of tribal language preservation. How tribes are able to raise money to enhance language efforts, how tribes are working to preserve the language, and how tribes are using language to maintain cultural awareness and identity will be discussed.

    Read More

  • The Power of Language in American Culture

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Across Cultures. Eds. Sheena Gillespie and Robert Singleton. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 26-31.

    Read More

  • Thematic Data Analysis Essay

    2137 Words  | 5 Pages

    The thematic analysis is an often used method in qualitative research, according to Braun and Clarke (2006) it helps, ‘identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data. It minimally organises and describes your data set in (rich) detail. However, frequently it goes further than this, and interprets various aspects of the research topic.’, (Braun and Clarke, 2006:79). Thematic analysis allows a theoretically flexible approach to evaluate qualitative data. Furthermore, according to Braun and Clarke (2006) thematic analysis can be applied to situations, as for our case it helps us analyse ‘the way in which events, realities, meanings, experiences and so on are the effect of a range of discourses operating within society’ (Braun and Clarke, 2006:81).

    Read More

  • Summary Of Zebra Crossing

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Fear is a sharp word. It makes your tongue bleed. Anger is sour and fiery. Like acid indigestion. Hatred. Hatred is a word that gets stuck in your throat. Xenophobia. Xenophobia is a long word. Complicated, arrogant. It thinks is is smarter than other words. It is a bully” (Vandermerwe 103). Vandermerwe’s use of short sentences, personification, and cacophony helps create a mood and tone for the reader on how Chipo thinks and how she learns and understands. Chipo gives a meaning and a personality to each word showing that these words to her are not good and kind words and by bringing them to life through personification we get to see how Chipo feels about the world around her. The use of literary elements.devices lets us understand the inner workings of Chipo and the way that is written creates a strong emotional response for a reader as well.“No goodbyes- you need to slip away without honouring the rent that is due. Just one goodbye, one farewell. Your mother’s grave. You go, you kneel at the mound with its wooden cross, gravel and metal bottle tops biting into your knees. Goodbye, goodbye . G-o-o-d-b-y-e, Mama. I am sorry” (Vandermerwe 23). This quote is significant because it again demonstrates how Chipo talks to herself. From the word repetition to going from second person to first person we get to see Chipo’s view on emigration as she has to leave her mother and home. In conclusion the use of literary elements.devices contribute to the reader’s understanding of social justice issues because the style of writing brings life and personality to the characters and thus story. The characters are what help us understand the novel’s theme and when the writing can bridge that gap for readers between the characters and

    Read More

More about Thematic Synthesis Essay

Open Document