The novel Cogewea can be seen from many perspectives .1. It represents the first novel written by a Native American calling attention to the discrimination and abuse suffered by the Native American people. 2. it’s a novel written with the compliance with a white man Virgil McWhorter. Given the belief of the Euro-American population that the Native American had no culture and should be assimilated and the policies of the government that required Native Americans to send their children thousands of miles away from home to boarding schools. Gave this novel a distinctive Euro-American flavor. The publishing companies were not interested in a novel concerning the plight of the Native American. Their interest lay in a portrayal of the west as a …show more content…
The first theme is that of white supremacy. The Native American is seen as a child like race to be taken advantage of. This is seen in the chapter concerning the Fourth of July celebration. The Indians as well as the half-bloods are portrayed as second class citizens. The Kootenai tribe is described as gamblers and servants to the white men. The Kootenai’s were always playing three card Monte and were known cheaters and drunks. The ranch hands at the H-B were always losing their money while gambling and were victims of the bootlegger. The second theme is closely related to the first and is extremely important. For it’s the first attempt by a Native American to tell their side of the assimilation polices and how these policies created a society that left no place for the Native American to enter or to succeed. The discrimination faced by the Native American is portrayed in chapter 6. In this chapter the Fourth of July celebration is held. During this celebration two horse races are to be run one the ladies race the second the squaw race. Cogewea enters both races during the ladies race she is insulted by her white competitor and told this race is for ladies next she is disqualified for striking her white competitor despite the fact that the white lady hit her first because the judge believed that the half-blood Cogewea was guilty only because she was a half blood. In the squaw race Cogewea is insulted by a full-blood because she is a hated half-blood whose father was white. Cogewea wins the squaw race but when she asks for the total of forty-five dollars the judge chastises her and tells her she is only due the amount of twenty-five dollars for winning the squaw’s race. When Cogewea continues to demand the full prize money an argument breaks out Jim the foreman of the H-B ranch comes to Cogewea’s defense and is nearly put in irons and sentenced to several months in jail before Cogewea is
The main questions are how to measure it and who really has it? (Native 27). An interesting difference that I saw between the movie and the reading during Week one was how Shane was able to recognize the Pawnee tribal woman at the Powwow and how he related the horse tale of the poor grandson and grandmother to her. However, in the reading during Week one it states how, ““The Big Game”- basketball tournament amongst Native Americans led to controversy over the lack of identity. Some did not have government cards; some did not look the part. However, the whole Navajo could recite their clan affiliation and introduce themselves in the Navajo language. In the end the championship game got canceled; there was no champion (Native 29). Throughout the film, it talks about specific tribes in these tales and often times they had some noticeable differences such as location and environment. In the week one reading, it states how the people matrix can be seen through their differences in language, sacred history, ceremonial cycle, and place/territory (Native 36). However, in this film, Dreamkeeper, I felt that the environment of the Powwow in the end was so peaceful and was a combination of many Native American cultures. It was great to see people dancing in circles and listening to stories about different tribes and tales. The indigenous identity today seems to revolve around the elders as well as the Powwows, as it did for Shane, it helps confused young Native American men and women to learn where they come from and the beliefs their people had about the white man who helped them, animals spirituality, and its’ own Native American
It is the perspective of the Natives and how they feel they have been wrongfully treated. All perspectives must be looked at to figure out where the truth lies. Pokagon gives a very strong one-sided story. He does give way too few who stood up for the Native way of life, but remains not to believe it was all in the name of progression. He believes very adamantly that is was all in the name of greed. The greed for gold drove out his kind, not the need to progression. He proves his point by sharing what happened to the lives of the Natives, using such things as alcohol and railroad systems. Those two things were used to break treaties and push out tribes from their native lands. The strongest point he uses is slavery. Recalling how the Natives accepted and helped the settlers, but weren’t repaid with the same kindness. He is specifically speaking to the pale face who stole everything from his people. While history books portray Natives as the problem, he uses all he knows to repaint a different story. He does not shy away from the eventuality of progression, but rather believes it could have been another
In this poem, there is a young woman and her loving mother discussing their heritage through their matrilineal side. The poem itself begins with what she will inherit from each family member starting with her mother. After discussing what she will inherit from each of her family members, the final lines of the poem reflect back to her mother in which she gave her advice on constantly moving and never having a home to call hers. For example, the woman describes how her father will give her “his brown eyes” (Line 7) and how her mother advised her to eat raw deer (Line 40). Perhaps the reader is suggesting that she is the only survivor of a tragedy and it is her heritage that keeps her going to keep safe. In the first two lines of the poem, she explains how the young woman will be taking the lines of her mother’s (Lines 1-2). This demonstrates further that she is physically worried about her features and emotionally worried about taking on the lineage of her heritage. Later, she remembered the years of when her mother baked the most wonderful food and did not want to forget the “smell of baking bread [that warmed] fined hairs in my nostrils” (Lines 3-4). Perhaps the young woman implies that she is restrained through her heritage to effectively move forward and become who she would like to be. When reading this poem, Native American heritage is an apparent theme through the lifestyle examples, the fact lineage is passed through woman, and problems Native Americans had faced while trying to be conquested by Americans. Overall, this poem portrays a confined, young woman trying to overcome her current obstacles in life by accepting her heritage and pursuing through her
The story Navajo Lessons conveys the theme that “It is important to learn and appreciate your heritage.” This story is about a girl, Celine, and her brother that visit her grandmother on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Celine arrives at a place in the middle of nowhere at her grandmother’s house and is not excited because she had better plans for the summer. Her family is encouraging her to deal with it and make something good out of it. Over time, Celine learns that this trip was worth it because she realized that it is important to learn and appreciate your heritage. Celine learned this in many ways, one of them being that she wanted to learn and listen to the stories that her grandmother was telling.
She examines some similarities in today’s “white culture” and the historical attitude of the exploring Europeans. The Europeans, when inhabiting North America, “just moved in and said they had God on their side and the Indians weren’t much anyway but a few of them could work for them sometimes if they behaved themselves, and the rest were lined up for disposal” (377). The Europeans believed themselves superior to the Indians; any and all action – fair and unfair alike – taken against the Indians was justifiable because it helped the Europeans. Grover argues that this irresponsible approach is the basis of the white culture. White culture is simply American culture taken and modified as seen fit by white people.
The most meaningful part of the book for me, was the sit-ins, a form of protest in which demonstrators occupy a place, refusing to leave until their demands are met. The reason the sit-ins were so meaningful is that it really brought attention to how Americans were segregating the African Americas. Just as if you do nothing when a bully, whites, is picking on you, blacks, they will continue picking on you until you fight back. The sit-ins were a nonviolent way to show that they no longer will or have to take the abuse.
The main conflict is man vs. man. It is more of a general conflict with slave owners versus slaves. Throughout the whole book, the struggles between slaves and their masters are shown. The story explains the harshness of slavery. With both nice and mean slave masters, slavery is terrible and that conflict is shown throughout the whole story.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, many dominant American themes and culture are present. Twain explores these themes through the actions, relationships, and development of different characters in the novel. Freedom, survival of the fittest, and individual conscience are three themes that are explored in individual characters and in society.
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The story “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison displays a few specific themes through the story which are easy to depict. A few themes from this story are, first racism and finding his self identity, then the danger of fighting stereotype with stereotype, and last blindness. These themes play an important role in the story to better help the reader understand it.
Boys in the Native American culture are pushed to be good runners, skilled hunters, and good warriors. When they achieve this they are considered men in their society. When they become too old to do all of this they become counselors of the village. Women are expected to raise children, make food, and take care of the children for a lifetime. There is no police force, government, or punishment in their culture. They do not need it. These r...
The story chronicles situations that illustrate the common stereotypes about Natives. Through Jackson’s humble personality, the reader can grasp his true feelings towards White people, which is based off of the oppression of Native Americans. I need to win it back myself” (14). Jackson also mentions to the cop, “I’m on a mission here. I want to be a hero” (24).
The nineteenth-century, a period of expansion in the eyes of the Americans; fostered an increase in preexisting feelings of superiority over the indigenous peoples of America. They were referred to as “Indians” or “savages.” The Euro-American belief of distinction between the “civilized” and “savages” were accentuated in the universal law of progress, and law of vices and virtues, leading to the emergence of the famed myth, the “vanishing” Indian, which enforced the Euro-American notion of the Native American population dwindling into nothingness (Ferdinando). The eighteen-hundreds marked the rise in naturalistic literature integrating the myth of the vanishing Indian into popular culture.
There are many themes that occur and can be interpreted differently throughout the novel. The three main themes that stand out most are healing, communication, and relationships.
The first excerpt, 11.1, the government wants to remove the Cherokee from their land. The Cherokee know their rights so the government has to do something that was not supposed to happen. The government had to forcibly remove the Cherokee from their land. The reason behind this story is that the Cherokee denied the treaties that the government wanted in order to get all of the gold that was found on their land. Since the Cherokee from Georgia did not want to leave their land, the government removed them. They were abused for refusing the treaty. The reason the Cherokee did not agree to the terms was because the government was trying to get rid