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Mentorship: From Childhood to the Man
Louise Erdrich explores the inner conflicts of an Indian tribe in her novel Tracks. By the end of the novel, the tribes’ accord is broken by the lure of the white man’s money and land reform. The divisions among the tribe are epitomized by the physical separation of the Chippewa people into different colors that correspond to their different land allotments. However, one chapter in particular contrasts with the tribe’s tendency towards discord. Chapter 5, in which Nanapush and Eli overcome their differences and unite in an attempt to avoid starvation lends hope to the ominous series of events throughout Tracks which show conflict developing from unity. The great snow storm they experience together not only binds them but forces Eli to turn to his Chippewa roots in order to survive. Thus, the true lessons of life can be learned through the mentorship of one man’s life becoming transparent though one another.
In Chapter 5, we see the climax of the relationship between Nanapush and Eli. Like everybody else in the book, Eli shows up at Nanapush’ residence to seek wise counsel. Unfortunately for Eli, Nanapush is not amazed by the adversities in which Eli is experiencing. We see this within the beginning of the chapter. We see the inner child of Eli, trying to get the attention of the man, Nanapush. Eli tries to gain Nanapush’ attention; by making comments under his breath and banging his head against the table. All the while Nanapush is attentive, but is also not entertaining the temper tantrum of the child. The eruptions through the dialogue finally spring out when Eli starts with, “How much a man endures?” Nanapush’ response is small but powerful by simply stating, “What Man?” (p.97) Nanapush r...
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...ves from what may feel like only a season. And that’s most of the time. They are typically put into your life for you to learn and build up specific characteristics about yourself. But sometimes people come into your life in what may seem a lifetime. These kind of relationships are built upon constantly. With Eli and Nanapush, they embarked upon a relationship that build upon the grounds that they needed each other to survive. Eli needed Nanapush for wisdom to survive and cope with the adversities and lessons of life. Nanapush needed Eli to physically survive in the dire time of need. And when we look at the after affects of the lessons that Nanapush gave to Eli, I realized that Eli then stepped forward to mentor his younger brother. So after the lessons were over between Nanapush and Eli, so the passing of the torch has begun for Eli to share the wisdom with Nector.
Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within himself.
He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with his own kin.” This quote describes how Elie’s father is a well-round person who is more concerned over the people within his community than himself. This shows that he is companionate towards his community and is respected by all. He is considerate towards how people act and feel. , and maintains this leader-like role for his community, including his own son Elie. Elie sees his father as a role model and a person who is knowledgeable enough to handle difficult situations, or at least that is what Elie
Similarly, the book’s three leading protagonists ultimately possess a common objective, escaping their unjust circumstances in pursuit of seeking the “warmth of other suns.” For this reason, they abandon the laws of Jim Crow and the familiarity of their hometowns as they flee to a better life. In the process, they all assume a level of risk in their decisions to rebel against the system. For example, Ida decides to embark on a precarious journey while in the beginning stages of a clandestine pregnancy. Any number of unpredictable events could have resulted from this judgment, including fatality. All of the migrants shared an unspoken agreement that the rewards would far outweigh the dangers involved.
But turns down his relationship with his father over time when he gets hurt or starts to suffer. Like when Elies thought was, “I did not move. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, before my very eyes, and I had not flickered an eyelid. I had looked on and said nothing”. When his father was hit by the guard he didn’t know what to do and just stayed silent.
Shostak, out of all the women in the tribe had made close connections with a fifty year old woman with the name of Nisa. The woman, Nisa, is what the book is about. The book is written in Nisa’s point of view of her life experiences while growing up in that type of society. Nisa’s willingness to speak in the interviews about her childhood and her life gave Shostak a solid basis on what to write her book on. Nisa’s life was filled with tragedies. She had gone through certain situations where Nisa loses two of her children as infants and two as adults. She had also lost her husband soon after the birth of one of their children. According to Shostak, “None of the women had experiences as much tragedy as Nisa…” (Shostak, 351).
Later on during their time in camp, Eliezer and his father develop a peer relationship. Both m...
Eliezer is trying to express his frustration and devastation. Everyone around him has faith in God yet he does not. He had lost all hope in God and his mercy. He spent nearly all his life worshipping God and he has strong feelings that God has abandoned him. His denial of faith makes him feel all alone by himself, without God or man.
...nd the doctor refused to help him because there was nothing he could do. He started to hallucinate and the others made fun of him. Did they not realize they suffer the same fate as him? When Eliezer woke, his father was no longer there. Possibly taken to the crematorium, all Eliezer could think was that he was free at last. What happened to not wanting to be separated from his father? He had become selfish and it is now hard to feel sympathy for him.
First of all, the father-son relationship between Eliezer and his father in the novel experiences an emotional change. At first, the relationship between these two characters is rather stressed and awkward. They were ever close to each other, and Eliezer illustrates the painful atmosphere by describing, “My father was a cultured, rather unsentimental man. There was never any display of emotion, even at home. He was more concerned with others than with his own family” (Wiesel 2).
“Yellow Woman” written by Leslie Marmon Silko is a short story based on a Native American Legend story. In this Legend story, a woman has been taken away from her family for a period of time. The Yellow Woman are taken by a Ka’tisna spirit which is better known as a mountain spirit. Throughout the story, the reader learns that the narrator is in an overarching battle with her personal identity as a Pueblo Indian Woman. On top of the narrator's battle with understanding her personal identity she is in a constant battle with trying to understand what events are happening in real life as well as what events are remnants of this legend story told by her grandfather. In sum, the struggle that the narrator has is the common theme occurring throughout.
His father is getting old, and weak, and Elie realizes his father does not have the strength to survive on his own, and it is too late to save him. "It's too late to save your old father, I said to myself..."(pg 105). He felt guilty because he could not help his father, but he knew the only way to live is to watch out for himself. "Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father..."(pg 105). He thinks of himself, and
In Louise Erdrich’s “Tracks';, the readers discovers by the second chapter that there are two narrators, Nanapush and Pauline Puyat. This method of having two narrators telling their stories alternately could be at first confusing, especially if the readers hasn’t been briefed about it or hasn’t read a synopsis of it. Traditionally, there is one narrator in the story, but Erdrich does an effective and spectacular job in combining Nanapush and Pauline’s stories. It is so well written that one might question as he or she reads who is the principal character in this story? Being that there are two narrators, is it Nanapush, the first narrator, him being a participant in the story, who tells his story in the “I'; form? Or is it Pauline, the second narrator, who also narrates in the “I'; form? Upon further reading, the motive for both narrators’ stories become more evident, and by the end of the book, it becomes clear that one character is the driving force for both of the narrators’ stories. This central character is Fleur Pillager. She in fact is the protagonist of “Tracks';. Even though she is limited in dialogues, her actions speak more than words itself.
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...
Born and raised in a family of storytellers, it’s no wonder that this author, Louise Erdrich became a prolific writer. Louise was born in Little Falls, Minnesota. She grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, near the Chippewa Reservation with her mom, who had Native American roots and her dad who was of German descent. Her parents encouraged and challenged her at an early age to read, also to write stories and even paid her a nickel for each one that she wrote. Lorena Stookey states that Louise Erdrich’s style of writing is “like William Faulkner, she creates a fictional world and peoples it with multiple narrators whose voices commingle to shape her readers’ experience of that world” (Stookey 14). Louise writes this moving story “The Shawl” as she is haunted by the sorrows of the generations of her people, the Anishinaabeg. I initially saw this tale as a very complex reading, but after careful reading and consideration, saw it as a sad and compelling story.
Elihu B Washburne was born in Livermore, Maine on September 23, 1816. Elihu was the third of eleven children of Israel and Martha Washburn. In 1829, his father was forced to close the family store, so the family resorted to farming. Growing up, Elihu went to school at District 7, which was a school house located very close to the farm. When he was seven, Elihu went to live with his grandparents in Raynham, Massachusetts, where he took care of animals and the garden while he went to school. Seven years later, Elihu was back home, and forced to work on the neighbouring Lovewell’s farm for five months in order to work off his father’s twenty five dollar debt. Even though his father sent Elihu, along with some of his brothers to pay his debts,