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Summary of american literature on based on american indian storytelling
Storytelling in native american culture
Native American Cultural Assessment Project
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It is well known that Native American cultures have been rich in oral traditions. Storytelling is but one aspect of that. Yet amongst the Native American poets covered in class there seem to be differing views of storytelling. Sherman Alexie looks at storytelling in "How To Write the Great American Novel" as that which has been stereotyped and mainstreamed into the dominant culture, while Joy Harjo seems to view storytelling in "Deer Dancer" as vital to the survival of culture. This essay will examine the storytelling aspects of both works. Alexie's poem "How To Write the Great American Indian Novel" blends several dilemmas at once. Underlying to the poem and the act of writing the `Great American Indian Novel' is the awareness in all Colored people of a catch-22: that they are seen solely as a reflection of how White America views them. In the case of the Native American they are either seen as a less-than-articulate `Noble Savage'/ mystic, a caricature who greets white men with a monosyllabic `How', or a brute savage/ reservation drunkard. Likewise, the Native American is expected to feel shame for the stereotypes that have been thrust upon him; regardless of whether individuals of the dominating culture take stock in the accepted stereotypes or not, the Native American still feels critical eyes on him always, and senses the act of be labeled. If he tries to configure himself into the dominating culture, and comply with the set standards of Whites he is then seen as a `a credit to the race', an `apple Indian`, and a `sellout`, poorly imitating White culture without truly fitting in. Similarly, any Native American who does not try to comply with the standards of White culture is at risk of playing into the brutish, reserv... ... middle of paper ... ... to rebuilding the community of `broken survivors' and central to storytelling as a means of surviving the disintegration of culture. In conclusion, the aspect of storytelling is quite prevalent in both "How To Write the Great American Indian Novel" as well as "Deer Dancer" yet the both poets have taken such dramatically different views of storytelling in the poems. Regardless, each is able to make their particular viewpoint seem plausible and coherent by reinforcing their ideas with metaphors. Alexie continuously uses stereotypes to show the mainstream aspect of storytelling, especially when Native Americans don't get to tell their own stories. Harjo repeatedly uses the idea of `dreamtime' to play up the nostalgia aspect of storytelling, being able to forget despair and be lost in a story or myth which has turned into reality through the power of language.
King, Thomas. “Let Me Entertain You. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 61-89. Print.
In The White Man’s Indian, Robert Berkhoffer analyzes how Native Americans have maintained a negative stereotype because of Whites. As a matter of fact, this book examines the evolution of Native Americans throughout American history by explaining the origin of the Indian stereotype, the change from religious justification to scientific racism to a modern anthropological viewpoint of Native Americans, the White portrayal of Native Americans through art, and the policies enacted to keep Native Americans as Whites perceive them to be. In the hope that Native Americans will be able to overcome how Whites have portrayed them, Berkhoffer is presenting
In this essay, McFarland discusses Native American poetry and Sherman Alexie’s works. He provides an overview of Alexie’s writing in both his poems and short stories. A brief analysis of Alexie’s use of humor is also included.
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
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
Sherman Alexie grew up in Wellpinit, Washington as a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene tribal member (Sherman Alexie). He began his personal battle with substance abuse in 1985 during his freshman year at Jesuit Gonzaga University. The success of his first published work in 1990 incentivized Alexie to overcome his alcohol abuse. “In his short-story and poetry collections, Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism that often shape the lives of Native Americans living on reservations” (Sherman Alexie). When developing his characters, Alexie often gives them characteristics of substance abuse, poverty and criminal behaviors in an effort to evoke sadness with his readers. Alexie utilizes other art forms, such as film, music, cartoons, and the print media, to bombard mainstream distortion of Indian culture and to redefine Indianness. “Both the term Indian and the stereotypical image are created through histories of misrepresentation—one is a simulated word without a tribal real and the other an i...
One of the hardest realities of being a minority is that the majority has a thousand ways to hurt anyone who is part of a minority, and they have but two or three ways to defend themselves. In Sherman Alexie’s short story The Toughest Indian in the World, Roman Gabriel Fury is a member of the Native American minority that makes up less than two percent of the total United States population (1.2 percent to be exact). This inherent disadvantage of being a minority, along with various cultural factors, influences the conflicted character of Roman Gabriel Fury and his attitudes toward the white majority. Through his use of strong language, demanding tone, and vibrant colors, Roman Gabriel Fury is able to reveal his complex feelings about growing up Indian in a predominately white world.
“Crazy Brave” is the story of how Harjo survived abandonment and abuse, the temptations of alcohol, and youthful struggles with failed marriages and single motherhood to become one of the most successful Native American poets. Crazy Brave highlights the earliest parts of her life through her early 20s as she grew up in Oklahoma. She had given birth to two children, but cared for three. The story explains the difficulty and struggle with periods of respite. The larger moral of the story is how she faced the survival of spirituality and creativity in the face of generations of dispossession, racism, and familial dysfunction.
Discuss the distinctive qualities that define the way stories are told in Native American cultures. How do these differ from what you might have thought of as a traditional story?
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.
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...
The Storytelling Animal is an expository non-fiction book by Jonathan Gottschall analyzing the history of stories and human’s attraction to them. It was published in 2012 and thus contains many up-to-date references and comparisons. I believe Gottschall’s main objective in writing this book is to bring us all to the conclusion that he has reached in his research. Throughout the entirety of his book, Gottschall effectively pulls us back to main ideas he wants us to understand and accept, that we are innately storytelling animals, that are addicted to stories ourselves, have always been and will always be, by using topics that build upon one another, using relatable examples, and supporting arguments with research and studies.
He relates how Irish storytellers would turn their backs to the audience, or speak from another room in order that the listeners would rely on their imaginations. These types of storytellers would not rely on gestures, or voice inflections, but instead chose to paint a mental picture for their audiences who created vivid imagery in their own minds. The story was paramount to the teller. Lindahl laments that current storytellers have become enamored with their own performances and become as important to the tale as the tale itself. The “quiet, shyer world of the lone, quiet voice figures too rarely in folkloric performance studies.” Lindahl compares the true märchen tellers to the quilters who are more intrigued in the stitches of their work, and not the beautiful patterns or to the skilled basket weavers who focus on the intended use of the basket and not the aesthetic beauty of the weaving patterns (McCarthy xix-xx). In today’s society, the figure of a great storyteller evokes an image of gestures, voice inflections, voice impersonations provided by a colorful character. Perhaps our sensory overload from high definition televisions, streaming video, IMAX theaters have dulled our appreciation for the story itself, which is created in our own imaginations by a teller with skilled
In “The Truth about Stories”, Thomas King, demonstrate connection between the Native storytelling and the authentic world. He examines various themes in the stories such as; oppression, racism, identity and discrimination. He uses the creational stories and implies in to the world today and points out the racism and identity issues the Native people went through and are going through. The surroundings shape individuals’ life and a story plays vital roles. How one tells a story has huge impact on the listeners and readers. King uses sarcastic tone as he tells the current stories of Native people and his experiences. He points out to the events and incidents such as the government apologizing for the colonialism, however, words remains as they are and are not exchanged for actions. King continuously alerts the reader about taking actions towards change as people tend to be ignorant of what is going around them. At the end people give a simple reason that they were not aware of it. Thus, the author constantly reminds the readers that now they are aware of the issue so they do not have any reason to be ignorant.
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.