In Indian Killer Alexie uses a pulp-fiction form, the serial killer mystery, to frame the social issues facing American Indians. He populates the book with stock characters such as a grizzled ex-cop, a left-wing professor, a right-wing talk radio personality, drunken bums, thuggish teenagers and a schizophrenic main character who serves as the most obvious suspect in a mystery that never quite resolves itself.
John Smith, the troubled Indian adopted by whites appears at first to be the main character, but in some respects he is what Alfred Hitchcock called a McGuffin. The story is built around him, but he is not truly the main character and he is not the heart of the story. His struggle, while pointing out one aspect of the American Indian experience, is not the central point. John Smith’s experiences as an Indian adopted by whites have left him too addled and sad, from the first moment to the last, to serve as the story’s true focus.
The damage that had been done to John Smith was irreparable from the moment the story began. His death, while a gloomy ending for his character, is in many ways a release from his torment, as demonstrated by his rising from the point of impact and leaving his body behind. The value of John Smith is to serve as an extreme example of the damage being done to Indian society.
The heart of the story is the experience of Marie Polatkin. Unlike the somewhat stock characters that make up much of the mystery element of the novel, Marie is a fully real...
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...
Watson utilises the two motifs to effectively depict that 'Montana 1948' is a tale about the struggle between truth and justice in a racist society. During the tragic events which take place in the 'Wild West' town of Bentrock, misuse of power and reputation is seen through the tyrannical characters of Julian and Frank Hayden (study mode, 2013). However, despite the persona of his father and brother, Wesley Hayden contradicts his family name, and acts honestly and with strong moral beliefs (study mode, 2013).The motif of silence emphasizes the theme of injustice when Wes and Julian Hayden are having a conversation about Frank’s indiscretions with Indian girls and David notes ‘The silence was so sudden and complete I thought at first that they saw me’ (p 72). David is surprised Julian hasn’t done anything about it yet. The motif is used to accentuate the injustice in the society.
[1] The silent film, With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness, was produced in 1926: a time of prosperity, an era without the skepticism of the modern American mind. People were not yet questioning the stories and histories they had been taught as children. The entertaining story told in this Robert North Bradbury film is loosely based on the life of an American hero. However, the presence of several insidiously inaccurate historical representations demonstrates how an entertaining film might not be as innocent as it initially seems. This film fails to question certain key issues concerning the Daniel Boone legend. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The creators of this film wholeheartedly bought into the many warped myths and distorted “facts” surrounding the story of Daniel Boone. Amazingly, the ethnocentric (read racist and colonial) ideals found in 19th century whites apparently still existed in 1926, and, to a certain extent, still do today. This essay will explore the factors that contributed to the twisted representations found in With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness. Hopefully, the work of this essay and many others like it will help the next generation of Americans (and filmmakers) to avoid the same injustices and societal pitfalls that have plagued mankind for ages.
The other two statistical methods, random and stratified, sound better than the convenience methods. Random statistic methods pros are it easy like convenience
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
Have you ever thought about how much food you waste everyday? The unfortunate truth is, the amount of food you wasted could have saved someone's life, yet it ended up being thrown in the trash. As a matter of fact, food waste is a serious issue that wastes $31 billion in Canada each year. We can help reduce this high amount by changing our aesthetic desires, shopping intelligently and understanding food date labels. Every single one of us is guilty, but we can make up for our wrong doings. In fact, it’s much easier to help than you may think.
Berkove claims that Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is about “heroine”, Louise Mallard, who’s not a hero. The view of her as a heroine is based on the interpretation of feminist. He argues there is no evidence to support the fact that Mrs. Mallard is repressed, nor that she had to sacrifice anything for her husband. Berkove analyzes the quote of Mrs. Mallard’s freedom and noted that when it came to love, Mrs. Mallard did not a significant amount of love towards her husband, but instead loved herself more. The wild abandonment that she experienced when realizing that she is “free” and will live “absolutely” for herself were indications that she is losing her mind because
The world around us is suffering from a shortage in food, this shortage might harm the world in the long term and we might not have enough resources for the world in 50 years from now. Every single person on Earth is responsible for this mess, either because some of us buy more than what we need and throw the waste away or because some of us do not have the enough education to know more about the food crisis. In order to help the resources of planet Earth and save them from vanishing, our group came up with an idea that can help the resources and environment around us. The myth we investigated and found a solution for is the Zero Waste myth and we had to ask several questions like is it environmentally sustainable? Is it
Over the years footprints have been used to tell the details of the species that marked it. In the case of carbon footprint it is the amount of Carbon Dioxide or other carbon compounds (green house gases) emitted into the atmosphere by human activities. By simply going about our daily lives of driving to work or running home appliances we are producing more CO2 because each is powered by energy that rely on the combustion of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels by humans emits 98% of the CO2 in the atmosphere making it the largest source of Carbon dioxide emissions and so it is a major cause of global warming (Dowdey, 2013). Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, and natural gas (Sciencedaily.com, 2013). Carbon dioxide releases have increased intensely in the last 50 years and it is still increasing by about 3% each year. Because CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for 100 to 200 years its concentration eventually increases and causes the Earth’s temperature to rise (Rohrer,2013).
...hung from the church’s walls john has ended the pain for his family and John was hung. All the event that occurred showed that John’s action effect the people around him in a positive and negative way, having cheating on his wife had an major effect on his wife and there relationship he completely took away all the trust she had for him, also form being a very selfish man and only caring for himself to a man who gave him life for his wife so that she can live a easier life.
The personal ecological footprint calculation quiz results are divided into four consumption categories, carbon, food, housing, and goods and services. The results are also broken down into four ecosystem types, cropland, pastureland, forestland, and marine fisheries. The calculation results take all of these categories into account to come to a final result. The ecological footprint is expressed in global acres. The personal ecological footprint quiz results compared my footprint to the country average.
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...
According to the Washington Post, the United States wastes over 165 billion dollars in food every year. Interesting enough, 40% of all the food in the United States goes to waste. Starting at the farms, 7% of crops and produce are wasted. This is due to the lack of need, crops not meeting standards, and some crops just don’t get selected. Sometimes when an outbreak of diseased food is going around perfectly good crops will be left to rot. After the produce is collected a lot of the product is discarded because it doesn’t meet standards for size, shape, or color. A farmer who produces a great deal of cucumbers stated, “fewer than half the vegetables left his farm and 75% of those were culled before sale”. Another scenario to consider is technical
I have chosen the topic of food waste and the impact on the environment. I will discuss the ridiculous amount of food that is wasted each year and the staggering amount of waste that could be avoided just by planning ahead, and purchasing from farmer’s markets and avoiding the main stream supermarkets who set such high standards on the aesthetic of produce that tonnes are wasted for no reason other then shape.
Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Scientists have seen a measurable increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in recent decades. There is considerable consensus within the scientific community that this increase is due largely to human activity. Actions such as driving long distances to work, taking frequent flights, and living in a large home can lead to large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions. One way of measuring these emissions is through carbon footprints. A carbon footprint is an individual’s aggregate carbon emissions across various aspects of their life. Once an individual can see quantitatively the size of their carbon footprint, and compare these results to peer, national,