The path from trauma to recovery is an experience that many deal with in hopes of finding tranquility. We understand trauma through two lenses: catastrophic and wound. According to American Psychiatric Association, catastrophic trauma refers to the site of an event “outside the range of usual human experience,” while wound trauma, also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is “inflicted not upon the body but upon the mind” (Visvis 228). Fellow Cree men Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack both experience distressing trauma through their role as snipers in the Great War. Xavier’s journey is hit with multiple obstacles that test his Native culture while trying to overcome the traumatic effects of the war as he tries to distance himself from the Eurocentric perspective. Joseph Boyden’s novel Three Day Road illustrates the importance of cultural beliefs in a world of ethnic differences as men face the hardship of war while surrounded by temptations and actions that cannot be undone which eventually leads some down a disoriented road of Native savagery. …show more content…
The conceptualization of the First Nations perspective, particularly through the figure of the Windigo, “a cannibalistic human, monster, or spirit, informed in this context by Cree and Ojibway beliefs,” is a Native “sign” used in the Western region known as savagery (Visvis 225). According to Raymond Fogelson, Windigos induce fear because of their capacity to possess others and transform them into cannibalistic monsters (84). In order to take action against these monsters, certain measures are taken which evidently impact Xavier’s path from trauma to
In Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, author Sebastian Junger deeply reflects on the ancient tribal human behaviors such as loyalty, dependence on the surrounding community, and cooperation, as well as how modern-day society has deviated entirely. Junger theorizes that such deviation from communal societies to individualistic societies is the principle reason depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide rates in veterans are incredibly high and increasing at such an alarming rate. Junger supports his thesis with multiple credible sources, as well as realistic comparisons of ancient civilization behaviors to modern day behaviors. Junger explained what the tribal culture often entailed, as well as the main differences between tribes and American society.
In the novel, Three Day Road, the three main characters, Elijah, Niska and Xavier are Cree Indians. They are Native Americans that do not rely on Europeans and make their living by hunting in the bush. They are maintaining their culture and identity after the the Europeans come as before. However, Elijah and Xavier are volunteering in the First World War. They are losing their identity gradually in ways of culture, status, power, thinking, beliefs, etc. Xavier and Niska try to maintain their culture but Elijah wants to get rid of it totally.
When chief Sitting Bull and his people ran away from their native lands to Canada, they lost all the resources they had once relied on. This led to multiple deaths due to the lack of food, warmth, and much more. A little girl of the Sioux died due to hunger and the harsh weather. M...
The book opens "Nous sommes tours Sauvages," which translates to "We are all Savages." It's a fitting way to begin a book chronicling the story of Major Robert Rogers and his rangers journey, Native American slaughter, and return home. In White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, and Vengeance in Colonial America, author Stephen Brumwell depicts a well researched, unbiased image of: war, hardship, courage, savagery, vengeance, and survival. Brumwell wants to show his readers an image of the true nature of war and all the trimmings that goes along with it. There has never been a war where atrocities were not committed. Further more, there has never been a war where the atrocities were not committed by all sides, to one extent or another. This war was no different. This compelling read draws from a broad range of primary sources, including Rogers' Journals, contemporary newspaper accounts, the letters and remembrances of Rogers' surviving Rangers, and several generations of Abenaki oral history.
Henry Fosdick once said, “The tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.” In “The Red Convertible” by Louis Erdrich, there is a conflict amongst two brothers, Henry and Lyman as ones awareness towards reality is shifted upon the return of the Vietnam War. Henry’s experience fighting in the Vietnam War is the responsibility for the unexpected aftermath that affects their brotherhood. The event of Henry fighting in the war through fears, emotions and horrors that he encounters is the source of his “Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome [PTSD].” It has shaped his own perception of reality and his relationship with his brother Lyman and the strong bond that they had shared.
American soldiers have battled in conflicts they were involuntarily forced into by the draft, only to recognize the war formed within their minds would never truly cease and become a destructive syndrome hampering their ability to cope with society. In 1919, by Toni Morrison and The Red Convertible, by Louise Erdrich, Shadrack and Henry Lamartine are both attempted to reintroduce themselves into society, but suffered extreme psychological damage implanted by their experiences in military conflict. Although Shadrack and Henry attempted the same feat, they were still subject to differences caused by the era of their existence and the situation they were reintroduced into. Both Shadrack and Henry endured extensive amounts of Post-Traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for short, causing virtually intolerable difficulties and consequently, exposing the idea of either Shadrack or Henry mentally returning to their pre-war psychological state as a fabricated hope.
It is estimated that anywhere between ten and thirty-one percent of Vietnam veterans have experienced post traumatic stress disorder sometime in their life. However, just because someone has not been labeled with that disorder, it does not mean there have not been long-lasting affects on that person. Throughout the book, we see the initial and long-lasting impacts that the Vietnam war has had on soldiers. This book is written in Tim’s point of view as he tells other soldier’s stories, as well as his own. Most of the book is told as Tim is looking back on his time as a soldier but there are times when we see him in present time with his family, over twenty years after the war. Over the course of the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Tim changes his personality for the worse, sees new sides of his friends brought out by
Trauma can impact someone’s life to where they can’t make connections with anyone. Even connecting with family it would be hard.Trauma changes the way they see the world and other people. In both Good Will Hunting and The Catcher in the Rye, Will and Holden go through traumatic events that change their lives. This makes them see everything negatively and impacts their ability to cope.
... a common theme among the works I read, due in part to Momaday’s own struggle for identity and self. That is what makes Momaday’s work so relatable, he injects his feelings and his experiences into his work. The journeys his characters go on are ones that at some point we all go on ourselves, journeys of self-knowledge, journeys of the heart. Momaday writes about Native American life and Native American struggles, but the true meaning in his work is deeper than that. In fact, one of the most poignant messages I read in his novels was that these crises we go through are not limited to those of persecuted ethnic roots—we all feel them. People are people, we all struggle, we all fall, and we all need a support system to pick ourselves up afterwards. We are all who we are, as the famous chief Sitting Bull has so aptly said, “It is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows.”
It is crazy to hear about all these mass shootings on television. There have been so many, including the most recent, at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, all over Paris, and now at the Inland Regional Center for disabled people in San Bernardino, California. Mass shootings are always a top priority of the news, so everybody gets to hear about it. Many of the survivors, who lost a friend, loved one, or co-worker to the shooting, or in recovery from being shot themselves are scarred for typically a lifetime. The people affected need a way to cope effectively during the aftermath. In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien puts coping mechanisms into context and how they were essential during and after the Vietnam War. His novel depicts that the soldiers displaced themselves through keepsakes, the soldiers were brought together through companionship, and used humor as coping mechanisms.
Yellow Horse Brave Heart, M., & DeBruyn, L. M. (2013). THE AMERICAN INDIAN HOLOCAUST: HEALING HISTORICAL UNRESOLVED GRIEF. The American Indian Holocaust, 63.
The novel Lame Deer, Seeker of visions is a biography of a Lakota Medicine Man who lived in the 1900’s. this book is his personal views of the situation that Lame Deer’s people have been left in after everything that had happened as the “white man” immigrated to what they believed to be unknown land and theirs for the taking. through the story he speaks of the history of the desecration done to the Native Americans by the European invaders. as well as explaining to Richard Erdoes, through hours of interviews, the way of the Lakota People and their Rituals and customs. this depiction shows the vast spirituality of the Lakota as well as what they hold highly in their religion. It is explained how the “white Man” took over their sacred land and destro...
Returning from battle proves a complicated feat for any soldier. Often enough, veterans come home with mental and physical scars that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. For Vietnam veteran’s, their homecoming became a battle within itself. Soldiers returned home to inadequate knowledge of mental and physical illnesses supplemented with an insufficient amount of care, a hostile society, and an abundance of stereotypes. In the stories, “Speaking of Courage” and “Notes” from Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, O’Brien emphasizes how America’s new culture affects Norman Bowker’s life when he returns from Vietnam. O’Brien describes how Bowker feels lost at home and how he comes face to face with, “the problem of finding
When faced with a life altering situation although Molly’s characteristics and personality aid her in courageously defying them, the effects of facing this traumatic event will lead to long term psychological repercussions. When severe harm is inflicted on a person’s psyche, it is viewed as an emotional trauma (Levers, 2012). The emotional harm inflicted on Molly’s psyche originates from different dimensions; like her upbringing, her trauma is multidimensional too. As a child of the Indigenous community, whose ancestors and elders were killed violently in inter-group conflicts, and whose children were forcefully removed from families, Molly is would experience intergenerational trauma (Atkinson, 2002). Intergenerational trauma is trauma passed down from one generation to another; as a close knitted community group, the grief experienced by family members of losing their loved ones, would have been transferred across generations (Atkinson,
Trauma can be defined as something that repeats itself. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, trauma recurs in soldiers for different reasons. However, although their reasons for trauma are different, the things they carried can symbolize all the emotions and pasts of these soldiers. One man may suffer trauma from looking through letters and photographs of an old lover, while another man could feel trauma just from memories of the past. The word “carried” is used repeatedly throughout The Things They Carried. Derived from the Latin word “quadrare,” meaning “suitable,” O’Brien uses the word “carried” not to simply state what the men were carrying, but to give us insight into each soldiers’ emotions and character, his past, and his present.