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Native American culture
Native Americans the story of their culture
Native Americans the story of their culture
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In Joseph Boydens short story “Abitibi Canyon”, the narrator is the mother of Remi, a child with a mental disability. They live in a reserve where the people argue about the construction of a dam in their river. She is against it because it will ruin the place where she likes to camp with her Shirley, Mary and Suzanne. The way she sees the dam is an important image. She pictures it as a “concrete monster lying in our river and controlling it like some greedy giant” (364). The dam will ruin a place that has a lot of personal significance to her. In addition, Remi’s handicap is also an important theme in this story. His mother only tried to understand and protect her son, while the other native women in her club, who also have “frog children”
Nature has a powerful way of portraying good vs. bad, which parallels to the same concept intertwined with human nature. In the story “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle, the author portrays this through the use of a lake by demonstrating its significance and relationship to the characters. At one time, the Greasy Lake was something of beauty and cleanliness, but then came to be the exact opposite. Through his writing, Boyle demonstrates how the setting can be a direct reflection of the characters and the experiences they encounter.
Norman Mclean’s A River Runs Through It explores many feelings and experiences of one “turn of the century” family in Missoula, Montana. In both the movie, directed by Robert Redford, and the original work of fiction we follow the Mcleans through their joys and sorrows. However, the names of the characters and places are not purely coincidental. These are the same people and places known by Norman Mclean as he was growing up. In a sense, A River Runs Through It is Mclean’s autobiography. Although these autobiographical influences are quite evident throughout the course of the story they have deeper roots in the later life of the author as he copes with his life’s hardships.
This essay will describe Emile Durkheim’s concepts of social integration and social/moral regulation and will explain how Durkheim connects them to suicide. It will then utilize those concepts to analyze the social effects of the Buffalo Creek flood, as described in the book “Everything In Its Path�, by Kai T. Erikson, showing other consequences besides higher suicide rates.
In this paper I will discuss concepts from “Accidents of Nature” that stood out to me. “Accidents of Nature” is a story based on the life of a young girl with cerebral palsy who attends a summer camp for people who have disabilities which opposes her usual life of living in normalcy. This experience is much to the new for her as she has not fully experienced this life before. The concepts that I will discuss in this paper will relate to topics that are stressed and focused upon in our class and will exemplify many important features that are stressed upon each and every day.
“Babies”. Is a documentary made by the Thomas Balmés. It offers a window on the lives of four infants in four completely different cultures. This is not a usual kind of documentary; there are no narration, no subtitles and actual dialogue was very minimal. The film explores childhood rituals, enculturation, socialization and parenthood. I will try to explore each of these themes and try to make the case that behaviors, values and fears are learned not something congenital. It has, in my opinion, comparative perspectives and different methods in rearing children in different societies. It achieves this by cutting the scenes in certain ways to show the differences between these different children. For example, in one part of the film, both Bayarjargal (the Mongolian child) and Mari (the Japanese child) were playing with their pet cats and then the two scenes were edited to a shot of Ponijo (the Namibian child) looking interested in flies. The four children developed in somewhat similar ways. However, there are differences in their behaviors due to the enculturation by seeing their parents or siblings who were doing what they thought to be the norms and the obvious landscape in which they are brought up. Two of the kids were born in rural areas (Namibia and Mongolia) and two were born in urban areas (the United States and Japan). The mothers of these infants were interviewed and chosen to be in the film
The next testimonies are from the mother of the abducted wife who pleads for the authorities to find her missing daughter. Along the way the wife’s mother notes that her daughter is beautiful to be noticed, “Her complexion is a little on the dark side, and she has a mole by the outside corner of her left eye, but her face is a tiny, perfect oval (306). Also, that the daughter, Masago, is very bold for a woman her
Children are seen as adorable, fun loving, and hard to control. Ida Fink uses a child in “The Key Game” to be the key to this family’s life. The setting is placed during the start of World War II; Jews all around were being taken. Fink uses a boy who doesn’t look the traditional Jewish, “And their chubby, blue-eyed, three-year-old child” (Fink). As they read on the emotional connection is stronger because there is a face to go with this character. Fink draws a reader in by making connections to a family member the reader may know. A blue-eyed, chubby child is the picture child of America. A child in any story makes readers more attached especially if they have children of their own. The child is three way too young to be responsible for the safety of the father, yet has to be. Throughout the story, we see how the mother struggles with making her child play the game because no child should be responsible like
As the subject of the first section of Doris' novel, A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, Rayona faces many problems that are unique to someone her age. Ray's mixed race heritage makes her a target of discrimination on the reservation. Problems in her family life (or lack thereof), give Rayona a reversed role in which she is the mother taking care of Christine. In dealing with these issues, Rayona learns a lot about herself and others.
...on social conventions. In addition red signifies energy and passion, the girl be identified as a symbol of these values. “Harder. Go. Do. Cut. Harder.” Juxtaposed against her afraid, depressed mother, her energy is emphasised. In addition, dedication is a recurring value held by the girl throughout the text. “Every night after school, the girl trained in the swimming squad”, “Be an engine.” She is portrayed as greatly desiring and as a result exceedingly determined. Similarly, ambition is a prominent value obtained by the girl. “Be an engine…don’t think, breathe!” and “Pushing out, she knew that as soon as she was old enough she would leave her mother.” She is portrayed as immensely focused. Therefore, many values and attitudes are explored in this text, such as determination, anger, aspiration, desperation and evil, all of which are represented by the colour red.
The idea of using a family based theme in literature has been around for a long time. When an author is writing a novel or even a play, it is very easy to include a strong family dynamic to it. The family is something that nearly every person can relate with in one way or another. This comfort springs forth emotions in the reader or viewer that make the story easier to follow along with. There are many examples of this throughout this course, but this paper will focus on how three of them use the family dynamic to connect with the reader: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children.
The influence family members can have on the development of a child is enormous; they can either mold a healthy mind or drive a child toward darkness. Jennifer Egan’s Safari is a short story that highlights the different relationships in a family with a complicated background. Rolph and Charlie come from a divorced household and join their father, Lou, and his new girlfriend, Mindy, on an African safari. As the events of the trip unfold, Lou’s children experience a coming of age in which they lose the innocence they once possessed. The significant impact of family dynamic on children’s transition into adulthood is presented in Safari. Jennifer Egan uses Mindy’s structural classifications of Charlie and Rolph to demonstrate how Lou and Mindy’s relationship hinders the maturation of the two kids.
Control is a common theme in literature used in order to teach about the complicated relationships between parent and child, These themes are seen in “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams and “The Fish” by Lila Zeiger. In both cases, the authors use parental authority over their kids to show the effects on the identity of the developing mind. In Both the poem and the play, The author uses conflicts between family to illustrate the effects of harsh parental control on the identity of kids.
The short stories in the novel Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat demonstrate the struggles that individuals face and how they react to them. The characters in the stories come from all different backgrounds and experiences but they all seem to share the same sense of suffering and pain. Danticat uses the women in the collections to display the struggles and unhappiness that the people of Haiti faced in the 1960’s. The women, all from different parts of Haiti and also New York, are faced with issues in the work place, in their social lives but most prominently, within their families. Each woman resolves or works to resolve her problems in a complete egotistical and unique way. In Krik? Krak! Danticat uses characterization to display the suffering of the families in Haiti and individualizes every situation to make it of more emphasis. Danticat also uses a large amount of symbolism while trying to portray the significance of the issues being faced. The major theme in Krik? Krak! centers around the diversity of suffering and that even when put in similar situations, every person suffers differently.
“Running in the family,” is a fictionalized memoir, written by Michael Ondaaji. Michael Ondaatje is a writer from a Ceylonese origin. Due to his parents’ divorce, He was forced to leave his native country with his mother at a young age. After living in Canada for twenty five years, he decides to visit Ceylon; and learn about his family and ancestors. The memoir represents glimpses of the author’s family history. It presents a story about the author’s great grandfather, who is an immigrant physician. It describes his grandfather, a rich lawyer, and his extravagant Grandmother Lalla. Furthermore, it contains multiple stories from the author’s childhood. It predominantly focuses on the author’s parental conflict. It indicates his father’s dipsomania and solitude; as well as, his mother’s suffering.
Throughout time, humans struggled with issues of conformity and individuality. In the modern world, individuality is idealized, as it is associated with strength. Weak individuals are usually portrayed as conforming to society and having almost no personal ideas. In “Desiree’s Baby”, a short story, the author Kate Chopin deals with the struggles of African descendants in the French colonies during the time of slave labor. The protagonist is a white woman named Desiree who is of unknown origin and birth as she was found abandoned as an infant at an aristocrat’s doorstep. Eighteen years after her discovery, she and a fellow aristocrat, Armand Aubigny, fall in love and get married. They soon have a child, yet conflict arises when the child is discovered to be black. The young family is destroyed when the baby’s father, Armand, refuses to accept the child. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Chopin demonstrates through Armand’s conflicts how weak humans conform to environmental norms.