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analysis of dances with wolves
literature and different cultures
analysis of dances with wolves
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Dances With Wolves by Michael Blake is a novel that covers the topics of cross-culture, equality and respect. It also shows me the history of modern America. Reading this novel is a great adventure to me. Through years of getting ready, Michael Blake spent nine months on writing the book and got it done in 1981. The story happens in 1863, when US civil war was in ongoing. Knowing the potential amputation of his wounded leg, Union Army Officer Lieutenant John J. Dunbar turns suicidal and rides a horse to attract the enemy during a strange standoff. His act of suicide has the unexpected effect of rallying his comrades who win the battle later, thus, was misconstrued as bravery and earns him sympathy and fatherly love from General Tipton who rewards Dunbar with superior treatment that saves his leg, a horse named Cisco and his wish of a post on the frontier. In Fort Hays, he is assigned to Fort Sedgewick by Major Fambrough who has gone crazy and later sent away. When Dunbar arrives at Fort Sedgewick along with the supply and Timmons, his teamster, he finds the Fort Sedgewick deserted. In fact, Captain Cargill’s column which was used to be posted there retreats to Fort Hays due to the scarcity of supply. Nevertheless, Dunbar stays. While waiting for the soldiers to come back, he sets in order the deserted fort. Timmons is killed on his way back to Fort Hays. His death and the deliration of Major Fambrough mind make the existence of Dunbar in Fort Sedgewick unknown to the Union. He is a good writer and writes journals to keep record of his stay at Fort Sedgewick. Dunbar rides Cisco out to look for the Indians after some encounters with them. He runs into and saves Stands With A Fist, a white woman who’s captured and raised by ... ... middle of paper ... ...ger to get complete and broad understanding of the history. I will recommend the book to them. Dances With Wolves is suitable for an ESL 160 class. Its plot is easy to follow. Sentences are not too difficult, just occasional challenging. For an ESL 160 students like me, I learned lots of new words from the book so that I have broadened my vocabulary. Though there are some aspects of the book I personally don’t like, it cannot stop Dances With Wolves from being a great epic tale of life on the prairie in 19th-century America. Narrating the story in the third person, through skillful applications of figure of speeches, Michael Blake talks about cross culture, equality and respect in the book. His looking at the story Indian and white army from a new angle provide me a better and broad understanding of the history. Reading this novel is really a great adventure to me.
The wolf girls struggle to reconcile this new way of life with the way they were raised and push back against this forced assimilation. While this story is fantasy based it can be interpreted as historical criticism in regards to the wars between European settlers and American Indians. Aliken to the wolves, Native Americans have a unique culture that is carefully intertwined with nature. In the late 19th and 20th centuries Native American children were forcibly taken from their homes and forced to assimilate to a white American world within Catholic schools. “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” is symbolic with the assimilation of the werewolf girls into human culture of how Catholic boarding schools and the American Government forced
We turn back the clock as Welch draws on historical sources and Blackfeet cultural stories in order to explore the past of his ancestors. As a result, he provides a basis for a new understanding of the past and the forces that led to the deciding factor of the Plains Indian tribes. Although Fools Crow reflects the pressure to assimilate inflicted by the white colonizers on the Blackfeet tribes, it also portrays the influence of economic changes during this period. The prosperity created by the hide trade does not ultimately protect the tribe from massacre by the white soldiers. It does, however, effectively change the Blackfeet economy and women's place in their society. Thus, it sets the stage for the continued deterioration of their societal system. Although their economic value is decreased, women still represent an important cog in the economic structure. Indeed, women are central to the survival of the Blackfeet tribal community that Welch creates and in many ways this strength and centrality provide background for the strength of the women depicted in his more contemporary novels. Welch's examination of the past leads to a clearer understanding of the present Blackfeet world presented throughout his work.
A long, long time ago, God decided to punish the wicked people, but before he did that, he instructed Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal he can find along with his family. Animals and humans. The book I would like to use throughout this essay is “ Crossing ,” by Gary Paulsen. This book took place in Juarez, Mexico, where a bridge could mean so much. Each character in this book was being compared to an animal, to make us more understand about each of them. Each of them are also different. From the shape of their eyes, the way they react to something, and those are what made each of them different and special. Paulson compares animals and humans by their simliar characteristics and their behaviors.
...that actually experienced it. The author gives a good background of the relationship white settlement and Indian cultures had, which supported by the life experience. An author depicts all the emotions of struggle and happiness at the times when it is hard to imagine it. And it actually not the author who is persuasive, but the Black Elk himself, because he is the one that actually can convey the exact feeling and images to the reader.
farley Mowat did a fantastic job describing his journey and his thoughts about what was going on. The decision to throw away the devices that would harm the wolves made the story much more bright and hopeful. I loved this book, there were many unexpected events that got my heart pumping, from him seeing the wolf for the first time to him almost falling in the summer den. He did so much detail work he made you feel like you were really there right beside him witnessing all of the events that occurred.
The movie starts by showing the Indians as “bad” when Johnson finds a note of another mountain man who has “savagely” been killed by the Indians. This view changes as the movie points out tribes instead of Indians as just one group. Some of the tribes are shown dangerous and not to be messed with while others are friendly, still each tribe treats Johnson as “outsider.” Indians are not portrayed as greater than “...
...s than one. It reveals a larger issue at hand between the “white man” and the Indians. This is a common theme portrayed in Westerns—conflicting views of the land. When Watie talks to Josey about how the white man has deamed him “civilized” he expresses a great deal of shame. Watie goes on to talk about how he not only lost his family to the Union but also his pride and his heritage. He talks about being out of touch with his culture because he was forced off of his land and onto the land set-aside for his people by the Union. Watie admires Josey for his bravery, or edge as he calls it. There is a sense of honor and pride that Josey arries with him as he is determined to redeem what was lost. This gives Watie the drive to join Josey and redeem what was taken from him. Both of these men have something worth fighting and dying for and that’s what brings them together.
“Film is more than the instrument of a representation; it is also the object of representation. It is not a reflection or a refraction of the ‘real’; instead, it is like a photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image.” (Kilpatrick) Although films have found a place in society for about a century, the labels they possess, such as stereotypes which Natives American are recognized for, have their roots from many centuries ago (Kilpatrick). The Searchers, a movie directed by John Ford and starred by John Wayne, tells the story of a veteran of the American Civil War and how after his return home he would go after the maligned Indians who killed his family and kidnapped his younger niece. After struggling for five years to recover his niece back, who is now a young woman, she is rescued by his own hands. Likewise, Dances with Wolves is a Western film directed and starred by Kevin Costner. It is also situated during the American Civil War and tells the story of a soldier named John Dunbar that after a suicide attempt; he involuntarily leads Union troops to a triumph. Then, by his request he is sent to a remote outpost in the Indian frontier “before it’s gone”. There, the contact with the natives is eminent and thus it shows how through those contacts this soldier is transformed into another Indian that belongs with the Sioux to tribe and who is now called Dances With Wolves. While both John Ford and Kevin Costner emphasize a desire to apologize to the indigenous people, they use similar themes such as stereotypes, miscegenation, and the way characters are depicted; conversely, these two movies are different by the way the themes are developed within each film.
The book for today can tell the current Indian situation, for future can use as the historic source for the researches. The amount of the audiences is one of the values of a book, and the audiences of this book could be anyone who can read. The words were used in the book are easily to understand, and there is no negative thoughts in the book either, which is good for the teenagers to read, and help them to know about the Native Americans. In the book, Arnold might have had some negative thoughts of his life, but he always found the way to solve the problems, never show it to the public. In addition, author not only see the world as a Native American, but also a student of a school which full of white students, Arnold never fights because his group want him to, he fought for himself, for the hope, which also is another point of this book. People should fight for themselves, for their hope, not just follow their tribes, we should have our own faith, not just follow the
The death of one character, June, Albertine’s aunt, unites the Kashpaw and Lamartine families and shows the issues within them. As a young woman, Albertine witnesses situations involving domestic violence and poverty. The desperate manner of the lives of many Natives living on Reservations is shown throughout the novel. In White Men Fear to Tread, the life of Russell Means on and off of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota portrays many of the issues of Reservation life, especially today. Means describes his life experiences from growing up as a young man to being grown and going to find a job and later being a leader in the AIM movement and the struggles he experiences there. Works of literature such as these open the eyes of many people to the issues that exist on many Native American Reservations today, specifically to those who aren’t Native and are ignorant to what is happening really. For example, some people think that all Reservation Indians lack motivation and therefore don’t do anything in order to make something of themselves, but this isn’t necessarily true. There are various situations that Natives are exposed to and the conditions on many Reservations account for the habits which some people
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...
In Daniel Wallace’s novel, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions and Tim Burton’s film, Big Fish, the relationship between the dying protagonist, Edward Bloom and his estranged son, William Bloom, is centrally to the story in both the novel and film. Like many fathers in today's society, Edward Bloom wishes to leave his son with something to remember him by after he is dead. It is for this reason the many adventures of Edward Bloom are deeply interwoven into the core of all the various stories Edward tells to mystify his son with as a child. Despite the many issues father and son have in their tense relationship as adults, Daniel Wallace and Tim Burton’s adaptation of Wallace’s novel focalizes on the strained relationship between Edward Bloom and William Bloom. In both Wallace’s novel and Burton’s film, they effectively portray how the relationship between Edward Bloom and William Bloom is filled with bitter resentment and indifference towards each other. Only with William’s attempt to finally reconcile with his dying father and navigating through his father fantastical fables does those established feelings of apathy and dislike begin to wane. With Burton’s craftily brilliant reconstruction of Wallace’s story does the stories of Edward Bloom and his son blossom onto screen.
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
The poem 'Homecoming' originates from Bruce Dawe. Its journey depicts the aspects of war and its devastations upon human individuals. Using mainly the Vietnam War as a demonstration for its destructions.
The work ‘Ghost Dances’ by Christopher Bruce was viewed on 26th August, 2011 to the Year 12 Dance class. The individual interpretation of the social/political or world issue/ comment the piece is attempting to make. Using direct examples from the performance, the use the choreographer has made of the movement and the non-movement components have been identified. Also the effectiveness of this piece has been evaluated.