The theme of Louise Erdrich’s “The Shawl” is that protecting your family is more important than your own life, which communicates Anishinaabeg cultural values. Anishinaabeg culture places a high value on the importance of having family. The story of how significant family is to the Anishinaabeg culture is deep in the hearts of the whole culture. One of the major fundamentals in Anishinaabeg life is unity (More Ojibwe History). Many people see family as a case of unity. Therefore, if the family breaks up then some members in the family may feel upset since the unity is no longer there. Harmony is a key component in the belief that unity is necessary. The sense of harmony and unity allows for an admiration of created things (More Ojibwe History). Erdrich writes about different part of Anishinaabeg culture because her mother was Ojibwe and her father was German American (“Louise Erdrich”). While Erdrich was growing up she heard many stories about Ojibwe culture. According to the Encyclopedia of World Biographies, “rich oral tradition of Ojibwe storytelling has been part of Erdrich’s life since childhood. “Listening to her families stories has in some ways been her most significant literary influence (“Louise Erdrich”). Since she grew up with these themes, she integrates them into her work to tell her readers what she believes is important in understanding life. In “The Shawl” a family of five gets separated and faces a horrible loss. This horrible loss is the loss of a nine year old girl’s life. The first father mentioned in the story, that has tuberculosis, finds the nine year old girl’s shawl torn to pieces in the snow. The father pictures the girl’s death as her own mother, Aanakwad, throwing the girl over the edge of the wagon... ... middle of paper ... ...renting. However in the second part of the story when Erdrich’s readers learn that the alcoholic father is Gego, the readers see a change in the parenting style of Gego. He stops drinking and begins being a father again. Choosing to end the story with self-sacrifice is how Louise Erdrich conveys the message that family is central to Anishinaabeg cultural beliefs. The nine year old daughter knew that if she did not “lift her shawl and fly” (Erdrich 18) then everyone in the wagon would die. She also knew that there was a chance of the wolves leaving the wagon to go back to get Gego. She was not willing to let either one of these options happen so she decided that her family meant more to her than her own life. By Gego burning the part of the shawl that is left and looking at her death from new light, he is able to become less distraught over the death of his sister.
The Essay, I have chosen to read from is ReReading America was An Indian Story by Roger Jack. The topic of this narrative explores the life of an Indian boy who grows up away from his father in the Pacific Northwest. Roger Jack describes the growing up of a young Indian boy to a man, who lives away from his father. Roger demonstrates values of the Indian culture and their morals through exploration of family ties and change in these specific ties. He also demonstrates that growing up away from one’s father doesn’t mean one can’t be successful in life, it only takes a proper role model, such as the author provides for the young boy.
Of the three characters in The Shawl, Stella is a flat character. She is only part of the story to allow the author to get to the climax. The climax comes when Stella becomes cold, and takes the shawl for warmth. Again, the author uses symbolism, Stella is cold or cruel. Magda is the most dynamic character. She is presented to us first as a quite baby, who is hungry and does not cry. Magda simply sucks on the shawl. When her shawl is taken, she cries and walks wobbly into the yard.
In the text “Seeing Red: American Indian Women Speaking about their Religious and Cultural Perspectives” by Inés Talamantez, the author discusses the role of ceremonies and ancestral spirituality in various Native American cultures, and elaborates on the injustices native women face because of their oppressors.
Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within himself.
In The Shawl Rosa, her infant daughter Magda, and her fourteen year old companion Stella are Jews interned in a concentration camp during World War II. Amazingly the infant Magda has survived with her mother, hidden and protected in a shawl. If the Nazis ever learn of her existence she is certain to be killed. The Setting of this story sets the reader up for a sad story. Just by knowing the story takes place in a concentration camp, the reader immediately feels sorrow for these three characters. The story starts off with the 3 characters walking down a dirt path. The story is written in 3rd person limited, so you can only get into the characters thoughts at certain times. You can tell by Rosa’s thoughts of leaving Magda on the street for someone to find, that she is very disgruntled and not thinking very clearly. The story tells about Magda’s attachment to the shawl, and how it eases her and gives her peace. Throughout the walk down the road, you see that both Rosa and Stella are both envious of Magda’s ...
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.
Traditions control how one talks and interacts with others in one’s environment. In Bengali society, a strict code of conduct is upheld, with dishonor and isolation as a penalty for straying. Family honor is a central part to Bengali culture, and can determine both the financial and social standing of a family. Usha’s family poses no different, each member wearing the traditional dress of their home country, and Usha’s parents diligently imposing those values on their daughter. Those traditions, the very thing her [Usha] life revolved around, were holding her back from her new life as an American. Her mother in particular held those traditions above her. For example, when Aparna makes Usha wear the traditional attire called “shalwar kameez” to Pranab Kaku and Deborah’s Thanksgiving event. Usha feels isolated from Deborah’s family [Americans] due to this saying, “I was furious with my mother for making a scene before we left the house and forcing me to wear a shalwar kameez. I knew they [Deborah’s siblings] assumed, from my clothing, that I had more in common with the other Bengalis than with them” (Lahiri ...
According to Shannin Schroeder in “Rediscovering Magical Realism in the Americas,” “magical realism is a literary genre directly tied to writers whose cultures have been threatened or destroyed by a more powerful or dominant one” (Schroeder, 139). Erdrich, who is a member of the Chippewa tribe, could easily be considered a part of that assemblage of authors. In her writings, she “brings her ancestral culture to bear on the contemporary settings of her text” because magical realism allows her to address both of the realties that she is accustomed to: her Chippewa heritage and her westernized beliefs (139). The supernatural aspects of her stories, though strange in certain cultures, would not prove to be “mystical” in most Native cultures. However, for most readers, “The Native American heritage of Erdrich is no longer familiar…and yet, when she uses the magical realist mode, they still read li...
Eastman and Zitkala Ša reveal the truth regarding of their people’s culture and history. Their memoirs give readers an understanding of their government, religion, and customs. They show their people as respectable and hospitable beings. Furthermore, they reveal the deceptions and frauds which Native Americans have suffered. They dispel misconceptions and prejudices regarding Native Americans and demonstrate that their people are deserving of the white’s sympathy, justice, and respect.
In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives.
Stasch, R. (2003). Separateness as a relation: The iconicity, univocally and creativity of Korowai mother‐in‐law avoidance. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9(2), 317-337
the Ojibwe, Agnes learns more from their religion and enacts certain aspects of it in her everyday
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...
...tic and unimaginable of circumstances. Despite the horrifying circumstances she faces, a malnourished, selfless Rosa tries her hardest to be the best mother she can be to her innocent child. Unable to continuously keep Magda safe, nourished and comforted, Rosa counts on the shawl to keep Magda out of harms way, the shawl indirectly becomes a great source of comfort for Rosa because it allows her to know that her baby is safe and sound. Stella wants this comfort, this protection, and so she steals the shawl and murders Magda. In Ozick’s “The Shawl”, the shawl serves as a source of comfort, nourishment, protection, and life, for Magda, Stella and Rosa during the Holocaust.
She is marginalize from society by her partner and she has to live in the shadows of him. She is unbelievably happy when she found out about the death of her husband. She expresses her feelings of freedom in her room where she realize she will live by herself. This illustrates that Louise has been living in an inner-deep life disconnected form the outside world where only on her room away from family and friends she discovers her feelings. It is important to mention that even though Louise has a sister, she does not feel the trust to communicate her sentiments towards her. We discover a marginalization from family members and more surprising from a women, Louise’s sister. The narrator strictly described Louise’s outside world but vividly reveals what is in her mind. At the same time she feels guilty of her emotional state by recognizing that she loved Brently mallard sometimes, her husband. Louise contradict herself but this demonstrates her emotional feelings about her husband disregarding her marriage. The situation of this woman represents the unhappiness and disgraceful life that women had to suffer from their