The Truth of Thanksgiving
While children are growing up in America, they are told several tales of America’s establishment and history. However, these stories are generally not told as they actually happened. An instance of this is the story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is explained as this elaborate ceremony where the Pilgrims and Indians gathered in harmony at this large harvest in celebration of their coming together. According to the primary document of William Bradford’s journal, Thanksgiving didn’t pan out quite as it is explained to Americans today. In the film, The Addams Family Values, the Addams children take part in a traditional, yet misconceived celebration of the first Thanksgiving. This film in comparison to Bradford’s testimony proves how Americans view their history as they please; giving America the official Thanksgiving ceremony even if it never actually happened.
In the film, Addams’ Family Values, the Addams’ are depicted as an odd American family. They practice magic, dress in all black, worship the dead, etc. In this specific film, the Addams children, Wednesday and Pugsley, are sent to summer camp. The camp is a Native American activity based camp named Camp Chippewa. At camp, Wednesday and all of her friends are considered “losers”. Wednesday and Pugsley have black hair, wear all black clothes and, along with all their friends, don’t enjoy typical kid activities, such as watching Disney movies and playing with dolls. All the other children are blonde, rich girls, who are considered the “cool kids”. They are all apples of their parent’s eyes and truly enjoy being at summer camp. The children partake in typical “Indian” activities such as shooting bow ...
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...to Bradford’s, “Of Plymouth Plantation”. Americans have such a need to be exceptional and different that they are willing to risk their true history for a celebration that comes only once a year. It is important for American children to learn their true history rather than the alternative in order for them to understand the struggles the original founders went through to create the America we have today.
Works Cited
The Addams’ Family Values. Dir. Barry Sonnenfeld Perf. Angelica Houston, Raul Julia,
Christopher Llyod, Joan Cusack, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Jimmy Workman. Paramount,1993.
Bradford, William. “Of Plymouth Plantation.” Ed. Nina Baym. The Norton Anthology of
American Literature. New York: 2003. 156-195.
Newman, Andrew. “William Bradford, the ‘Pilgrims’, Thanksgiving”. American
Literature I. EGL 217. 06 Feb. 2006. (cited as “Lecture”)
Nathaniel Philbrick opens his book by drawing a direct line from the early Pilgrim’s arrival on Plymouth rock to the building of America. He goes on to say, “Instead of the story we already know, it becomes the story we need to know.” Many of us growing up, myself included romanticize about the pilgrims in the light of the first Thanksgiving and we think about the Indians sitting down with the Pilgrims to take part of the Thanksgiving meal. Next, we believe the myth that everyone lived happily ever after.
Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the Pilgrims, beginning with them breaking away from the Church of England, emigrating to Holland, and eventually to America on the Mayflower. He talks about the relationship they had with the "Strangers" or nonbelievers that accompanied them on their adventure. He tells stories about disease, death, deception, and depression. I had never thought about it, but you know some of those people had to be suffering from depression. He tells of joys but mostly of hardships and as he describes some of the first meetings with the Native Americans. His description of the first Thanksgiving is not the same as the pictures I have seen all of my life.
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford and A Description of New England by John Smith are essentially irrelevant to one another in the way that each piece has a very different point of view. The author John Smith was a pilgrim who arrived in the Americas and wrote a description of the new land. William Bradford was also a pilgrim who arrived at Plymouth and wrote more about the realities of his personal journey. The purpose of this essay is to contrast the purposes of the writers, their intended audiences, and how each writer gives out a specific feeling.
...they needed to adopt new, indirect strategies of exerting control over their children’s lives. While parents began to grant their children greater autonomy, they still required their children to be present at family dinners and gatherings. However, they realized that coercion at meals was neither an effective means to gain control over their children nor a viable way of transmitting traditional values. As such, they began to transform meals into a convivial atmosphere as an investment in family ties. Sunday dinners and holiday feasts became some of the most important times where the close bonds of the immediate and extended family were maintained and enforced as an important aspect of life. They used family dinners and gatherings as a means to maintain group solidarity in a new world where external forces were calling for “Americanization” and collective identity.
During the nineteenth century, the government opened up more land for settlement, and pioneers began to make their way across America to “empty” prairies in the Midwest. These “empty” lands were not actually empty—they contained many different tribes of American Indians—but the white Americans saw this as an opportunity for cheap land and a new, better life. The pioneers lived among the American Indians, but it was not a harmonious relationship. Laura Ingalls Wilder in her Little House series talked about her parents’ attitudes toward the Osage. Most of the time, her parents either made fun of the Osage people or feared them, which, in turn, instilled fear and stereotypes in Laura and her sisters. Such was the case for the majority of
This is a disgrace! To all the turkey’s at Thanksgiving! forty-five million turkey’s are cooked a year. Not only are those awful humans eating us, now they are entrapping us in disgusting cages and making us eat only corn and soybeans. That’s not even the worst part, they put something in our food called vitamins and minerals. I heard yesterday from keith, my turkey friend, that they talk about how they feed turkeys healthy things so that the people who buy the turkeys won’t get sick or something like that. They also say we taste different at different ages.
Thanksgiving Compare and Contrast Food, Family, and Fun!! Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States, always celebrated on a Thursday in November. There are many different ways people celebrate Thanksgiving. You give thanks and celebrate what you are most thankful for. Thanksgiving is a national holiday that has many different traditions, activities, and foods in different families.
The Disney film Pocahontas can be viewed as a false portrayal of American history. Although it may have been made for entertainment purposes, Pocahontas is regarded to be a coming of age film for children due to its didacticism. The life lessons that one could possibly take away from the film are considerably positive, but the depiction of Native American and European cultures is deceitful. Most Disney films involve “epic romances,” in the case of Pocahontas one is not necessarily needed to convey the message of the film. Even though historical films cannot always be accurate to actual events, this film manages to stray away from the actual historical story of Pocahontas entirely. Due to this, children are presented with false information that they perceive to be true. Adults on the other hand might just perceive the fictionalized account as source for their children to learn sugarcoated lessons and not historical facts. While distorting historical facts, Pocahontas fulfills the typical Disney film mold as it incorporates multiple moralities for its audiences.
I often have a difficult time describing my situation to others, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. Three divorces have taught me what successful and not so successful relationships look like. My younger sister with autism has taught me empathy, compassion, and patience. My step siblings have been there for me when did not have to be and for that I am grateful. No matter the family situation, every family has an undeniable sense of pride. For example, my family, most of whom were born in Ireland, throw the loudest St. Patrick’s day parties and keep our Irish flags up all through March. We are proud of our incredibly fair skin and abundance of freckles and redheads. My family’s pride is similar to that of Aunt Alexandra’s and her obsession with heredity and the certain “family streaks” in the novel’s Maycomb county. Scout mentions said streaks in chapter 13. “Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed, had a streak: a drinking streak, a gambling streak, a mean streak, a funny streak,” (Lee 129). I again feel Scout and I could relate to each other through our unique family situations, hers of course being her family’s cook Calpurnia and her neighbor Miss Maudie as her mother figures. Another unique family are the Pritchett’s on the show Modern Family. I was elated when this show came out because, while dramatized for comedic effect, it is a break from the straight, white, “we all get along fine” families usually depicted on TV.
Our not so humble beginning of a nation started with a voyage of the Mayflower in September of 1620. It carried 102 pilgrims and limited supplies to settle the new land and start colonies. Landing in the tip of Cape Cod in November where they faced one of the harshest winters in the new world. By the end of March, forty-five immigrants died due to disease, lack of food or poor shelter. (Wikipedia) It was a brutal beginning to lose half of the population in less than 5 months. The future looked grim until the help of the Wampanoag Indians. The chief saw mutual benefit from helping the newcomers survive. Th...
The tribe can be seen as animal like in comparison to the character of Wendy, a young, proper, British girl that did not subscribe to what the tribe was promoting. Further, almost every tribe member was red, except for the young females who appear light skinned with resemblance to Pocahontas. This classic movie reinforces the animal like, uneducated version of Native people to children who will be carrying this perception into adulthood. Another movie that targets children is Pocahontas, in which the idea of the ‘Pocahontas Perplex’ is introduced. This concept explains, “Indian women have to be exotic, wild, collaborationist, crazy, to qualify for non-Native
...itable for their new claimant, and to build houses able to withstand the brutal New England winters. By fall, they had “fitted their houses against winter, and had all things in good plenty” so, Bradford called for a celebration, a “Thanksgiving shared with their Wampanoag friends.” (Kelso, 2005)
Many school children celebrate a cliché Thanksgiving tradition in class where they play Indians and Pilgrims, and some children engage in the play of Cowboys vs. Indians. It is known that some died when colonization occurred, that some fought the United States government, and that they can be boiled down to just another school mascot. This is what many people understand of the original inhabitants of America. Historical knowledge of these people has been shallow and stereotyped. The past 150 years has given birth to a literate people now able to record their past, present, and future. Native American literature, as it evolves, defines the Native American culture and its status in the world, as an evolving people, more so than any historical account can.
Every family has their own unique way of spending time together with loved ones only seen during the holidays. In the Stock home, there is only one thing we enjoy doing. Sure, like every other family we have our grand and elaborate dinner, which is composed of all the greatest delicacies my mother and grandmother can whip up. Of course, as is expected, after stuffing ourselves as if this was our last meal the men in the family congregate in the living room. We sit and wait for our tradition to begin by discussing how each of our lives has been unfolding since last Thanksgiving. Finally, the moment arrives, kick off of the first of many Thanksgiving Day football games. There are thousands of fans who watch football with religious devotion. At the Stock house that is not the case. However on Thanksgiving, our eyes glaze over and we rise to the highest of football enthusiasts.
The pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock has had a number of important impacts on America today. Whether the impacts were positive or negative, it was the pilgrims that had taken the journey to the New World and made the present what it is today. Originating from England, the English were Puritans who believed that the Church of England was in need of spiritual purification. Instead of altering the church, the English set off on a voyage to the New World for new opportunities. The pilgrims could start over and build a new society from scratch without having the chance of having corrupting influences on the Old World. Religion wasn’t the only temptation of going to the New World, there was famine and the taxes in England that made them want to depart to the New World. The New World had the opportunity to obtain rights and then they could live in the society that they had envisioned (Gray, 48).