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How american history is seen in literature
History of america in american literature
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In Julie Otsuka’s novel, When the Emperor was Divine, the boy’s emotions are embodied through animals. In mid 1942, the boy and his family are displaced from their home in Berkeley, CA, and relocated to an internment camp. The family is forcibly imprisoned in response to Executive Order 9066, due to their Japanese heritage. The boy’s initial hope and innocence are expressed through a tortoise. The disappearance of these virtues become evident through the animal’s demise. Additionally, images of wild horses display the boy’s desire for freedom and an identity, while their death illustrates his inability to aspire to such things. A tortoise and horses manifest the boy’s internal struggles with his internment. The life and death of the creatures …show more content…
The image of a tortoise conveys the boy’s endeavours to live and maintain hope of homecoming. Early in the family’s internment, the boy traps a tortoise in a box. Additionally, he inscribes his family’s identification number on its shell. As the boy sleeps, he fixates on the turtle’s claws against the side of the box, which indicate the boy’s intentions to leave the camp. “...in his dreams, he could hear its claws scrabbling against the side of the box” (60). It is apparent through the tortoise’s entrapment and identification number that it is a symbol of the boy’s captivity. Much like the boy’s hope to abscond from the camp and continue his life, the tortoise strives to escape the box. Despite being displaced by his own government, the boy maintains a desire to live his life, and one day, return to his home. Later …show more content…
During the train ride to the internment camp, the boy marvels at wild mustangs through the window. He perceives the dust that they leave behind as proof of their individuality, a privilege that his captivity denies him. He notices, “...wherever they went they left behind great billowing clouds of dust as proof of their passage” (45). The boy’s fixation on the dust represent his longing for an identity. His internment strips him of any kind of individuality, and reduces him to a number. Similarly to the way the horses leave proof of themselves, the boy covets the ability to be significant and recognized as a unique human being. Not only do the horses symbolize the boy’s desire for an identity, but they also illustrate his craving for freedom. This is evident as, “He watched the horses as they galloped toward the mountains and he said, very softly, “They are going away” (46). As the boy watches the horses, he envies their ability to come and go as they please. He comprehends that he has no jurisdiction over his situation, and posses hope that he will one day achieve freedom, in the same way as the horses. Midway through the family’s internment, the boy converses with his mother, and inquires where the horse meat served at the canteen is from. She responds, “most of the horsemeat come from wild horses. They round them up in the desert” (89). The horsemeat manifests the boy’s loss of longing for an
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.
The negativity seen in today’s society and the awful stereotypes about Aboriginals would never exist if was not for all the racism and savagery they had to endure. Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” A reader can identify that one of the main messages to be taken from Indian Horse, is that hope drove Saul to keep on working hard and that residential schools were never able to take away Aboriginal people’s hope. A reader would think that Saul’s acceptance of coaching the Moose is not for his own gain, but also to help the kids who play on the team, both physically and
Indian Horse is a novel by Richard Wagamese that beautifully explores the idea of family, and what it means to have people around you that make you feel at home. The reader is bombarded with an overwhelming sense of family and betrayal in the first few pages of the novel. As Richard Wagamese continues to write, one is able to see how safe Saul Indian Horse felt with his biological family, and he also shows how lost he felt without their love when he was taken to the Residential School. The school he was brought to was drained of all consensual love the moment it was open, and continued to fill the children with horrible feelings the entire time they were there. Indian Horse was unable to really feel as though he still had family while he was in the
The novel When the Emperor Was Divine was written by Julie Otsuka exploring the life struggles and tribulations of a Japanese American family. The family moved to the U.S. in the 1940s, and the mother is oblivious to the imminent crisis that is set to befall the nation, starting with the evacuation of the Japanese from California. When the family eventually leaves for a composite in Utah, they realize that the same struggles that they face are reminiscent of other Japanese in the camp who are struggling to maintain their identity. Otsuka uses symbols in her novel to advance her thoughts, and critically, add important dimensions and meanings to the deadly plot. Otsuka uses some ‘prominent’ symbols such as flowers, horses, and dust, but from
Growing up on a reservation where failing was welcomed and even somewhat encouraged, Alexie was pressured to conform to the stereotype and be just another average Indian. Instead, he refused to listen to anyone telling him how to act, and pursued his own interests in reading and writing at a young age. He looks back on his childhood, explaining about himself, “If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity” (17). Alexie compares the life and treatment of an Indian to life as a more privileged child. This side-by-side comparison furthers his point that
Unfortunate circumstances form children into adults. Scout Finch, an adventurous tomboy from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and Saul Indian Horse, a native boy from Richard Wagamese’s novel Indian Horse, both prove that to overcome challenges you must have faith, resilience, and courage; Scout uses her challenges as learning experiences, but Saul triumphs as he uses his past experiences to mature and develop a new sense of self. For instance, Saul’s superior growth can be proven as he went through hardship early on in life. Overtime, these hardships led to his development of the quality courage. His loss of all sense of familiarity within the story ultimately causes him to fill the void in his heart, which was once overtaken
	The narrator in Ellison’s short story suffers much. He is considered to be one of the brighter youths in his black community. The young man is given the opportunity to give a speech to some of the more prestigious white individuals. The harsh treatment that he is dealt in order to perform his task is quite symbolic. It represents the many hardships that the African American people endured while they fought to be treated equally in the United States. He expects to give his speech in a positive and normal environment. What faces him is something that he never would have imagined. The harsh conditions that the boys competing in the battle royal must face are phenomenal. At first the boys are ushered into a room where a nude woman is dancing. The white men yell at the boys for looking and not looking at the woman. It is as if they are showing them all of the good things being white can bring, and then saying that they aren’t good enough for it since they were black. Next the boys must compete in the battle royal. Blindly the boys savagely beat one another. This is symbolic of the ...
In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character Arnold, also known as Junior, has many health issues, and notably stands out in the crowd. It does not help that he is a poor Indian boy that lives on a reservation, and that he decides to go to an all-white high school. Many of his experiences at school, and on the Reservation, impact his identity. Experience is the most influential factor in shaping a person’s identity because it helps gain confidence, it teaches new things, and it changes one’s outlook on the world.
But for some of the Japanese Americans, it was even harder after they were discharged from the internment camp. The evacuation and the internment had changed the lives of all Japanese Americans. The evacuation and internment affected the Wakatsuki family in three ways: the destruction of Papa’s self-esteem, the separation of the Wakatsuki family, and the change in their social status. The destruction of Papa’s self-esteem is one effect of the evacuation and internment. Before the evacuation and internment, Papa was proud; he had a self-important attitude, yet he was dignified.
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
Indian Boarding Schools were a huge and un-noticed issues in the United States during the 19th and 20th century. And the author uses allusion in the poem to bring back what the Native American children experienced during this time in history. The “Turtle Mountains” is a key reference to allusion for this story. It tells the reader exactly where this poem is taking place, at the Chippewa Indian Reservation in North Dakota, the home land of the tribe members. Allusion is also used in the second line when the speaker says, “Boxcars stumbling north in dreams” (2). Boxcars are a North American railroad car that placed a huge significance in the Native Americans Lives. As the speaker says in the poem, “The rails, old lacerations that we love, shoot parallel across the face” (4-5). The rails that the Boxcars traveled on cut parallel through the Native Americans homeland. They say that the rail road track shoots right across the “face” which allude to the face being mother nature. Because in their culture it is very important to respect mother nature. And the rails cut right across her face making a “laceration”, or in other words a scar. The “face” of mother nature is also the authors use of
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
Soon after Papa’s arrest, Mama relocated the family to the Japanese immigrant ghetto on Terminal Island. For Mama this was a comfort in the company of other Japanese but for Jeanne it was a frightening experience. It was the first time she had lived around other people of Japanese heritage and this fear was also reinforced by the threat that her father would sell her to the “Chinaman” if she behaved badly. In this ghetto Jeanne and he ten year old brother were teased and harassed by the other children in their classes because they could not speak Japanese and were already in the second grade. Jeanne and Kiyo had to avoid the other children’s jeers. After living there for two mo...
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...
Dorothy Johnson in “A Man Called Horse” writes about a young man who was born and raised in Boston. He lives in a gracious home under his grandmothers and grandfather’s loving care. For some reason, he is discontent. He leaves home to try to find out the reason for his discontent. Upon leaving he undergoes a change in status and opinion of himself and others. He begins a wealthy young man arrogant and spoiled, becomes a captive of Crow Indians- docile and humble, and emerges a man equal to all.