In the excerpt from “Cherry Bomb” by Maxine Clair, the narrator makes use of diction, imagery and structure to characterize her naivety and innocent memories of her fifth-grade summer world. The diction employed throughout the passage signifies the narrator’s background and setting. The narrator’s choice of words illustrates how significant those memories were to her. Specific words help build the narrator’s Midwestern background with items like the locust, cattails and the Bible.
The perpetuation of the Lakota people reveals the American religious experiences through the stratification of social inequality through the eyes of Lame Deer. Lame Deer provides a personal narrative that landscapes native religion through social injustice inflicted on the Sioux nation. His stories provide a personal interpretation of what it is to be Native American or Indian living in the white man's world. Lame Deer Seeker of Visions, provides the context of religion from the journey of the Medicine Man. Being Indian embodies myth, ritual, and symbolism of religious tradition as a way of cultural and individual identity.
Over the course of E. Pauline Johnson’s life, which lasted from 1861 to 1913, the treatment and status of First Nations Canadians began to shift. While Pauline Johnson wasn’t as affected by the treatment and status of First Nations Canadians, due to her move off of the Six Nations Reservation because of her father’s death in 1884, she made gains for her people as she ascended to fame. Pauline Johnson made accomplishments for First Nations Canadians in her life and work, those included her poetry, acting, and lifestyle. Even after Johnson’s demise, her name and work lives on because of her talent and charisma. Johnson was raised in a privileged home, where libraries full of books were a norm and reading was strongly encouraged.
In the documentary, Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian, directed by Neil Diamond, he investigates the progression of how cinema has portrayed the Native American. They begin with the early classic films that first were made up until recent times. The image of the Indian has been portrayed in several ways and films had typically created misleading depictions of the Indians. What was created in these films are often stereotypical and what many people today believe to be true. Throughout the documentary, we see many themes being presented and these are themes of how the image of Native Americans were viewed as the “bad guys” during some early films and how they evolved to show how they were really just human beings.
This parallel timeline demonstrates the connections between past and present disasters as well as the long-lasting effects they have on individuals and communities. The masterful use of literary elements such as vivid imagery, symbolism, and narrative structure demonstrates the devastating effects that trauma has had on the protagonist's identity and the greater Indigenous community. In order to help the reader better understand the terrible repercussions of generational trauma on Saul Indian Horse's identity and the greater Indigenous community, Richard Wagamese skillfully employs the evocative power of images to clearly convey the painful experiences the protagonist, Saul Indian Horse, endures. Saul's terrifying voyage is brought to life for the reader by Wagamese through the expert use of imagery, which also reveals the severe psychological effects of trauma on Saul.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek is a prime example of the power of imagery. A story about the hanging of a man who supported the Confederate cause during the Civil War and acted against the North leading to his immediate execution. This story effectively uses imagery with consistency, appealing to all senses and types of imagery, Visual imagery pertains to the sense of sight, tactile to touch, olfactory to smell, aural to sounds, and gustatory to taste. The utilization of descriptive words, relatable situations, or physical feelings allows this story to formulate an undeniable image with palpable feelings, sights and sounds. .
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
This made Ann keep her thoughts to herself, she can’t complain about John’s love and devotion because all John wanted is the best for Ann. Sinclair Ross used the setting to symbolizes what John and Ann’s marriage is, “in winter, with roads impassable...that from a five the distance was more trebled to seventeen” has a direct connection with their marriage because like the roads being impassable, John and Ann’s
Ripped from the fabric of American history, the truth of the Old West is far darker and less heroic than depicted when the fresh wounds from the American Civil War were still fresh and the expansion of the railroads encroached on the eroding territory of Native Americans in the name of “progress” and manifest destiny. The slaughtering grounds of Little Bighorn where General Armstrong Custer valiantly fought to the last man deflates into an ignorant move that Lakota warriors, led by Crazy Horse of the Lakota tribe, took advantage of to fight assimilation in the form of constricting reservations. The lawless land of the West where notorious criminals robbed banks and trains, while the heroic sheriffs ignited
Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.
The story takes place at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America, when desegregation is finally achieved. Flannery O’Connor’s use of setting augments the mood and deepens the context of the story. However, O’Connor’s method is subtle, often relying on connotation and implication to drive her point across. The story achieves its depressing mood mostly through the use of light and darkness in the setting.
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
The tone of Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too, Sing America” is determined and talks about how “tomorrow” he will do what he pleases instead of doing what his master
The first television series on the NBC network starred a Native American as a law enforcer of white law and order. Now, Native Americans were viewed as civilized men. More films were made that promoted Native Americans. Though the positive stereotypes were introduced, it still didn’t warrant problems. In the 1971 Advertising Council’s Keep America Beautiful public service announcement is sincere, it still confines the Native American chief to the past, as he is representing a by-gone era and a by-gone people.
What makes modernism catch the eye of a reader? Well, within modernism, there are several crucial characteristics. The short story, “A Rose for Emily” is characterized as a modernist piece of literature. Although the story contains the majority of the requirements, there are three that really stick out. In “A Rose for Emily” the author conveys modernism through the diction by using imagery, by having unfinished thoughts due to fragmentation of the story, and lastly, by having an ironic ending.
