Jeanette Armstrong Indian Woman

The Beautiful Struggle The tragic history of the First Nations community is elegantly translated through Jeanette Armstrong’s “Indian Woman”. The tone in the beginning of the poem embodies the dark and painful history while describing how it affects the current First Nations community. The second half of the poem portrays the empowerment of the First Nations woman as she breaks the stereotypes and begins to believe in herself. Despite the grim past of First Nations people, Armstrong manages to display both the good and the bad aspects through her tone using diction, imagery, and symbolism.
While describing the dark history of First Nations, the speaker uses demeaning words to push the cynicism the world has for her and her community. For example, the speaker says, “a heathen / a savage” (2-3). The words that were used explain the way that First Nations were viewed in the past. These words contribute to the tone as the speaker feels that she is unworthy, which emphasizes her feeling of defeat. Continuing with the defeated notion, the speaker experiences an epiphany: “Some one is lying” (52). The use of the word “lying” displays the change in her disposition. The tone shifted to be more empowered. The audience can easily pick up on this when the speaker says “I am the strength / of nations” (66-7). Within this quote, the audience can see that

For instance, there is an underlying tone of separation when the speaker says, “one by one / they are here” (34-5). The distinct separation shown in these lines continues with the dark tone and shows that the speaker felt alone. After the tone shift, the speaker counteracts her previous tone by saying, “vast and multicoloured / in starquilt glory” (58-9). The starquilt’s colours brighten up the tone and show unity. The images that Armstrong created displayed her need to show that it was possible to destroy negative ideas towards First Nations