Louis Erdrich's 'I Was Sleeping Where The Black Oaks Move'?
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.
In his pom entitled “Evening Hawk”, Robert Penn Warren characterizes human nature by a transition between the flight of the hawk during the day and that of the bat, or the “Evening Hawk” during the night. The hawk, as it soars in daylight, portrays how humans appear in clear light of their peers, while the bat, cruising the night sky, symbolizes what humans hide within themselves. Warren effectively expresses the meaning of this poem and its serious mood by the use of diction and imagery to appeal to the reader’s perception of sight and sound. Throughout the first part of the poem, Warren describes the journey of the hawk in the daytime to symbolize how one’s character may seem to other beings.
“A cool breeze came up behind us, sending shivers along the spines of the mesquite trees.” The text contains elements of the unconscious process of shivering and allows Taylor to project her inner feelings onto the landscape. The language mirrors how Taylor’s mind works and shows this by sending “shivers along the spines of the mesquite trees” as well as up her own spine, almost personifying the trees. Kingsolver’s descriptions of the natural landscape, shows her consciousness of the environment.
History is what we learn in school about the past, about people’s culture, their way of life, their beliefs, their fight and their dreams. However, history is not an absolute truth. In fact, every story has more than one version. The History of the native American in the United States still one of the most controversial subjects in history, not only because of all the ambiguity filled in the story, but also and more importantly because the it was written by only one side. Indeed, it was written by the winners, the invaders, and the dominants.
In the history of our forefathers and the generations before us we find countless examples of sacrifice, people gave their blood, sweat, and tears in the hope of a better future. One would think that the penance given long ago should be honored, remembered, and carried on in days to come. Joseph M. Marshall certainly believes so and furthers his thoughts through his book, The Lakota Way. Marshall is a descendant of the Lakota tribe, a proud culture with deep roots in American history. Like many of his people before him, Marshall passes on stories meant to teach the proper way of life.
“So many people live in unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation” (57). Chris McCandless was determined to not be one of those men, he strived for a life in solitude, away from the demands of society. For that reason he went on an epic transcendental experience that took him from Mexico to Alaska. Along the way, he met and made an impact on peoples’ lives, people like Wayne Westenberg and Ronald Franz. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild discusses Chris’s journey, and makes the reader question Chris’s reasons for going out into the wild.
What makes someone a coward? Lacking Courage, Runs away from their problems, and leaving other people to defend for themselves? Overall most people share these similar traits, such as lacking courage, running away from their problems, and leaving other people to defend for themselves. In the Red Badge of Courage Henry is asking himself if he should stay in his regiment to help fight or leave and make them defend for themselves. Henry's actions throughout the novel may cause the readers to ask, “Is Henry a coward”.
While reading this story, I found myself daydreaming about being in a forest during a windstorm. It would be very breathtaking to someday go into the wilderness and experience something like John Muir experienced. Some may think that it is a very intense reading, but to me, it was such a relaxing story. I learned an important thing from this reading; I found out that even though the author's purpose was to entertain his audience, he proved that what may seem like a storm to someone, one can always find the bright side to everything. He was in the forest during a fierce storm, and instead of being worried about how he was going to get out of there, he chose to stay and look at the bright side.
“Each house-hunting trip I’ve made to the countryside has been fraught with two emotions: elation at the prospect of living closer to nature and a sense of absolute doom at what might befall me in the backwoods” (White 1064). In her essay, “Black Women and the Wilderness, Evelyn White describes her contradictory feelings about nature, and throughout her text, her experiences display a very complex perspective of nature. Raymond Williams, in his article, “Nature” describes the word ‘nature’ as the most complex word in language (Williams 219). When referring nature, people generally think of it representing something of peace, comfort, and a place where most can feel safe, almost as if it were a home. White revises our understanding of nature
The Navajo and the Modoc: Mythological comparison In the myths “When Grizzlies Walked Upright” and “The Navajo Origin Legend”, we get a glimpse of the beliefs of traditional Native American societies. The former myth is one told by the Modoc tribe of Oregon, the other is told by the Navajo tribe of the American Southwest. The different uses of animals, spirits, and women’s roles help create an illustration of society before colonization. These myths do also differ on these themes and on how they are presented.
In “Sleeping in the Forest”,the forest gives off a powerful vibe that is enough to let the speaker fall into a deep sleep. It is mysterious to how the forest or nature does this. After the speaker’s long sleep, she wakes up feeling a dozen times better than the day before. “Ode to Enchanted Light”, a poem by Pablo Neruda, shares the idea of amazement by the light.
In Thomas King 's autobiographical novel, The Truth About Stories takes a narrative approach in telling the story of the Native American, as well as Thomas King 's. The stories within the book root from the obstacles that the Thomas King had to face during his years in high school and his post-university life. These stories are told in a matter that uses rhetorical devices such as personal anecdotes & comparisons. "You 'll Never Believe What Happened" Is Always a Great Way to Start is about the importance, potential, and dangers of stories, specifically those of creation stories and how they can shape a culture, with the aim to share King 's urgency for social change with his readers King 's informal tone, lighthearted jokes, and effort to make his writing follow the style of native oral tradition as closely as possible, all help the reader understand the type of narrative he believes would be most beneficial for the foundation of a society. His unique style allows for the use of personal anecdotes and requires that he breaks the proverbial fourth wall to communicate with the reader directly, to create the conversational feel of the oral tradition.
Conversely, Native American’s education was exciting, but also exceedingly strict. The years before the children became teenagers was considered as the time for fun. Children could explore the nature, swim in the ponds, play soccer, shoot at each other, collect nuts in the forest, and chase animals. Their lives were full of vigor and vitality of juvenile childish. As they grew older, they had to learn life skills.
One of the aspects of “Wild Geese” that truly struck my fifth-grade self was its use of imagery—I was drawn in particular to the extensive visual imagery in lines 8-13 (“Meanwhile the sun…heading home again”) and awed by the ability of text to evoke images of such clarity. Moreover, in addition to the intrigue of its use of literary devices and the complexity of its recitation, interpreting “Wild Geese” and finding meaning within it was a process that continued well beyond the end of my fifth-grade year, and the connotations of that poem continue to resonate with me. While the entirety of this story is too personal to share herein, “Wild Geese” was a poem that spoke to me on a very personal level. As I sometimes have a tendency to hold myself to unrealistic standards, “Wild Geese” was to me a reminder of the relative insignificance of the trivial matters with which I would preoccupy myself; nature became a symbol of that which existed beyond my narrow fixations and the wild geese a reflection of the inexorable passage of time—in essence, a reminder that “this too shall
“I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move” written by Louise Erdrich focuses on a child and a grandfather horrifically observing a flood consuming their entire village and the surrounding trees, obliterating the nests of the herons that had lived there. In the future they remember back to the day when they started cleaning up after the flood, when they notice the herons without their habitat “dancing” in the sky. According to the poet’s biographical context, many of the poems the poet had wrote themselves were a metaphor. There could be many viable explanations and themes to this fascinating poem, and the main literary devices that constitute this poem are imagery, personification, and a metaphor.
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