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Essay about pocahontas
Essay about pocahontas
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Chapter thirteen begins as Tom starts to cry as he decides he is going to leave his life behind and become a criminal. He meets up with friend Joe Harper, and he seems to be in a similar state. Joe was whipped by his mother for drinking some cream. The boys meet Huckleberry Finn and convince him to come along on their journey. Around midnight the boys meet at the riverbank and steal a raft to head out to Jackson’s island.
.In the Disney movie, Pocahontas is portrayed as the beautiful, defiant eighteen year old woman who is the daughter of the chief in the Powhatan tribe. At the same time, a Powhatan warrior named Kocoum is presented as a stern and very serious young man who has an arranged marriage with Pocahontas , and eventually he will be the next chief. Chronologically, an explorer named John Smith is introduced as the handsome nineteen year old man from England who has arrived on Powhatan land in order to find gold. Lastly, a man named John Rolfe is brought upon in the sequel, in which he is a diplomat that was sent to escort the chief, Powhatan to England in order for negotiations to begin between the settlers and the natives.
Andie Koontz Stalets College Prep English 3 24 January 2023 A False Legacy: Exposing John Smith's Lies about Pocahontas In a melodramatic novel by Susan Donnell simply titled Pocahontas, a passage says “[Pocahontas] wanted to devour [John Smith] with love. Her body acted as if it was no longer a part of the woman she knew…
In Harriet Jacobs “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” it address many issues of female bondage and sexual abuse from a woman’s prospective. Early in the writing, Linda states that “slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.” In this piece of writing, the writer Harriet Jacobs illustrates with great detail not only the horrors and violent inhumaneness endured by enslaved men, but as well as the fear that women withstood from the reality that their own children could be snatched from them at any moment and sold into slavery. To add to the degradation, women were also used as “breeders” by their masters to provide more bodies to tend to the fields and needs of the big house. Jacob’s specifically was speaking to the
When John Smith visited Pocahontas, she was 9 or 10 years old, while he was 27. John Smith was not a charming, heroic man as depicted in the movie. Many indigenous children in the village feared him, and he was known to even hold several chiefs of tribes at gunpoint for food. This issue of Hollywood filmmakers taking indigenous people's stories and inaccurately portraying them to the world is a continuous problem that needs to be fixed. The movie does an excellent job of depicting the cruel and greedy motives of the European settlers who arrived in America to take Native American lands in their search for gold.
Smith states in General History (1.2), “Pocahontas… got his head in her arms, and laid her own down upon him to save him from death; whereat the emperor was contented Smith should live.” This quote is exactly what Disney portrays in the movie. Smith also states in General History (1.2) “Powhatan…came unto him and told him how they were friends...” The story Disney depicts also goes along with the idea that the Indians and English end up being friends.
Pocahontas used her relationship with the English to free Indian captives and to facilitate trade deals, eventually marrying a powerful English planter (John Rolfe). Additionally, Disney's skewed portrayal of Pocahontas applied to John Smith and his motives as well. Smith's own records state that his mission in Virginia was to gain leverage and power from the Indians in the area. Smith's actions of giving important gifts to powerful tribesman and becoming the adopted son of the chieftain truly reflect his motives. The story of Pocahontas, although inspiring, is a story of politics and power, not of love and compassion.
What would you do for fame? Throughout history the hunger to be known and recognized has driven humans to deceive, cheat and create a web of lies to climb their way up the social hierarchy. From great kings to poor peasants even to the people that are in our lives today everyone seeks, has sought, and will continue to look for some form of glory and unachievable immortality through fame. The desire for notoriety that is embedded in all humans is the same desire that caused Captain John Smith to belie and fabricate the story of his first encounter with Pocahontas and the Powhatan indians. When John Smith first recounts his encounter with the Native Americans he describes them as a kind hospitable people.
In chapter four of “The True Story of Pocahontas,” the author, Dr. Linwood, justifies the effects of allowing John Smith to be the Werowance. The first effect of John Smith becoming Werowance is that the relationship between the Powhatan and the English is deteriorating. Due to John Smith demanding more corn for the winter, the Powhatan villagers had no food for the winter. Henceforth, a furious townsperson states, “You call yourself a Christian, yet you leave us with no food for the winter!”(Linwood). As a result, Wahunsenaca was not pleased with John’s decisions Wahunsenaca was disappointed and wanted to kill John.
Over the years, the story of Pocahontas or the Indian Princess have been expounded many times. Two of the most famous accounts are by Disney with the movie entitled Pocahontas and by James Nelson Beaker with the play entitled The Indian Princess. When analyzed, it is evident that both stories have different concepts and ideas but are also similar. They differ in the relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith and in the fact that in one story there was a war while in the other there wasn’t. However, in both stories the white men are portrayed in the same way.
Popular culture continues to portray Native woman as Indian princess who is willing to give up her cultural heritage and marry into the civilized white culture. Michael King, in "When Fiction Wins: John Davis and the Emergence of a Romantic Pocahontas," confirms that Disney introduces "a stubborn, beautiful, and very adult-looking Pocahontas to millions of children worldwide"(par.28). Between the mid-sixteenth and the mid-eighteenth centuries, as the colonies moved toward independence, Rayana Green in "The Pocahontas Perplex" writes that "the dominant stereotype of the Native American woman was transformed from a full-bodied, powerful, nurturing but dangerous mother-goddess into a younger, leaner, princess-like figure" (210). The Disney
Most likely, one has heard about the story of Pocahontas and John Smith. However, John Smith was not as loving and kind as he was portrayed. In the letter Address to Captain Smith, the speaker, Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas’ father, takes a condescending tone and addresses to the English settlers, especially John Smith, how the chief’s generous hospitality has not been appreciated. Literary devices such as rhetorical questions, antithesis, and repetition, diction, and pathos and ethos are exercised by Chief Powhatan to address his purpose and produce it as impactful as fully possible.
It was a warm winter day when the young adult Pocahontas went out to the fields to help weed them. “winter is coming Pocahontas said”. She know because the wind smelt like salt, and once the air smells like salt winter comes. But really it was a close by tribe making salt bread before the snow came. The great canoes they are here!