The Earth On Turtles Back Analysis

In the story “The Earth on Turtles Back” it explores a very nurturing and unique way that the earth was created. The original idea was brought on by the Native Americans but is retold by the authors. It explores the idea that animals and dreams helped start the building of earth. Within the story you find some very shaping and well-fitting themes. The themes with in “The Earth on Turtles Back” are one thing must end for another to begin, importance of animals, and belief in dreams. To begin, the first theme in the story is one thing must end for another to begin. In the story, the have to uproot the tree. Ultimately, because they uprooted the tree, they were able to get the dirt to start the creation of Earth. In the text, it states “The tiny bit of Earth fell on the back of the Turtle. Almost immediately it began to grow larger and larger and larger until it became the whole world.” (Caduto & Bruchac, 2012) This quotation is showing how the little dirt

You can tell from the reactions and tone of the characters, dreams are very influential to them. The text states,” I am sad you had this dream. It is clearly a dream of great power and as is our way, when one has such a powerful dream we must do all we can to make it true. The great tree must be uprooted.” (Caduto & Bruchac, 2012) You can see in the quotation that the woman’s dreams are very crucial to her husband and their culture, they can predict the future or show them the path they need to go on in their life. If they weren’t so inventive with their dreams, the story could have been completely different or not happened at all. Which is why they decided to uproot the tree, if they didn’t uproot the tree the events after it like the woman falling and the animals helping her wouldn’t have happened. If those events wouldn’t have happened the dirt would have never ended up on the Turtles back, hence the world would never have been