ipl-logo

Theme Of The Horizontal World

420 Words2 Pages

Debra Marquart's memoir, "The Horizontal World," is a compelling and evocative work that explores the complex relationships between people, places, and identities in the American Midwest. Through a careful examination of personal anecdotes, cultural myths, and historical context, Marquart creates a rich and nuanced portrait of life in the Midwest.

One of the central themes of the book is the idea of home and belonging. Marquart grew up in a small town in North Dakota, and her memoir reflects on her experiences of leaving and returning to the Midwest throughout her life. She explores the ways in which the Midwest can feel both comforting and confining, and how the landscape and culture of the region have shaped her sense of self.

Marquart also addresses the theme of cultural identity in the Midwest. She examines the ways in which cultural myths and stereotypes, such as the image of the stoic, hard-working farmer or the friendly, down-to-earth Midwesterner, have been perpetuated in popular culture and how they affect the lived experiences of people in the region. She also examines the complicated history of race and ethnicity in the Midwest, particularly in relation to the experiences of Native Americans and immigrants. …show more content…

She reflects on the beauty and power of the Midwest landscape, from the vast prairies to the Great Lakes, and how it has influenced the way that people in the region see themselves and the world around them. She also discusses the environmental challenges facing the Midwest, such as climate change and industrial agriculture, and the impact that they have on the region's communities and

Show More
Related
1197 Words | 5 Pages

Gary Clayton Anderson is an American historian who is currently a professor at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. He is focused mainly on the history of native people in the Great Plains and southwest region of the United States. Anderson received his bachelor’s degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, his master’s degree from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD, and his Ph.D. from the University of Toledo in Toledo, OH. Along with the classes he teaches, Anderson travels around the country giving lectures about relations between Native Americans and white settlers and other related topics.

Read More
1119 Words | 5 Pages

She argues that Iowa is in the middle of the country and its topography is also centralized because it helps transition travelers to what lays ahead in connecting states. She also goes into detail about the political and economic aspect of the state and how through the course of Iowa’s history Iowans became not exceedingly wealthy or poor, along with not being radically liberal or conservative but somewhere in the

Read More
568 Words | 3 Pages

Marquardt talks through her own memory and expands on the fact that she lived and went through what she is speaking about she demonstrates Ethos, Logos, and Tone. Divine passage which Marquardt presents and effectively shows the usage of Ethos. She brings up some history of the land that is North Dakota to help get her point across. She says “Is was Edwin James who dubbed the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies the Great American Desert, an indignity from which the region has struggled to recover ever since”. This quote from Marquardt demonstrates her knowledge of North Dakota, also that she has taken time to look into this topic further.

Read More
629 Words | 3 Pages

Debra Marquart has written a memoir titled The Horizontal World to emit readers of her love for the upper Midwest. Marquart uses diction and contrast to characterize the Midwest. In doing so, Marquart hopes to show the importance of this region to those who already have a generalized opinion of the Midwest. In the passage, Marquart uses concrete diction when describing how people such as those who visit view the upper Midwest.

Read More
523 Words | 3 Pages

“Indian Mascots- You’re Out” is a very well organized and thought out article about the stereotyping of American Indians in sports. As a child, Shakely supported the Cleveland Indians and even the buck tooth, big nose Indian mascot that accompanied them, but once he witnesses the effect that such support has on his mother, it quickly fades. The author describes the hurt his mother feels from seeing her own son wearing a stereotype of their heritage.

Read More
2148 Words | 9 Pages

Marcus Garvey said, “People without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” For the citizens of Otter Lake, a fictional reserve set in Drew Hayden Taylor’s Novel Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, they are disconnected from their cultural roots. Much of the older generation is suffering psychologically from the effects of residential schools, where their culture was taken from them. The younger generations in return feel no ties to their past as they were raised by people who feelings towards it were conflicted as they spent years being abused and told that their culture was wrong. As an author, one of their main roles is to convey a message.

Read More
783 Words | 4 Pages

Culture is something that is important to everyone. When a person goes from one place to another, the shock of the different culture can be considerably large on a person’s character and their identity as a whole. In Into the Beautiful North, Urrea illuminates cultural collision and its affect on character’s sense of identity through Nayeli’s naivety and her reaction towards how America truly is throughout her journey. Nayeli’s naivety really stems from her home of Tres Camarones.

Read More
570 Words | 3 Pages

In the book, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California, James N. Gregory attempts to change readers perspective of stereotypes created by artist during the Great Depression, such as those created by John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and Dorthea Lange’s photograph of the “Migrant Mother”. In his book, Gregory “takes us back to the dust bowl migration” to reveal that there is more to Oklahoman, Arkansan, Texan, and Missourian immigrants than economic hardship. He focuses on regionalism, and an “Okie” subculture that was created due to the high rate of migration to California. Gregory sets out to prove that they also had a mass effect on Californian culture and social patterns. Using extremely efficient primary

Read More
895 Words | 4 Pages

In today’s world, there is a stereotype of the typical Southern woman who always has her hair and nails done to perfection, kind, and is the ideal wife. However, Drewitz-Crockett goes on to argue that “people praised a woman by saying she is a fine woman and a hard worker, back in twentieth century.” Back then, work was appreciated, whether that entailed household chores, child birth, or farm work––that is how Robert Morgan portrays Julie Richards in his novel, Gap Creek. In Robert Morgan’s novel, Julie Richards is represented as strong, hardworking, and knowledgeable about her surroundings in South Carolina.

Read More
879 Words | 4 Pages

First, Gravlee explains the cultural perception of race in the United States and how

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.

Read More
1782 Words | 8 Pages

Purpose: To inform the audience about my trip to South Dakota and why it is my favorite vacation. To inform the audience of the many different places I went and activities that I did while in South Dakota. Thesis: My trip to South Dakota was the most memorable vacation I have been on because of the many marvels the landscape had to offer. I fondly remember diving into history and learning about the historic sites, marveling at the vastness of the Black Hills and Badlands, and gawking in amazement at the beauty and mystery of the caves.

Read More
1494 Words | 6 Pages

Even though America has become quite the diverse place with diverse cultures, the cultural appropriation found within the American society contributes to the loss of multiple minority culture’s identity. Native Americans are one of the minority groups most heavily impacted by cultural appropriation. From offensive sports, many American Indians feel as though their cultural identities are lost in the mass of stereotypes and false representations of them in popular culture. In literature and film, Indians are too often portrayed as some variation of “the Noble or Ignoble Savage” (Gordon, 30), violent and uneducated, and it is easy to imagine how this negative representation inspires resentment in the Native American community, who have no interest in having their cultures and peoples being reduced to mere savages,

Read More
1594 Words | 7 Pages

A view of Americans as a special, exceptional people because Americans had progressively taken over the West and conquered primitive societies was firmly established in the minds of Americans by frontier myth. One of problems is that the frontier myth is a story, and “all stories are partial; that is, in creating narrative coherence, they leave things out, and emphasize other things”. They are not necessarily false, but neither are they history. As the society evolved, the concept of the frontier is consequently redefined as a space of social and cultural interaction and replaced by the terms “contact zone” by Mary Louise Pratt in her 1992 book Imperial Eyes. Contact zones are “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other.”

Read More
935 Words | 4 Pages

I grew up in Wellston, Ohio and lived in the countryside about fifteen minutes from town. My house was a home to me and it wasn 't the greatest, but it was special to me. My big backyard consisted of many fruit trees and a grape vine, it was where I had bonfires with my family and friends, and it was where I ran free with my brother. I had a pond, “over the hill” as my brother and I would say, where we swam and fished in the summertime and sat on the deck feeding bread to the bluegill as we had conversations about life. Behind our pond was where thousands of trees stood tall and where we roamed every inch of the hidden land.

Read More

More about Theme Of The Horizontal World

Related Topics

Open Document