What Is Mary Crow Dog's Thesis In Civilize Them With A Stick

Civilize them with a Stick is a personal narrative written by Mary Crow Dog. It takes us to the time of when she attended the Indian boarding school St. Francis. Giving us examples after examples of the way they were treated and her experiences during those years. Starting from when she first stepped foot in that school to the day she was set free. All these children being taken away from their families, where they are permitted to see their family only five days out of the year. Always getting punished for many reasons including not praying, not praying right, not doing schoolwork and being late for class. The children were physically abused as well as emotionally, being forced to starve and live in unfit conditions. Many committed suicide

Mary Crow Dog’s thesis talks about children committing suicide and ends with “The first shock is always there…”(Page 430) leaving the audience wondering what is more shocking than suicide. She first talks about her grandmother and mother’s similar experiences when they were kids attending that same boarding school. Informing the audience she wasn’t the only women in her family to go there. Telling the stories that her grandma would tell her, helping us see that it did in some ways get better. In this essay she gives all of the negative aspects never really sharing the positive. She describes in great details the different ways they were punished for not behaving. Leaving the audience speechless of the horrible punishments they were forced to do. If it weren’t for the thesis the audience wouldn’t have been left hanging wondering what will happen

With her thesis leaving us hanging with the word “shock” she made it very clear why when she tells us the many things that were done to herself and the other children. The first story Mary told was when her sister and friends got in trouble. This really showed us how terrible the nuns really were to the children. Leaving us wondering how that school stood open for so many years. The punishments these children endured every single day didn’t seem real. In order for Mary Crow Dog’s essay to have such an impact she had to tell the difficult stories in order to get her point across of the kind of school it was. After each of the stories she would tell within her essay it would make me wonder what could possibly be worse than this. A big part of this essay had to do with racism as well. She stated on several occasions the nuns treated the children the way they did was because they weren’t of white descent. This helped give us an idea of where all that hate from the nuns probably came from. She told stories of many different instances that occurred while she attended but it all led up to the best one of all. The day she got out of that horrible boarding school. While reading about her last day as a student I was so hooked on wanting more. How she described her standing up to the male teacher and getting physically assaulted by the end of it I had a smile on my face because she was