Compare and Contrast Essay
Melanie Zwitter
Rasmussen College
Compare and Contrast Essay The two short stories that will be compared and contrasted in this essay are “Black Mountain, 1977” by Donald Antrim and “Three Generations of Native American Women’s Birth Experience” by Joy Harjo. In “Black Mountain, 1977”, the story is about a grandson and grandfather that keep a relationship even when the grandfather’s daughter doesn’t want them to have a relationship. The grandson would stay with his grandparents and found a way to keep their relationship even with problems that happened. In “Three Generations of Native American Women’s Birth Experience”, the story starts out with a girl as a pregnant teenager about to give birth
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The grandson in “Black Mountain, 1977”, mother was an alcoholic and his parents fought all the time, his grandfather had retired the year his grandson graduated from high school. His grandfather asked him if he wanted to help his fix up a house and with everything going on with his family, he went there with his grandparents. During that summer he grew and knew with everything happening with his family he would be ok. The young girl in the beginning of “Three Generations of Native American Women’s Birth Experience” had a different experience in growing up. She had a bad experience with the hospital that she birthed her son and did not want that to happen again and she says, “I wanted something different for my life, for my son, and for my daughter, who later was born in a university hospital in Albuquerque (Harjo, 1991).” She got a good job that offered her insurance and when her daughter became pregnant she was going to give her what she never had but then her daughter had went into labor a month early having problems. Leading to a difficult labor but was different because she was surrounded by family unlike her mother who was alone. The young girl now a grandmother has grown into a better life for her and her …show more content…
The difference between the two short stories is that in “Black Mountain, 1977”, there is a dysfunctional family dynamic where the narrator wants to have a relationship with his grandfather and his mother is trying to stop that from happening. In “Three Generations of Native American Women’s Birth Experience”, the narrator wants to have a better life for her family and be treated better as a Native American compared to how she was treated when she was younger. This are very powerful literary works because unfortunately dysfunction and being treated unfairly is a way of the world right now. Not that everyone is this way but as a nurse this will be seen more often than we would like. With these stories, the characters have found a way to make it through the bad
One thing Perdue could have done to have taken this book to the next level, is include more insight from specific Cherokee women. With their insights, it would have given more of a direct insight as to actual stories making the book more interesting. If she had included more examples of Cherokee women today and how they demonstrated strength this book could have been better. Also, Perdue’s analysis reveals the burden of her politics. It is evident that at times she uses communitarian and the female centric nature of Cherokee society to criticize modern American gender relations and society.
The power of stories manifests itself in literature, film, and more generally life. Stories inspire, provide hope, and bring understanding. Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony permeates the strength of stories. Ceremony follows the story of Tayo, a half white Native American plagued by the invasion of European culture, as well as his own past of war and loss. However, through the folk stories of his Laguna culture, as well as the advice he has been given to embrace his past, Tayo is able to see the world more clearly.
In the article of the Creek Indians, Christina Snyder portrays her thoughts on slavery and how Europeans, Natives, and African Americans all had their different point of view on slavery. Some traditions included holding captives then sending them free after their laboring was done. While others used captives as rewards or punishment because of the kinship system they tried to tie into slavery. Throughout the article Creek Indians went into rebellion with the Americans to fight for lands while starting new traditions into slavery mixing up political views and religious views all around the South.
In doing so, the author does a very good job of using pathos to make his readers feel sympathy for his mother. Shakely also talks about article written about this same topic and how they are treated as “tempests in a teacup”(Shakely 647). While having written multiple books about the struggle for Indians in the past and future, Shakely was also the chair of the Los Angeles Native American
Charles Kirsch 1/20/23 Ms. Rodriguez English 10-4 A Woman’s Right to Choose: The Effects of Systemic Prejudice in There, There There, There by Tommy Orange tells the interconnected stories of several Native American people who live (or end up living) in Oakland, California. Jacquie Red Feather, part of a family line that ends up tying together many of the characters, is a very recently recovering alcoholic who works as a substance abuse counselor. She has suffered many traumas ranging from rape to the suicide of her daughter, and, in the first chapter narrated by her in the book, is finding her path to sobriety and responsibility. Growing up as a Native American girl made Jacquie especially vulnerable to societal and interpersonal oppression,
The award winning novel Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich contains various viewpoints from Native Americans of the Chippewa tribe. Many of the stories in this book contain some sort of heartache or struggle due to an affair or some external source, but interestingly there is one relationship that is not strained in that way. Instead, it is the conflicting ideas of a mother-daughter relationship. Even though Zelda Kashpaw and her daughter Albertine Johnson at first seem to be a living dichotomy, they realize the need for each other. Zelda Kashpaw is a Chippewa and aligns herself to the traditions of her family and tribe, except for one major decision.
The Post Reconstruction Era was the worst period ever for Native American history but it also became the upcoming rising of Native American leadership. Leaders like Red Cloud, Chief Seattle, Quanah Parker and Chief Joseph all had to settle with adapting to the American culture. For an example Red Cloud and his people the Sioux began series of fights because miners were crossing into their territory digging up their land looking for gold, they showed no respect to their environment, they even dug up to look for gold. Chief Seattle leader of the Suquamish, was upset with the way America cared for its land, he was so distraught by it he did a speech called “Nation of Nation’s”, where he talks about his land losing its beauty and how nothing there
The White Buffalo women was a Native American myth where she presented the Lakota people the sacred pipe the showed how all things in life are connected. She would also teach the people how to pray and how to follow the way of the earth and this was important to the Native Americans back then because they had a strong connection with nature. And also what she was really known for was when she left that she left behind lots of groups of white buffalo and that was important and big because that’s what people would mainly feed on and it would feed a whole village too. And one man said that “The arrival of the White Buffalo is like the second coming of Christ” –Floyd Hand, that’s because of all that she would give.
Throughout the course of American history, Native American women have repeatedly become primary targets of sexual violence from non-native men. Around one in three Native American women has been raped or had undergone attempted rape, which makes them the largest race to experience sexual abuse than any other race in the United States. Before any contact was established between the Natives and the European settlers, the Native population had thrived off the land and they had their own criminal justice systems, which was meant to help all Native citizens find justice (Griffith, 5). Unfortunately, their efficient way of life would soon be interrupted forever following the arrival of white setters upon their lands.
Although Native Americans are characterized as both civilized and uncivilized in module one readings, their lifestyles and culture are observed to be civilized more often than not. The separate and distinct duties of men and women (Sigard, 1632) reveal a society that has defined roles and expectations based on gender. There are customs related to courtship (Le Clercq, 1691) that are similar to European cultures. Marriage was a recognized union amongst Native Americans, although not necessarily viewed as a serious, lifelong commitment like the Europeans (Heckewelder, 1819). Related to gender roles in Native American culture, Sigard writes of the Huron people that “Just as the men have their special occupation and understand wherein a man’s duty consists, so also the women and girls keep their place and perform quietly their little tasks and functions of service”.
Cultural Crossroads: An Exploration of Identity and Tradition in Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road In Joseph Boyden's novel Three Day Road, the story follows the emotional and thought provoking journey of mainly Niska and Xavier Bird. Niska is a Cree Indigenous person who has strayed from her community in order to keep her roots by staying true to their culture. Xavier, her nephew, was rescued from the residential schools and dragged into war through his friend (also Cree) Elijah. Looking at this story we see that identity is a big theme even relating to the author, there are also other reflections of Indigenous culture in this story like the 7 grandfather teachings and assimilation.
The authors of The Nickel Boys, Between the World and Me, and Notes of a Native Son depict the struggles of instilling or accepting their fathers' morals, protection, and
Compare and Contrast the Native American Culture Introduction The Native Americans were the original owners of the United States of America. However, due to the population increase in Europe, the European migrated to America in seek of land for farming, settlement, and spread their religion (Desai, n.p). The two communities lived together and interacted with each other.
Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.
In her essay, “Where I Came from is Like This,” the author Paula Gunn Allen effectively utilizes ethos, logos, and pathos to convince her audience, women studies and ethnic scholars, of her claim that the struggles of American Indian women have had with their identities. Gunn Allen uses all three modes of persuasion to describe the struggles of American Indian women. She uses ethos to strengthen her credibility, logos to logically explain the issue, and pathos to emotionally explain the struggles of American Indian women have had with their identities. With ethos she tells us where she is from and how she got her information, which makes her more trustworthy and believable.