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Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House On The Prairie

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Samantha Hoppe – The Minority is Not Minor The United States of America, formed by immigrants of various nationalities, was founded by white men who believed themselves better than others. That attitude was then passed on through the generations. It is depicted in a majority of Western texts primarily because the Western genre is set in the time period when the Wild West thrived, and Indians were the enemy. Little House on the Prairie (1935) written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Django Unchained (2012) directed by Quentin Tarantino sway from traditional Westerns and give Indians and African Americans, respectively, some credit. Each writer portrays them in a different light due to the time period in which the text was written. Wilder enhances their negative side while Tarantino enhances their positive side, but both authors demonstrate how essential each minority is to the story. …show more content…

This behavior is completely normal for people living in the 1870’s. It has been ingrained in their brains since the time they were born. When Laura asks Ma why she does not like the Indians, Ma simply replies, “I just don’t like them…” (Wilder 46). Indians were widely known for their savagery. According to John G. Cawelti, Western genre analyst, “Indian[s] as [a] devil and as [a] noble savage quickly gave way… to a definition of the Indian way of life as an inferior and earlier stage in the development of civilization” (22). Ma demonstrates this attitude clearly when warning Laura multiple times that they do not live like

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