Beauty and the world

Our last few fictional readings have been the most interesting to me other than reading Apess. I think that fiction allows the author a dimension to communicate his or her views that can't be done with non-fiction writing. For example, writing "Hard Riding" from the perspective of a White person. There is a parallel between him and the U.S. government in that he is trying to impose government on others. He is so caught up in his thinking of how great a court will fair with these people that he doesn't point out the flaws in creating such a court. The elders point out to him that in order to be a judge, you have to be perfect and since no one is perfect, the elders appoint fools that no one would listen to anyway to get out of such a court system. Now, if this were written in the point of view of a Native complaining or suggesting how the court system would run, one could almost readily assume that that Native's ideas would be laughed at since Natives aren't highly regarded by Whites. It is this fictional space that allows readers to see such absurdities and allows us to White-Native complex in a different light.

In addition, fiction allows us to apply themes for readily to our lives than non-fiction. We have been reading non-fiction before the current unit and I felt that a lot of what was read wasn't anything I could apply to my life. However, I did acquire some knowledge of the Native struggle and a very good idea on what encompasses survivance but living in a culture, in a town that is accepting of any people, survivance doesn't have as much applicability. In the fiction texts however, there are a handful of quotes that really getting me thinking about my own life. Anna Lee Walters writes, " He knew that we must live beautifully, or not live at all." Now from this I ask myself: What is beauty to me, what is beauty to other people and other cultures, how do people share beauty? My conclusion on what is beauty is not fully defined nor do I think it will ever be. I do know that cultures share their vision of beauty very differently. Some cultures can simply beg you to eat with there family to share the joy of being able to eat while others try to impose government on other nations to 'share there cultures jewel of how beauty is obtained' or whatever reason is needed.

I like this fiction unit :)

Thoughts on Old Lady Day

To start, I couldn't really decipher what was going on in the text. The transitions between writer and storyteller were unclear to me and when the storytellers did speak, it was hard to comprehend what was going on. I couldn't tell whether the thought said was literal or metaphorical speech as was the case in The Woman Who Loved a Snake--I didn't know if the thing reappearing was a snake or a man!

After some discussion about the text, I slowly gained a grasp on the readings as time progressed. I can't get a grasp about what the take home message is about The Woman Who Loved a Snake but I have a few ideas about it. One I'd like to share is I don't think whether items are physical are not matter. What matters is what the items symbolize and the emotions being seen thereof. For example, man got mad because there was a snake in the house, thinks wife is cheating, but doesn't kill snake. From here, the message I pick up is don't keep things behind people's back because the signs of wrong doing are easily seen in predictable places.

As for the 2nd piece, Poor Sarah, I do believe our instructor's amazing thought about how Boudinot IS Poor Sarah is an accurate portrayal of himself. Given what I know about Boudinot, the text seems to be written by Boudinot originally because it fits his style of writing. I think Boudinot always thought that brown nosing Whites was the most effective way to seek survivance and did so for his people but he doesn't see it that way so wrote this piece. Given that this piece is fiction, I believe he wrote it to his people saying that brown nosing isn't way after years of him doing so because he shows how little is gained when adopting Christian ways. At the same time though, it appears as though he is appealing to Whites saying their way is better and gaining support from them at the end, but ultimately he looks down at them. Double edged sword kind of thing.

Eastman vs. Apess

Well to start, I'm writing this Saturday morning. I still haven't gotten into the groove of doing homework on Friday. I think I'll schedule myself to do this on Friday. Anyhow, let's move onward.


After reading more texts in this class, I feel more and more remorseful towards the Natives. Not ever having a formal understanding of Native culture, I'm shocked and appalled to learn what they have gone through so far. The theme of survivance manifests itself in text better than others. By better I mean has a greater influence on people, mainly White people. In one of my quickwrites actually, I compared Apess and Eastman and wanted to expand it a little bit.

Apess writes to ultimately preserve his people by trying to persuade Whites that they are civilized just like them. He writes Eulogy of King Philip in a way that attacks Christian Whites which isn't successful as merely showing them what it is that makes there culture civilized to Whites. Apess attacks Whites by writing phrases like, " Had it not been for this human act of the Indians [hospilality], everywhite man would have been swept from the New England colonies. In their sickness too, Indians were as tender to them as to their own children; and for all this, they were denounced as savages by those who had received all acts of kindness they possibly could show them." I personally think that such a passage would change my ways if I were a White back then but I also see that many people will not have known how to react to this and it takes one person to speak negatively out loud about it to aspire followers.

Now I think Eastman's approach in addressing Whites is much more effective because he isn't pointing a finger necessarily but describing events leaving the reader to decide if acts were justified or not rather than explicitly denouncing White people.