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 :)