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.
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This is just my opinion about The Woman Who Loved a Snake...
ReplyDeleteI'm like the Jenny person in the reading, I really need to KNOW if it was a snake or a man. Either that or I need to KNOW what kind of message it is sending. I think that not knowing got me all frustrated during the reading and I was just like "WHAT THE HECK" sorta thing, regardless of all the things that Greg Serris was saying about oral and written stories.
I think it's just the way some people are, they just have to KNOW. Hahaha
I agree with you, Mabel's story was extremely difficult for me to understand. The transitions were unclear, the presence of real or supernatural creatures/beings was confusing. However, it did allow me to try to understand the story from a different perspective. I also agree that it appears that he is appealing to white Christian pride, just because of what we have previously discussed about Boudinot.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this story was very confusing but I do think that it all comes back to the culture that story is coming from and oral vs. written. In most native american tribes, I think shape shifting is a common belief. In this sense, it is plausible that the snake was actually a man and vice versa. However, authors and speakers know their story and know what they want the reader or listener to get out of it. If she wanted the listeners to think of the Snake as that-a snake or as a man, or as nothing at all but a symbolic representation of something else entirely, she would have said so. Everyone will inevitable interpret it differently and that is how the story is intended to be.
ReplyDeleteOk so I totally agree with your interpretation about The Woman Who Loved A Snake. The snake is always seen as a bad omen and so I think the snake/man thing is to show that the man is a bad person. He is having an affair with a married woman, of course he is a bad person! So the fact that the man turns into a snake agrees with your thought of being a sign. I'm pretty sure the husband wasn't actually finding snakes but was instead finding clues. The whole "threatening to kill" the snake could be the husband keeping his thoughts to himself and just testing his wife to see her responses. I like that interpretation. As for Poor Sarah...I have no idea.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Mabels story was confusing, but I think it was done that way purposely. Like in the diagram Gina made, it was made so the audience and the teller had to engage in that "bubble," and thats what Greg, Jenny, and our class did. And Greg also points out that this is what Mabel was expecting of everyone.
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