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Literary Realism In Impressions Of A Native American Woman

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Literary Realism is a response to social conditions. In the late 19th century, writers took contemporary social issues and created a perspective that would expose the real dangers and damage created by various social conditions, such as colonization, injustices against women, and violence. These perspectives were not meant to influence a change in these conditions, but rather, bring attention to them. One of the most important factors of Literary Realism is that it is presented in an objective manner. By keeping these perspectives objective, writers were able to remove themselves from the issue in order to keep their authenticity. It was critical that their responses remained objective to make room for their stories to seem reasonable and …show more content…

A writer that uses this type of response is Zitkala Ša, a Native American woman from the Sioux tribe. figure out the location where these works take place Ša spent her early childhood with her mother on a reservation before later on going on to learn “the white man’s ways” (1085). She expresses this in her memoirs Impressions of an Indian Childhood, where she talks about her mother’s sadness and being recruited by “pale faced” missionaries (1091). This is regional realism because it focuses on the language and lifestyle of the Sioux. They don’t have a specific word for the white man, they call them “pale faced,” even red apples are a strange thing to them — what actually convinces Ša to go with these missionaries is the fact that she wants to taste the “big red apples.” Ša writes, “Judéwin had told me of the great tree where grew red, red apples; and how we could reach out our hands and pick all the red apples we could eat. I had never seen apple trees. I had never tasted more than a dozen red apples in my life…The missionaries smiled into my eyes, and patter my head. I wondered how mother could say such hard words against them” (1091). Ultimately, here is a little girl who isn’t understanding why her mother is angry and why she has all this resentment towards the missionaries. She’s excited about the apples. Apples are something she doesn’t get …show more content…

She recalls when her mother sent her out to invite the neighbors over for dinner. The way that she does this is interesting because she shows this particular etiquette that was taught to her by her mother; she is taught to wait and listen to see if other plans were being discussed (1089). She explains, “the old folks knew the meaning of my pauses” (1089). Collectively, all the people in this area were provided with the same mannerism and customs. Ša then begins to describe this beautiful evening that is “deepening into twilight” (1090) as the old people begin to tell their folktales. The regional realism that Ša uses when telling her memoirs is important because it shows a specific contrast between her culture and the white man’s culture, and this helps to better understand her concerns for this social condition. The social condition that Ša represents in her writing has to do with imperialism. As in her experience, and the experiences of many others from her tribe, the younger children were brainwashed into thinking that this imperialism was okay, that the learning of the white man’s ways was okay, and maybe even necessary. What many of them did not understand was the shrinking of their own cultures intended by the white man. This is something that first began when they were all still infants, the United States pushing these tribes

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