Native American Stories Of The American Indian Stories By Zitkala Sa, Momaday, Alexie, And Silko

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

Institutional structures have the power to configure adolescent growth through repression and liberation. The capability that adolescents have to create their own destiny and choose their own social institution can be limited, but not impossible. In Trites article, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” the author argues that kids have personal power, whether they acknowledge it and use it to their own advantage or not. Michel Foucault declares that “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (Trites). Power is inevitable, there will never be no such thing as power in this world; it will never diminish or fade. Trites also conveyed that, “power not only acts on a subject but, in a transitive

Zitkala returned to the reservation with a different mindset than when she left. She became “culturally unhinged” from her Native American lifestyle. Zitkala regretted not going to the western plains to be with her mother. However, she accepted the student body who had a strong prejudice of her people and continued her education to receive a diploma.

In his story “The Lakota Way; Joseph Marshall III adequately convinces the reader to persevere through a series of stories that allows the reader to develop a personal connection with characters. Marshall achieves this by informing the reader and using formal diction. This allows his readers to experience how perseverance can have a positive impact on one’s life. Marshall teaches us that Perseverance represents a quality in human beings that allows us to be steadfast despite the difficulty. In the folk tale “The Story of the Giant,” perseverance is abundant; Marshall utilizes the skill of teaching to persuade his audience to persevere through the story. Marshall‘s unique way of writing allows the reader to take lessons from a story and influence them to use it in their own lives. From lya the giant terrorizing people to Indians having to leave their land because of the government to Marshall’s grandfather’s stories of hardship, Marshall shows his audience how the Native Americans have always had it rough but more importantly how they persevered.

     In Conclusion the author, Leslie Silko, displays the poverty and hopelessness that the Native Americans faced because of the white man. The Author elaborates this feeling of hopelessness in the Indians myth explaining the origin of the white man. As a result

The American desire to culturally assimilate Native American people into establishing American customs went down in history during the 1700s. Famous author Zitkala-Sa, tells her brave experience of Americanization as a child through a series of stories in “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Zitkala-Sa, described her journey into an American missionary where they cleansed her of her identity. In “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Zitkala-Sa uses imagery in order to convey the cruel nature of early American cultural transformation among Indian individuals.

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

One of those children who because of an idea, were absent from their family, culture and origins. Zitkala-sa was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1876; at the age of eight, she enrolled at White’s manual Institute where she spent four years of her life. Four years of unhappiness as he explained on her personal essay “ The School Days Of An Indian Girl’’ published in 1921, she goes on and on explaining her experience living in a “civilizing machine’’ as she characterized the school. On her essay is impossible to not feel the pain, struggle and bitterness within her “process” of civilization. White people were in charge of taking every day a piece of her culture, as she explained when they cut her hair, “then I lost my spirit. Since that day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities”. The way she expressed her feeling toward to what many people would call a “simple process” cutting your hair, showed the power that culture has on people, culture is what make you part of something, and it is what in really showed who you are and most importantly your

Freedoms taken away from her in the hope for education and opportunities. Is it worth it? Is it worth it to give up freedoms, maybe a little bit of ourselves? Do we endure these difficulties now to then better ourselves in the future? I’m sure that’s something Zitkala-Sa thought about. She wanted to be educated like the “paleface” Maybe she thought to be like the “paleface” was to be American. For Zitkala-Sa the ending is a bitter-sweet moment. “There were two prizes given, that night, and one of them was mine! The little taste of victory did not satisfy a hunger in my heart. In my mind I saw my mother far away on the Western plains, and she was holding a charge against me.”

In her book American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa's central role as both an activist and writer surfaces, which uniquely combines autobiography and fiction and represents an attempt to merge cultural critique with aesthetic form, especially surrounding such fundamental matters as religion. In the tradition of sentimental, autobiographical fiction, this work addresses keen issues for American Indians' dilemmas with assimilation. In Parts IV and V of "School Days," for example, she vividly describes a little girl's nightmares of paleface devils and delineates her bitterness when her classmate died with an open Bible on her bed. In this groundbreaking scene, she inverts the allegation of Indian religion as superstition by labeling

Like a coin dropped between the cushions of a couch, traditional oral storytelling is a custom fading away in current American culture. For Native Americans, however, the practice of oral storytelling is still a tradition that carries culture and rich history over the course of generations. Three examples of traditional oral stories, “How Men and Women Got Together”, “Coyote’s Rabbit Chase”, and “Corn Mother”, demonstrate key differences in perspectives and values among diverse native tribes in America.

Throughout history, and all over the world, mythology has been developed as a way of explaining the unknown and coping with one’s existence. Why does the sun shine? Well, seemingly, to generations past, something is controlling the universe, so there must be a god in charge of the sun and many other natural phenomenon. During the creation of Native American myths, “there was much in the way of free-range food, but hunting wasn't as easy as getting up in the morning, taking a stroll and shooting a few passing bison with your bow” (Godchecker). Times were tough, “even Plains societies who lived off the prolific buffalo fell under the threat of starvation at times” (Godchecker). Finally, “when herds were found, the people were grateful and

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

It is easy to see that current events and issues of the world around them have had an impact on authors and what they have written from the stories in this time period. The Native American authors wrote stories describing life during and after white man came to America. We read Oratory’s by two Native American’s COCHISE and CHARLOT. They gave heart-wrenching speeches, giving great details into the history of the tribes and the devastating effect the white man had on them. Author Zitkala Sa gave us a powerful interpretation of her life as a Indian and how the white’s coming to America affected her life.

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.-Native American proverb” This is a Native American proverb that shows how important storytelling and stories are to the Native Americans and their culture. Storytelling was a big way of teaching their lifestyle to their younger generation. Storytelling is very important to the Native American culture because it helps explain their way of life, faith, and helps teach life lessons to the younger generation.