In the story of reservation blues by sherman alexie the opening chapter starts off with the literary device of foreshadowing. “ In the one hundred and eleven years since the creation of the spokane indian reservation in 1881, not one person, indian or otherwise, had arrived there by accident. Wellpinit, the only town the reservation, did not exist on most maps, so the black stranger surprised the whole tribe when he appeared with nothing more than the suit he wore and guitar slung over his back.” The opening scene in this chapter gave me the feel of an mystical spooky setting. This lead me to believe that this character “ Robert Johnson” would have a big part in this story. Robert johnson is an african american man who was a famous guitar …show more content…
Big Mom was a spiritual woman she believed in myths she also watches over the spokane tribe. Johnson was reportedly to have sold his soul to the devil so that he could be the best guitar player there ever was. Johnson travels to the Spokane Reservation and wants to talk to Big Mom so that she can relieve him of his stress and can get his soul back from "The Gentleman." “ The Gentleman” to me is symbolized as the devil who comes around looking for him if he was to play the guitar or to say the name that was on the guitar.The gentlemen is brought about as manipulating and controlling. Johnson traded off his soul in order to become a great musician his instrument of choice was playing the guitar. He carries his guitar with him everywhere for a period of time,and to symbolize the pain and struggle of his past, but also reminds him of the music and pain he experiences when playing the instrument. Every time he goes to pluck the strings the strings penetrate his flesh with a hot burning sensation. To relieve his burdens from “the gentleman” johnson had to travel to the top of the mountain that no has ever visited to see big mom. To me the journey that Johnson has to take up the mountain to see Big Mom captions his journey and trials and tribulation he goes through with the devil to get his soul …show more content…
There are four Band members. You have Gladys and Eunice Warm Water better known as Chess and Checkers. These are two sister from Arlee, Montana. The sisters are very close to each other and is very protective over each other. Checkers and Chess earned money fighting forest fires in Montana before coming to the band. Then there is Junior Polatkin the drummer who is the son of two dead parents who died in a drunk-driving accident. Before joining the band Junior drove the water truck for the reservation. He went to college for a little while in Oregon, but returned to the spokane reservation after his girlfriend Lynn, decided to abort their child. Junior was a model, relative to Victor the guitar player of the band. Junior is his best friend. Victors life was misguided he had no direction growing up. victor also is a a drunk with rude behavior. Victor’s father left at a young age, and his stepfather mistreated him. Both of these situations lead victor’s life to suffer. Joining the band victor relies on Junior for money and help With the magic of Robert Johnson’s guitar. As for robert johnson victor becomes by far the best musician in the band. The side effects of the curse has different effects on the victor than robert johnson
When reading the first chapter of the mis-education of the Negro book, the two most interesting items that I found was how it explained about blacks being hopeless, “to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless...". To me this first point meant how the teachings towards blacks is as if blacks were a curse and not meant to move forward because of their struggles and being black. The second point that interests me is the part when a student was in a Negro summer school with a white instructor who used such a textbook that states white people are superior to blacks. And the student said why and the instructor said he wanted the students to get that point of view.
The Cherokee Removal is a brief history with documents by Theda Perdue and Michael Green. In 1838-1839 the US troops expelled the Cherokee Indians from their ancestral homeland in the Southeast and removed them to the Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. The removal of the Cherokees was a product of the demand for land during the growth of cotton agriculture in the Southeast, the discovery of gold on the Cherokees land, and the racial prejudice that many white southerners had toward the Indians.
In a Bill Moyer’s interview “Sherman Alexie on Living Outside Borders”, Moyer’s interviews Native American author and poet Sherman Alexie. In the Moyer’s and Company interview, Alexie shares his story about the struggles that he endured during his time on a Native American reservation located at Wellpinit, Washington. During the interview, Alexie goes in-depth about his conflicts that plagued the reservation. In an award-winning book by Sherman Alexie called “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, Alexie writes semi-autobiography that reveals his harsh life on the reservation through a fictional character named Arnold Spirit Junior. In Alexie’s semi-autobiography, Alexie shares his struggles of a poor and alcoholic family, the
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough
Ask Haley Jo Hyde, 19, what makes her empathetic, and she 'll mention her childhood on Wisconsin 's Red Cliff Indian Reservation or her struggles leaving an abusive relationship. Talk to Nick Thompson, 37, and he 'll refer to the challenges he overcame to enroll in college as a nontraditional student. A Moving Target Say the word "empathy" around social workers and most will recognize it as a professional "must-have," even if they can 't tell you exactly what it means. Scholars also disagree about the definition of empathy and what it looks like in social work practice. According to some, empathy occurs when a person takes on the feelings of another—the sadness of losing a loved one or the joy of landing a job—as if sharing that experience. Indeed, the Social Work Dictionary defines empathy as "the act of perceiving, understanding, experiencing, and responding to the emotional state and ideas of another person" (Barker, 2003). Others separate empathy into its cognitive and affective forms, that is, a rational understanding of a person 's situation vs. a feeling of shared emotions. According to V. Suthakaran, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, this dichotomy mirrors the one found in cognitive experiential self theory. That theory claims that humans rely on two systems to process information: one tapping into logical thought and one relying on personal experience or intuition (Epstein, 1994). Still others say that empathy
Throughout history, many people have been oppressed because of their race, religion and gender, resulting in the loss of their rights and freedom. Despite the fact that freedom is an inherent rights of any human being, many examples have proven that these rights often require rebellious acts to obtain said rights. Although human rights have evolved over the years, humans still fail to learn from their mistakes, resulting in history repeating itself. Through storytelling and novels, people show depictions of history to honour those who have died and to educate younger generations to prevent unfortunate events from occurring again. In this same vein, Lawrence Hill and Alice Walker display oppression through abuse, structural inequality and gender stereotypes. Although the novels, The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker were written in different time periods and revolved around different cultural influences, each demonstrates the theme of oppression throughout various events.
The Unredeemed Captive published by Vintage on March 28, 1995. The Unredeemed Captive - A Family Story by John Demos was about Eunice Williams’ being held captive by the resident Indians and the fight her family endured in order to go home. Eunice was captured together with her family along with hundreds of other residents in and around Deerfield. Demos, seems very knowledgeable of the Deerfield raid. He also uses impeccable detail on the captives’ march to Canada. Demos, also does a great job of depicting the experience of being a captive. It also helped to understand the story better when Demos explained further why the Indians were victorious in capturing the villagers. As well, he described the Kahnawake Indian village where Eunice
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.
It is impossible for anyone to survive a horrible event in their life without a relationship to have to keep them alive. The connection and emotional bond between the person suffering and the other is sometimes all they need to survive. On the other hand, not having anyone to believe in can make death appear easier than life allowing the person to give up instead of fighting for survival. In The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Aminata Diallo survives her course through slavery by remembering her family and the friends that she makes. Aminata is taught by her mother, Sira to deliver babies in the villages of her homeland. This skill proves to be very valuable to Aminata as it helps her deliver her friends babies and create a source of
Colonialism has a historical context that has long obscured and distorted the experiences of indigenous people, particularly those who endured the brutalities of the California Missions. Although indigenous people are portrayed in history as docile people, who openly embraced invasion, Deborah Miranda dismantles this depiction in her memoir, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, through two stories called “Dear Vicenta” and “Novena to Bad Indians”. Throughout the stories run various narratives of survival and resistance, which form new understandings of colonization and missionization. Miranda practices decolonization through oral history in order to form new and ongoing indigenous identities. Evidently, through decolonial practice and deconstructing dominant narratives about “colonized” peoples and replacing them with stories that use traditional memory and practice, Miranda disrupts the commonly accepted narrative of indigenous peoples by reconstructing the dichotomy between good and bad Indians through acts of resistance and survival.
There has always been a big debate on whether the Cherokee Indians should have or should not have been removed from the land they resided on. Although the common consensus of the whites was for removal, and for the Cherokees it was against removal, there were some individuals on each side that disagreed with their groups’ decision. The Cherokee Indians should have been removed from their homeland because the Cherokees would not have been able to survive on their own with the way they were living, they would not have been able to exist amidst a white population, and if they were removed, the whites would have helped them create a new and prosperous civilization.
In the short story “The only traffic light on the reservation doesn’t flash red anymore” Sherman Alexie talks about how they idolize people just because they are doing things no one else has done and it will hurt a community in the long run. The people’s heroes are chosen by what the people want, not what they need. In the short story by Sherman Alexie, he talks about a community with bad ideas of heroes will hurt itself in the long run. First off in this scene Victor and Adrian are remembering a reservation hero who did a good move once.
The main character in the story is Jackson Jackson, a homeless Salish Indian. Jackson lives in Spokane, Washington. His character is described as having working numerous blue collared jobs, having been married multiple times and fathering multiple children. In the story, Jackson eludes to himself having a mental disorder. His character is extremely resourceful with both food and personal care. In the story, Jackson reveals a bit about himself through his introduction of other characters. Jackson states that Indians “Indians are great storytellers and liars and mythmakers” ("ENGL200: Composition and Literature" 87).
Jackson lives in Seattle, Washington. Jackson was originally Spokane, but traveled to Seattle twenty-three years early to attend college before dropping out. His character is described as having working numerous blue collared jobs, having been married multiple times and fathering multiple children. In the story, Jackson eludes to himself having a mental disorder. His character is extremely resourceful with both food and personal care. In the story, Jackson reveals a bit about himself through his introduction of other characters. Jackson states “Indians are great storytellers and liars and mythmakers” (87).
If I had to scale the relevance of "The Negro Travelers' Green Book" today, I would determine it as relevant (3). After reading the article, I learned of the book's existence and was in awe. The way they banded together to help make fellow members of their race hope for enjoyable travels has made me respect Mr. Green, the publisher.The book shows the lengths it took to feel like they were accessing the same rights as whites. I personally never thought about how it would be for them when traveling long distances. I've read and heard stories but it was always locally in wherever they lived at that time, never about vacations. When I viewed the map I was in shock to see how sparse the mid-west and on were with places for traveling. We need to