The Chief's Daughters And The Girl Who Was Not Satisfied With Simple Things

In Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People,” the main characters’ trust is put to the ultimate test. Trapped in vulnerable situations, the protagonists become powerless and have to put their trust in the hands of the “bad guy.” As a result, the main characters fall victim to manipulation. Those who were once in total control of their situations are now stripped of their superior titles and are taken advantage of by the person they once trusted. Egos are bruised in the game of trust and manipulation in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People.” The grandmother and Joy-Hulga are taught lessons of a lifetime that changes the way they see themselves and life forever.

The essays, “My Kiowa Grandmother,” by N. Scott Momaday and “Take My Saddle from the Wall: A Valediction,” by Larry McMurtry, both seek to understand the values and traditions of an old way of life that has been lost to the trials and tribulations of time. By reaching back into history through their families, both authors achieve the same effect, while using starkly contrasting narrative structure; they show the characteristics that have been lost to younger generations.

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

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.

The short stories, “Turned”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Good Corn”, by H.E Bates provide strong examples of how the representation of characters influence’s the reader’s perception of a text. Both stories depict similar characters: a middle-aged, childless wife, her husband and an 18-year old girl who works for them. They are both about a similar situation: man cheats on wife with girl and girl falls pregnant. However, the author’s of the text are from very different backgrounds and this is reflected in their stories. Although there are many similarities between “The Good Corn” and “Turned”, the values reflected in these stories, their resolutions and the reader’s perception of them are vastly different due to the contexts of

The wolf easily distracts her, showing, once again, her naivety and innocence. After the wolf shows up and eats the grandmother, Little Red arrives. Her mother instructed her not to look in all the corners when she arrived, and so, even though she was scared, she did what she was told, and the wolf swallowed Little Red and falls asleep. A wandering woodsman hears the snoring and enters the house to see what is wrong. He discovers the wolf and, instead of shooting it, cuts it open and gets Little Red and her grandmother unharmed out of the wolf. He sends Little Red off to get big stones, which he uses to fill the wolf?s belly. The wolf wakes up and attempts to run away, but the stones are too heavy, and he dies. After this experience, Little Red learned that she needed to heed her mother?s warnings, which shows that she has grown through her experiences with the wolf, and knows to listen to her mother. The story continues with another wolf coming across Little Red on her way to her grandmother?s house, but, having learned from the first wolf, Little Red is able to outsmart and kill him.

She was beaten, shackled and “was wet with the dew of all the men who had covered her before” him(4). He quickly recognizes her because his mother is also an Ila woman. He takes care of her — washing her disarrayed body, starting a fire for warmth and protection, and hunting for food. He also believed in fasting for ten consecutive days as a way of a spiritual cure those who are suffering, “in this way the spirit of the dead one grows weak, finally it lets go and journeys to the land of the soul” (5). He grew weak, yet still taking care of her. They began to love one another, and did not want to be apart. Taking her first steps, she ventured to short travels, but was not ready for a lonesome journey. With each trial, the journey becomes a little farther. Twelve days later, she was gone. He holds himself back from calling her name aloud to take her back forever. He continues on with his journey to the village, hunting for food as he returns to the village not

As hardworking women living of the prairie, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can relate to Mrs. Wright’s situation. They know personally that long days of doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning can become very tiresome (Hedges 91). They realize that living on the prairie can force a woman to be confined to her own house for weeks at a time, and because Mrs. Wright never had children, the grueling loneliness that she suffered must have been excruciating. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters both experience the constant patronization and sexual discrimination that most women in the early twentieth century lived with. They empathize with the difficulties of Mrs. Wright’s life and almost immediately a bond is formed with a woman they do not even know.

In the detailed story of an impoverished family during the late 1900’s, Jeannette Walls describes her experience from the young age of 3, up until adulthood. The family of 6, with Rex Walls as the father, Rose Mary as the mother, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen, were constantly moving throughout the country with little to no food or cash. The memoir shows how dysfunctional the family was, but never seemed to force the reader to condemn the parents. In a life of poverty, the have to move for own to town, and often lived in various mining towns. Although they each found something they learned to love (like Jeannette’s rock collection) in the desert, they had to leave them behind once Rex’s alcoholism only worsened, and they ran

In both Judy Brady’s “I want a wife” and Rebecca Curtis’s “Twenty Grand,” the reader is given a glimpse into the lives of two families living in different worlds but sharing many similar situations. Both families in the two-story show the environment that they are living in. Through the author’s use of irony, repetition, and tone, it becomes clear that I feel more sympathy for the mother in the story “Twenty Grand”.

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.

After a supper of fried fish, grits, and biscuits, the children’s bellies were full and their imaginations were running wild- they hadn’t completely forgotten living on the trail- The same as when they were younger, they wanted Charity to tell them a story before they went to sleep. She smiled at their eagerness, remembering all the stories she had told them at night while they were on the trail from Sandersville to Canton. It seemed that once they were settled in a house and not camping under the stars, the need for her bedtime stories were no longer necessary. Living on the trail seemed to bring her children much closer to her; she missed living that way…

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

‘Incidents in the life of a slave girl’ written by Harriet Jacobs and published by L.Maria Child (in 1831), is an autobiography by the author herself which documents Jacobs life as a slave and therefore

In the “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” short story, J.D. Salinger, draws a women living a meager life in despite of her wealth, and the unhappiness of not being a mother even though she has a daughter. Although this woman demonstrates an icy and bitter relationship to everything around her, including her descendent, the story’s end indicates self-awareness and resolution for the protagonist.