Zitkala Analysis

These two stories were also very different, they were written in different views. The second story was written in first person, it told a story about a past experience. The first story was very general, it related to many women readers,

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

Twain uses local dialect throughout the story. Dialect enhances the story by painting a picture of the surroundings, giving a deeper understanding of the characters and adding local color. The following quotes show Twain's main purpose is using dialect, which is to emphasize the rural feel of the story's setting. On page 1189 the narrator says "He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take ary side you please, as I was just telling you." On page 1190 the narrator says, "Other dogs jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw…." Smiley uses some interesting and somewhat peculiar phrases at the end of the story:

By 1860, there were 60 missionary schools which were not known for most American societies because they were not mentioned in the U.S. history, and there were 6200 Native Americans children in it. Cultural assimilation is the process of taking in, fully understanding and absorbing information or ideas. There are two factors which hindered Zitkala-Sa assimilation to the European American culture. The first factor is how people from different cultures inhabit different nonverbal sensory worlds, and the second one is judging people based on their own culture and standards. The story of the song “ten little Indians” started in a missionary school in the U.S. where Zitkala-Sa choose to study at. She was a writer, teacher, violinist, and activist for Native American rights. She was one of the Native American who suffered through her childhood in the missionary school, and she was treated badly from European American in a forcing way to accept the new culture and do what they told her to do. However, the text was categorized in three main sections each of which is describing her life in the missionary school. Overall, Zitkala-Sa did not assimilate completely to European American culture because of misinterpreting of non-verbal signs and symbols and having the tendency to evaluate.

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

Zitkala-Sa’s The School Days of an Indian Girl is an autobiography that was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1901. The autobiography in detail describes her experience in her community, the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota as a child and later her journey ravelling with European-American missionaries to attend a Quaker Missionary School that teaches speaking, reading and writing in English. Upon her arrival at the missionary led school, Sa felt ostracized, fearful, and terrified of every little adjustment or ordeal that appeared to be foreign or unknown to her based upon her cultural identity and heritage. Her trauma often led to many nights where she would sob and cry herself to sleep. Her daunting experiences of having her heritage ripped away ensued when Sa caught word that her “long and heavy” hair was to be cut (314). From the teachings from her Mother, Sa understood that “only the unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy” (314). She cried and shook her head with anguish but as her thick braids were cut she then “lost her spirit” (315).

He was one of the first to descriptively verbalize southern speech in writing. Not only was it uncommon for people of Twain’s era to write in vernacular, it was new-fangled for him to write about the subject of vernacular itself. It is a difficult task to write about, much less in, a dialect to which one is foreign without appearing foolish. Twain’s ability to both with ease marked him as an authority on the subject.

“The story is told from Huck’s point of view, and his narrative voice is a remarkable mixture of bad grammar, slang, homespun wisdom, and lyrical attentiveness to nature” (Bloom 22). In the novel, Twain uses southern dialect to reflect the time period and location in which it was written (James).

    One of the most notable techniques of realism was the simplicity of its writing and dialogue. Realism usually followed the adventures and life of the common person, therefore in order to accurately portray the average man authors had to drop the fancy words and grammar of romanticism and pick up the simple dialect of daily life. Twain is best known for his ability to replicate dialogue in this way. He would usually break the rules of grammar and spelling to capture the accents of an area, as seen in his story “ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Cavalier County”. “H'm so 'tis. Well, what's he good for… Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any

Once Zitkala-Sa begins her transformation at the missionary, she notices the whitewashing of many Indian girls, “a line of girls who were marching into the dining room. These girls wore sleeved aprons and shingled hair” (p. 1134). This shows the atmosphere of the school. The description of the girls, was the first instance when Zitkala-Sa experienced culture shock. Zitkala-Sa has never seen something so inappropriate, “I looked at the girls, who seemed not to care that they were even more immodestly dressed than I, in their tightly fitting clothes” (p.1135). This also proves that the missionary was ignorant to understand that it takes time to adjust the children into a culture that they are not familiar with. White missionary used unhuman techniques in order to force an entire civilization into a more ideal one. The significance of the “Shingled hair” plays a huge part in “The Impressions of an Indian Childhood” because it indicates bravery, and honor within Zitkala-Sa’s tribe. When Zitkala-Sa is forced into getting her hair cut, was the final indication of loss of identity. The removal of her

Just as there was an influx of African Americans to learn English after emancipation, the importance of communication was stressed at these institutions. For without language, Natives could never truly become part of American society and in the case of one Indian boarding school, the Ezra A. Hayt is quoted as saying, “without educated women there is no civilization” (Trennert). Teaching these Native Americans language was a success. Consequences of this, however, included alienation from their tribal family members. As Zitkala-Sa explains in her essay, The School Days of an Indian Girl, “My mother...was not capable of comforting her daughter who could read and write” (Zitkala-Sa). In fact, it is only after her tenure in America that Gertrude Simmons gives herself the Native American name Zitkala-Sa, which translates to Red Bird. Aptly named, Zitkala-Sa returned to traditionalism and as a cardinal takes flight, she began her legacy as a political

Obviously, Frederick Douglass and Mark Twain came from completely different background. Twain is an American who was born in Missouri. Douglass, and African American was born into slavery in Maryland. It would make sense that their style of writing is as different as their backgrounds. Twain, who was more privileged than Douglass has more humor and emotion in his writings, while Douglass left out his emotion, and his writing is more objective. Both of these styles contribute to the overall feel and purpose of their stories and memoirs. Twain’s purpose was to tell his readers his experiences on the Mississippi River, and have them relate or feel like they were a part of it. Douglass wanted his readers to know what his experiences were, but unlike Twain, he didn’t want it to feel relatable. Instead, Douglass wanted his readers to understand what the

The first two differences is the use of satire. In the speech, “A Toast to the Oldest Inhabitant: The Weather of New England”, Twain uses satire to criticize poets. Twain says, “They kill a lot

Style: Twain’s style is marked by the dialects of his characters, by the symbolism of the river and the shore and of Huck’s actions. The dialects help make the characters seem more like real people. The river and the shore motifs come to symbolize Twain’s view of society.

Zinczenko argues that the problem is not that people continue to eat these unhealthy choices, but that healthy food is not as readily available at a cheap cost. He also points out that there are no warning labels explaining the calories that are really being consumed, when it comes to fast food. He tells us that there are some children fighting obesity that are actually filing lawsuits against these fast food industries. I think this entire idea is preposterous. He claims that we don't know what we are putting in our bodies, but he also claims that childhood obesity is a known problem that has been around for decades. If the latter of those is true then we do know, roughly, what we are consuming. Everyone knows, by common sense (that is less