For September 28, 2017, please read to the end of page 17, just up to "The Snow Episode" (80min). If you, finish before the 80 minutes are up, go back and reread and/or annotate. Zitkala-sa's writing is beautiful and is packed with complex and layered ideas. Then, by Thursday at noon, write a response under our Class Discussion tab thinking about the theme of our course: power, place, and community. Questions you can consider are, What is Zitkala-Sa and her mother's relationship to space before she goes to school? How does it change? How is she and her community disempowered over the course of the narrative? (45min.)
30 Comments
Ryan Van
9/27/2017 11:51:55 am
Zitkala Sa is quite literally trying to find her place in the world. She begins by recounting stories of her past and comments on her mistakes, failures, and joyful memories in the past. The concept of power is extremely relevant in the beginning of the passage, she details the threat the “pale-faces” hold on the Indian’s community and thus places them into a state of weaker power. Furthermore, the mother of Sa’s emotions reinforces a macabre and gloomy tone surrounding the past and how most of their ancestors and family have been reduced to nothing. Sa has two main places she is a part of, one that revolves around her small community, her village, the other representing her place in the scope of being Native American. As she writes, she explicitly details her role in the community as a child – whether it be through helping make beaded words or play with friends, Sa immortalizes her role as a learner, a young child preparing for the dangers that the world poses. Sa’s innocence is not to be taken lightly, while describing her mess-up with the coffee grounds, Sa symbolizes two important ideas – the purity of a child (mom and grandfather protecting her from her believing she did wrong), and the ability of a child attempting to learn. Being Native American, Sa is subject to the effects of the “pale-face” people, white people invading their lands, spreading disease and thus, murdering families.
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Lorenzo dela Cruz
9/27/2017 02:18:34 pm
You make a great analysis of Sa's narration based on power, place , and community. I like the way you introduce the presence of the "pale faced" people immediately because they are a key figure in her story and life. I think you could have put more detail and analysis into her childhood, and how her mother's actions and deeds influenced her. I also think her aunt played an important role in her life. I also think that the "red apple" that Sa has is of curiosity and discovery. It is also interesting to look at how Sa's friends influenced her and drove her on. I think Sa's search for knowledge and the new world reflects our previous readings in some way. I think it also reflects our own journey as students and young adults surrounded by new surroundings and peoples. I think the most powerful part of the passage was when the missionaries forcibly cut Sa's hair. Her hair was the last thing that she possessed that was normal and familiar. It was the only dignity she had remaining and they stripped that from her. This also can make for an interesting analysis on the goal of missionaries and the morality of their actions and whether they were justified and actually beneficial to the people they were trying to help.
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Christina Gaspar
9/27/2017 09:34:25 pm
Your analysis of Sa's childhood captivates the various elements that played a role in shaping Sa as a person. I agree that the concept of power is highlighted by the role of the "pale-faced" men in the story. The "pale-faced" men are seen as disruptive figures who take from their people without regards to their culture or land. Later in the story the role of the "pale-faced" men become more real when Sa get's taken to the East for educational purposes. In addition to this, it is important to note the role Sa's mother had in forming her opinion of the "pale-faced" men. Sa is greatly troubled by her mother's first hand experiences with these foreign men. From a young age she learns of the grief they have caused in her family and community. She mentions how it "aroused revenge in [her] small soul." Although, most of her childhood is conveyed as innocent and playful, this is the one instance she felt hatred in her. It is interesting to see how her mother's experiences formed her initial thoughts of the foreign men. However, this sentiment is quickly changed because of the curiosity she has to visit the wonder land. I also agree that her identity as Native American was so present during her childhood because of the way she was immersed in the culture. The bead work, the legends of the elders, and the habitual things of life gave her a sense of belonging to this community. The sense of belonging went away when she decided to leaver home. Although, she had formed ideas about the "pale-faced," she began to question these ideas. Perhaps it was a sense of curiosity to learn about the East or unfair judgement towards the foreign men.
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Brandon Lee
9/27/2017 09:45:34 pm
Ryan, I love your beginning sentence, “Zitkala-Sa is quite literally trying to find her place in the world.” Stated frankly, that is what Zitkala-Sa’s passage boils down to. It is the bildungsroman of a young Indian girl experiencing the world from an innocent perspective. We the readers are traveling along with her from her quaint Indian village to her school far in the east. The author is able to beautifully craft this coming of age story and comment on the marginalization of the Indian people by telling it through her younger self, coercing the reader towards understanding her people’s predicament through the impartial eyes of a young girl. I think that your argument about power in the story is also spot on. Right from the beginning Zitkala-Sa throws us into her world of oppression and powerlessness. Although she doesn’t fully understand its implications in the story, she understands that it is a form of injustice and malevolent, which we learn through her mother’s story of her dead relatives and their forced removal from their ancestral land. We also see it in the way young Zitkala-Sa describes white men, as the “pale-faces.” I also appreciate how you touched on her “immortalized” role as a learner, especially within the scene with the coffee beans. As we read the passage, we follow Zitkala-Sa’s point of view, and we can tell that indeed it is one of a benevolently ignorant young girl. We see from the part where she is chasing her own shadow, from her curiousness of the wandering man, and from her futile attempt to brew coffee, that she still has much to learn. We also know that Zitkala-Sa is a curious child through her nagging to go east.
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Seth Dumaguin
9/28/2017 01:29:02 am
Your analysis is great and spot on. It was very clear and concise. I was able to follow it easily. I really liked the way how you describe Sa as "someone finding herself in the world", for it is quite true. She is still trying to figure out how she will live her life. The point that you brought up that she represents a child as a learner, but I also think she represent's a way a child simply acts. A child's curiosity is very strong and that is seen through Sa. Her curiosity of how much fun it would be to live outside her village is what drove her to have a terrible life. She represents the saying of "the grass is not always greener on the other side". Also, I liked the way you compared the "pale-face" to the serpent in the story Adam and Eve. I did not catch that. Anyways, that point is really great because they did actually lure the children towards them, tempting them with better life. Finally, I liked the way how our reading somewhat made a full circle. It first described Sa having all the freedom in the world and having a community around her to support her, then at the end it shows her being tied down to a chair, not being able to communicate to anyone, losing her sense of power, her hair, and finally not having any community behind her to support her.
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Natalie Enos
9/28/2017 09:48:52 am
Ryan, I think that what you are saying here is very interesting, and I agree with much of what you discussed. I definitely agree that Sa is struggling to find her place, and that the strength of her community at home gives her comfort. I saw a lot of different aspects of community in this piece, and I think that Sa really emphasizes that community was everything to her friends and family. Primarily, they all address each other as family members, saying, “my child” or “grandfather.” This creates the idea that everyone supports and loves the other like a family member would, and creates a strong sense of community. Sa has a specific place as a member of a larger and stronger group.
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Damaris Hernandez
9/28/2017 11:42:30 am
Ryan, I too agree with your analysis of Sa's essays. The class themes power, place, and community are without a doubt highlighted throughout the essays and in your analysis. It is certain that the paleface has a higher kind of power than her mom, and her indian community. I think it is also important to notice that her mom believes she also has a greater a power that she has to withhold and keep in front of her daughter. That is why she tries to not cry in front of her own daughter and keep a tough face on, a power she feels is important to keep to show and protect her daughter from a bad world. Which brings in the two important ideas that you mentioned in regards to Sa's innocence, Ryan, of her mother and grandfather maintaining her young innocence and purity. In this case she is also trying to learn from her mom and wants to learn about what makes her sad, which highlights a child's eagerness to learn. I think it is very important that you mentioned how all three things power, place, and community ere stripped from Sa. Her place as a young native american girl was evidently stripped of her when she stopes devoting attention to her past and when her 'long black hair', an important characteristic of her she repeats in the passage which most likely has a great significance to her, is cut off. Like how Lorenzo mentions, it was the last thing she had from her native american culture. The comparison to Adam and Eve is very interesting because it correctly and accurately compares Sa's situation to that of Adam and Eve's is very similar. This can also be seen when Sa is impatient to taste the plums and her mom tells her about the dead man's plum bush. Here she begins to be impatient and to an extent disobedient which foreshadows the stripping of her culture later on.
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Hudson Northrop
9/27/2017 04:09:10 pm
The stories of Zitkala’s interactions with her mother, family members, other elders, and children of the community all contribute to a similar yet very prominent notion of home. From the comfort of her mother’s lap to the joyful activities she partakes in with the other kids, Zitkala describes countless events and emotions that all make up one’s home and community. However, as alluded to early on, Sa’s mother is filled with worry because she knows the threat that white people pose towards their comfortable life, for she has seen the death of her people as a result of the pale faced people. Being the young child that she is, as her mother discusses the white people Zitkala doesn’t appear to truly grasp the potential danger the future holds. Her mother consequently appears less content with the beauty of their home because she understands its impermanence. Meanwhile, the young and ignorant Zitkala appears very content with the world because she has yet to experience any of the harsh truths of reality.
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Elizabeth Lemons
9/27/2017 05:40:16 pm
I agree with you on the warm feeling of home created by Zitkala-Sa's discussion of community. She goes into such detail about various characters in her life such as her mother, aunt, and Wiyaka-Napbina that the reader, too, feels the sense of community and trust that she grew up in. You mention "countless emotions," which I agree with; community is built upon fear and love, both of which Zitkala-sa writes on. I'd like to see more about Zitkala-sa's mother's unhappiness with their place, though, because I interpreted her feelings more of as being relentlessly attached to her place. She didn't want her daughter to leave and seemed still in touch with the culture in the way that she taught Zitkala-sa braiding and storytelling. There is, however, the section on page 45 where it is mentioned that her mother was taking a "farther step from her native way of living" that may show some discomfort in leaving parts of her familiar sense of place as a native.
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Sarah Giorgi
9/27/2017 10:11:47 pm
I like how in the opening sentence you summarize the first portion of the story. Zitkala takes her time to describe the community she grew up in. In doing so, she demonstrates how her upbringing shaped her. Her community was one that taught her to respect the elders and honor the dead, which causes her to place strong significance on her own culture. This can be shown in the second portion of the story where she tries her hardest to prevent her hair from getting cut off once she has moved to the East. This incident is traumatizing for her; the cutting of her hair symbolizes the growing distance between her and her culture.
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Allan Lee
9/28/2017 12:31:45 am
I really like how you tie all of Zitkala's interactions before leaving to the prominent notion of home. Because of her comfortability at home and her age, Sa's identity is primarily based on her innocence. She lives a sheltered life where is unaware about the dangers of the world outside her community and is even unaware about her own shadow. I think a large part of her sheltered nature is due to her mother. Her mother has always been vague in explaining all of the dangers of the the Palefaces and possibly other perils. It is why Zitkala does not feel comfortable being in the teepee alone or going far from the teepee. I think you are right in her mother is constantly worried and therefore, I think their relationship is largely based off of comfortability and safety. I think it is where both of them get their power from too. Sa is able to obtain power for herself through her innocence, being in control of her own thoughts. Her mom is able to obtain power from staying in the known for both her and herself.
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Vincent Lyau
9/28/2017 01:18:26 am
For me, it was almost distressing to see Zitkala leave her mother. As you've mentioned, her mother indeed worries for Zitkala's future, even as Zitkala, through no fault of her own, naively believes that the East will be a better place to be. It is surprising in a way that Zitkala's mother would even allow the white men to talk to Zitkala, given her mother's experiences. It is in a way the plight of the weak; neither Zitkala's mother nor the Dakota tribe has the strength to prevent their effective confinement or to "save" Zitkala from being convinced by the missionaries. The Dakota community that Zitkala belongs to is a weakened shell of its past and many of its members are slowly losing faith in their tribe and choosing instead to forge new lives elsewhere. It is too difficult for many of them to continue living their lives in the way they have on the reservation. Power and community are tied in this way. Without the power to defend its members, a community is hard-pressed to stay together. For this reason I think it is not so much a bad decision on Zitkala’s part or a decision made based on incomplete knowledge. If anything, Zitkala made the only decision there really was. Here, Zitkala is already experiencing the harsh truths of reality you speak of. She simply isn’t aware of it yet.
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Nicole Mendoza
9/28/2017 11:55:50 am
I completely agree with your discussion of a "prominent notion of home." The first half of the excerpt details the powerful sense of community and culture which Zitkala-sa is so deeply connected to. Throughout these stories, Zitakala-sa is constantly described "skipping and jumping with delight," and having "wild freedom and overflowing spirits." This period, amongst her loving community, represents a time of deep innocence. Due to this naive and carefree nature, she does not "truly grasp the potential danger," as you stated. Even though her mother described the deaths of her sister and uncle at the hands of the palefaces, being in her utopian homeland makes her unable to comprehend the dangers and isolation that lay outside her community.
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Maribel Juarez Vargas
9/28/2017 01:02:28 pm
Similar to what you have stated, I think that even the order the passages are organize contribute to the idea of Zatkala-Sa's innocence fading away. We begin with her mother, who seems to cry often but this action is not supposed to be seen by a young girl like Zatkala-Sa. However, towards the end of "Impressions of an indian Childhood", the author is responsible of taking care of the corn, a dead person is mentioned, her fears are revealed, as well as her eagerness to form part of the "paleface's" world. Throughout the narration of seven short passages, we can see an 8 year girl how goes from taking refugee in her mother's arms and listening to elders' stories, to emotionally growing and ultimately deciding that she will depart from her mother's side.
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Lauren Jones
9/28/2017 10:13:07 am
Zitkala-Sa’s narrative is packed with the theme of power, place and community. Right from the beginning, the power of the “palefaces” were present in having control over her mother’s emotions, and said to have driven the Indians off of their land. This fact also incorporates the theme of place, because they changed the Indian’s sense of place, forcing them off of their land and forcing them to build their community in another place. Despite their disempowerment, the Indians managed to build up their tight-knit community, packed with many traditions, legends, and respect for one another.
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Christina Hendricks
9/28/2017 11:52:46 am
This piece is undoubtedly filled with careful relationships between power, place, and community-- all of which you clearly pointed out. The relationship between power and place I find to be very interesting, as she transitions throughout her life, racial superiority remains a prominent issue and its dominates regardless of location. By acknowledging that the Indians were disempowered, you illuminated the contrast between power and perceived weakness. Like you mentioned the empowering aspect of the Indian oppression was their response to the white men. Their resilience defines them as a community rich of tradition and warrior mentality. This concept ties together the role of power, place, and community and how both the positive and negative externalities of other cultures can serve to define the identity of another.
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Sydney Julien
9/28/2017 12:21:55 pm
Hi Lauren!
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Jillian Behrens
9/28/2017 01:22:34 pm
Lauren,
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Shalin Shah
9/29/2017 11:55:10 am
In Zitkala-Sa, prominent themes of power, place, and community are explored through the course of events that happen in the narrative. Immediately, we can see the relationship that Zitkala-Sa and her mother have. It is almost symbiotic in a sense, in which both of them need each other. Zitkala-Sa cares about and respects her mother a lot, which is why it bothers her when her mother is sad. When she saw her mother sad, she "clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall" (37). But at the same time, her mother needs her as well. Zitkala-Sa's childlike nature and running around in the wind freely was what made up "[her] mother's pride." Additionally, this deep regard for one another's feelings is again seen after Zitkala-Sa's mother talks about the "palefaced" on page 37 and Zitkala-Sa quietly thought "This aroused revenge in my small soul." Unfortunately, after the two are separated, this relationship between them breaks. Both still need each other, but they cannot do anything about it. Zitkala-Sa constantly misses her mother and even screams "I want my mother and my brother Dawee!" She shows the missing pieces in her life when she says "My tears were left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother was near to wipe them away." Also, over the course of the narrative, the community of indians become more and more disempowered. In the beginning, Zitkala-Sa and her mother are united, along with the rest of the community. They have much of their community with them, but there is a still a sense of bitterness from previous disempowerment. For example, when Zitkala-Sa's mother says "'If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink,'" this shows the exact resentment that she and other feel because of previous disempowerment. However, it only gets worse for the Indians. During early Spring, the "paleface" missionaries come into their village and split some of the Indians apart. They create idealistic images of their land so that Zitkala-Sa believe that they should go with the palefaces. And even after Zitkala-Sa goes with them, she becomes miserable. She hates [her] new life because just in the first few days she has "suffered extreme indignities. People had stared at [her], [She] had been tossed about... And now [her] hair was shingled." Obviously, the Indians are not given their own choices, they are mostly coerced into doing what the "palefaced" want them to do. Ultimately, the foundation of the palefaced in the narrative is built from slowly stripping away the power of the Indians.
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Ava Mora
10/1/2017 04:58:04 pm
Shalin,
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Ava Mora
10/1/2017 04:49:17 pm
I thought the reading about Zitkala-Sa and leaving her reservation to go with the missionaries was particularly interesting regarding the theme of community, place and power. As the narrative describes her both and after leaving her home, it's interesting to note how themes shift. When Zitkala-Sa was torn from her family she writes, "My tears were left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother was near to wipe them away." Clearly, Zitkala-Sa was very close to her mother and she found that the older overseers of their place and community were the ones holding the power. For example, she seeks their approval and love when everyone is close in this community. Almost everyone knows her name, they all speak the same language and she respects her family more than anything. It's interesting to note that as one would think she lost her sense of place and community by leaving, I believe it's the opposite. When she was living with her family she was naive to the world and she didn't know how to adapt to other places. She was never in a position before to learn a new language or even be the subordinate of someone that wasn't close to her. Through this I believe she actually gained a sense of community and place by leaving the reservation, considering her world was so isolated before. Now, Zitkala-Sa has to become and adult and do things for herself, which is something she wasn't really doing before. As she had limited power in her former community, I believe this maturity she has to adapt and moving to a new place gives her power over her reservation family because she's the only one removing herself from the situation and seeing the real world.
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8/1/2022 03:51:22 am
Hem kaliteli hem de ucuz takipçi satın al seçeneği ile birlikte sizlerde kaliteli bir büyüme elde edebilirsiniz. Bu ve daha fazlası için adresimize giriş yapabilirsiniz.
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8/1/2022 06:34:22 am
Takipçi satın almak artık çok pratik bir işlem oldu. Hızlı bir şekilde takipçi satın al işlemi için hemen sayfamızı ziyaret etmelisiniz.
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8/3/2022 09:02:30 am
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12/19/2022 09:12:18 am
İnstagram takipçi satın almak istiyorsan tıkla.
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1/4/2023 11:48:01 am
100 tl deneme bonusu veren siteleri öğrenmek istiyorsan tıkla.
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