Author: asimmons

 

Project 2: Zitkala-Sa

Zitkala-Sa was born in 1876, a time where the white man ruled the United States and oppressed minorities such as Native Americans. Zitkala-Sa was a part of the Yankton Sioux tribe. As a young girl she was taken from her family by white Americans who believed in “killing the Indian and saving the man (Smith and Media, pg 1).” She was put in a school where she was culturally assimilated into white man’s culture. She was stripped of her long Indian hair and Indian clothing. Zitkala-Sa and others were physically punished by the school teachers for having fun and doing activities that were within the Indian culture.  They were mentally punished from the fear instilled within them from the treatment of the teachers and the teaching of the devil and religion. Both physical and mental tactics were used to get rid of the Indian culture from the Indian children, as they were forced into an unfamiliar way of life.

Zitkala-Sa writes her autobiography “The School Days of an Indian girl” with the goal to portray her experiences of being an Indian girl in a white man’s country. In her autobiography she explains how it feels to be stripped of her rights and being forced into an unfamiliar culture. She expresses the struggles of trying to fit into the white culture the school had brought her up in, and her own culture that her mother and tribe raised her in. She is torn between two cultures due to an oppressing culture that was wrongfully forced upon her. Zitkala-Sa presents her struggles of trying to find her fit in either culture through descriptive and figurative language and pathos.

Throughout Zitkala-Sa’s life she struggled to assimilate into white man’s culture. As an attempt to fit in she disobeys her mother she goes east to continue her education, instead of west like the rest of the children the tribe she grew up with. She feels remorse that she stayed only to be mistreated by the white people she attends school with. “Often I wept in secret, wishing I had gone West, to be nourished by my mother’s love, instead of remaining among a cold race whose hearts were frozen hard with prejudice ( Zitkala-Sa, “Incurring My Mothers Displeasure” ).” She is upset at the way she is treated in white society and often wishes she could go back with her mother. Zitkala-Sa knows that is not an option since she has upset her and no longer feels as if she belongs in her own culture. Zitkala-Sa uses pathos and figurative language to describe her inner feelings and her feelings towards white people. This helps the reader understand the way she is treated and discriminated against and how it makes her feel excluded from their culture. Using the word “wept” really implies the emotional distress she is under by showing she wasn’t just crying or sad but truly hurt. This in turn causes feelings of anger and disappointment.

Zitkala-Sa has a lot of emotional appeal throughout her autobiography. As expressed in the article “An Analysis of an Autobiography “The School Days of an Indian girl” by Zitkala-Sa,” she tries to catch the support of the reader to feel for the Indian struggle in white culture through her feelings and personal experiences.  She uses the rhetorical strategy of pathos as explained by the article to catch the reader’s attention so they can understand her source of cultural confusion, which leads to her feelings of anger and disappointment in white culture. Using personal experiences is useful, because it is not just another history book but a true and real look of the turmoil and trials of being an Indian in a white culture. The reader is then able to emotionally connect to Zitkala-Sa’s story and feel remorse and anger for what she went through.

Zitkala-Sa uses figurative language to describe her loneliness and want for her mother. In the section “Incurring my Mothers Displeasure,” Zitkala struggles to find her place in white culture within her school. She excels in school and the speaking contest she enters as well as school work. She wears their clothes and embodies their culture in every way she can. She is still rejected by groups of prejudice people within her school community. After winning both of her speaking contests she is over joyed, but when she is alone she is still not at peace with her accomplishment of overcoming the adversity and oppression that she faces. She longs for her mother’s acceptance once again. “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 (Zitkala-Sa, “Incurring My Mothers Displeasure”).”  As a teenager Zitkala-Sa struggled to find where she belonged due to the unfamiliarity of white culture and her straying away from her own. She is still lost and struggles to find a sense of belonging within either culture. Here she uses personification to emphasize how much she longed for her mother. Her hunger here is an unsatisfied hunger of an emotional gap in her life without her mother.

Zitkala-Sa focuses on her mother’s disapproval much throughout her entire autobiography and mainly in the last section. “At the moment, her mother’s inarticulate wail gives voice to her pain, her sense of dislocation (Stanley 68).” She has nowhere to turn and seek shelter from the cruel and demeaning words and gestors of the white culture to her own. The one place a young women most often seeks shelter is her mother. Unfortunately Zitkala-Sa does not have this, only adding to her feeling of isolation within her. She is unable to find a place in either of the worlds she knows due to the lack of maternal guidance and prejudice she faces.

Zitkala-Sa uses personal experience to evoke feelings of anger and remorse from the reader. Stanley describes her lack of belonging as “pain (Stanley 68)” and that she is stuck in an “in-between place (Stanley, 68).” Zitkala-Sa expresses her pain by explaining the way she felt as she stood in front of an ignorant audience at her last speaking contest. “The slurs against the Indian that stained the lips of our opponents were already burning like a dry fever within my breast (Zitkala-Sa, “Incurring My Mothers Displeasure).” Again she uses figurative language to describe the hateful words and signs of the white culture. Her pain is described to be almost like a virus and the prejudice of the people is what is infecting her. She tries to find ways to get over it but she is too stuck between two cultures to have anyone to turn to. She longs to find cure for this hateful virus which infects her whenever she is exposed to hatred and prejudice of white culture.  Showing this allows her to show the reader not only does it hurt her but it infuriates her.

Another contributing factor to her lack of belonging is her lack of friendship. She finds more hate than she does love or sympathy. Whenever she is finial embraced by white culture and fellow class mates it is only because she exceeded their expectations of her. She had to prove her intelligence and belonging instead of having true friends or an inside person to talk to. “I scarcely had a real friend, though by that time several of my classmates were courteous to me at a safe distance (Zitkala-Sa, “Incurring My Mothers Displeasure).” Here, Zitkala-Sa is using personal experience to describe her feeling of alienation. Her classmates stayed away making sure not to get to close to her as if there was something wrong with her. This is pathos because it has a sense of emotional appeal anyone who has ever experienced being left out of anything. Almost everyone went through a time of awkwardness and alienation of others. She is trying to evoke the emotional sympathy of the reader to help them understand how she feels isolated and lost throughout her life journey.

Altogether, Zitkala-Sa had many factors contributing to her inner struggle to find a place or purpose in any culture. She keeps a little of each culture with her wherever she is. “I had a secret interview with one of our best medicine men, and when I left his wigwam I carried securely in my sleeve a tiny bunch of magic roots (Zitkala-Sa, “Incurring My Mothers Displeasure).” She sticks to her home culture while trying to be a part of a culture that has forced her to adapt away from her own. Zitkala-Sa uses pathos through self-experiences and descriptive and figurative language to express the prejudice of white culture ant the way it affected her. She used these experiences to connect to both cultures in hope of change and the elimination of white oppression against her people. “Zitkala-Sa chooses to valorize her own autobiographical and her people’s cultural and historical texts in order to transform the existing hegemonic social and political systems (Stanley 68).” Her goal of this autobiography is to use her emotional and trivial experiences to make change to the world she lived in. Readers are hooked into this cry, not only from Zitkala-Sa but also her people, by the emotion and anger she expresses throughout the pieces. It causes white readers to feel angry against their wrong doing in the hopes of changing their way of thinking. Zitkala-Sa also expresses moments of kindness from white people to show that there are those who do believe in this statement from both cultures.

A key theme in Eric Scott’s memoir Picking Lots, is a theme of acceptance. Throughout his short memoir he expresses how normal paganism is to him. He knows nothing different. Unlike most people Scott was born into the religion he is writing about. He always noticed he was strange, but it wasn’t until college that he noticed he was completely different. “And at that moment, I realized that I was the weird one, that my friends were engaging in, at least from the standards of a Midwestern background, completely normal behavior (Scott, Picking Lots).” Here he is shocked that he was so different. Scott has his eye opening experience at this time in his life. Nothing changes in his way of viewing things but rather his faith is strengthened. He sees his friends participating in something so strange and cannot imagine believing anything other than paganism. “Every year I realize more how strange a gift is; and every year, I realize how much more grateful I am to have received it (Scott, Picking lots).” He becomes more and more grateful for his religion and what he is born into the more he sees others. Also he becomes accepting of others in becoming more comfortable with his own identity. He live to be open to others and develop as society does while still keeping his beliefs.

Scott does not tell the purpose of the memoir until the end of his story. I believe he does this to keep the reader interested in what he is saying. Also to show how drastically his perception of himself changed. He went from a normal child to very different to everyone around him. His culture shock is emphasized as he was too shocked by the situation to talk about it. As he builds in his purpose he expresses the importance of his own acceptance and the acceptance of other. The point of this memoir was to not help a lost person find their way in life, but reassure those who are confident in who they are.

The section I chose to look at was “Hands in His Pocket.” In this section of his book I feel Rivera truly does portray the struggle, strength and beauty of the character when he is staying with Don and Dona. His experiences their while in school are definitely struggle filled experiences. From the nasty habits of his care takers to the food he eats and the room he sleeps all present daily struggles for him. In this section “Hands in His Pocket,” in Rivera’s book …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him the character states “they told me I looked thin and was sick from fright (“Hands in His Pocket” pg 101).” This shows the physical roles of the struggles he went through. This also shows strength when he denies the terrible experiences he went through to keep from disappointing his father as well as to save himself. “I told them no (“Hands in His Pocket” pg 101).” He then blames it on school and him playing. He has the strength to lie and describe positive experience in order to save his father and mother from the horrible truth. There is also beauty in all of this. He is willing to hide the truth from others to ensure their happiness. Especially his family. It shows the beauty of a tight family bond. He is willing to sacrifice a part of his mind to keep his parents happy and thinking that they spent their hard earned money on god experiences for their son.

Rivera portrays theses characteristics through narrative of his main character. The character describes each situation and how it made him feel. By doing this he is using the appeal of ethos or emotion to reach the reader so they fully understand the struggle and experiences he is going through. For strength and beauty Rivera portrays these characteristics by having the character take certain actions and make certain choices. He uses the plot to portray these things.

Baldwin’s writing “Sonny’s Blues” he writes on the common theme of struggle and understanding. In his writing Baldwin he portrays struggles through the story of the brother Sonny and narrator’s own family tragedies and the lack of opportunity because of race. In the beginning of the story the narrator is concerned with news of sunny getting sent to jail because of drugs. He is angered by his brother’s bad decision. The narrator does not reach out to the brother until he has had his own family tragedy. The narrator, Sonny’s brother expresses this by saying. “when I finally did [write his brother] it was just after my little girl died (Sonny’s Blues pg 2198).” Baldwin uses Sonny’s and his brothers struggles to bring them together. Sonny’s brother expresses is regret or shame of not reaching out sooner by using the term “Bastard (Sonny’s Blues, pg 2198).” He is upset and is mad at himself for not doing this before hand. The response of Sonny’s letter triggers this reaction. I feel Baldwin uses this scene in his story to portray. a later understanding of the brothers and the building of a broken relationship.

Baldwin uses flash back to foreshadow this point in the brothers’ lives and also to help the reader get a better understanding of what they have gone through. The narrator reflects on his childhood when he would sit and listen to the adults talk. He describes the feeling of “darkness (Sonny’s Blues, pg 2201).” of getting older and knowing that struggles and obstacles of growing older. The narrator show that he knew that at one point that it would only be him and Sonny in his family after the death of his parents. “But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, and is already ending (Sonny’s Blues pg. 2201) .” This shows that the narrator knew that he would eventually have to turn to and support his brother in times of struggle.

In Zitkala’s short story “School Days of an Indian Girl” she expresses how she really does not feel she belongs in her Native American culture or the American culture she has been forced to be assimilated into. This is clear as she describes her coming home from school in the section of “Four Strange Summers,” Zitkala expresses this by stating “even nature seemed to have no place for me.” Nature was a big part of her spirituality and Native American culture. I feel she is saying that she is lost spiritually and culturally and that this new school and teachings has alienated her from any sense of belonging. They cut her hair and changed her clothes taking her away what is familiar to her. When she returned home she threw away her white clothing and she was still not accepted because all the educated children were dressed in their white attire. ”  Many schemes of running away from my surroundings hovered about in my mind (Zitkala, section 6).” The fact she felt that she did not belong clearly troubled her. She thought of running away from it all. Instead, she continues her schooling in the hopes she will return “taller (Zitkala, section 6)” and find a sense of acceptance with her mother and her culture.

Zitkala tries to reach the reader and express her sense of not belonging through emotional appeal or ethos. She through out this section expresses her grief through describing the situation and her emotional reactions and thoughts on the way it made her feel. “I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond the touch or voice of human aid (Zitkala, Section 6).” I thought this was a very powerful quote she really sums up how she is beyond help. This really made feel how lost she really was and i feel this effectively reached the reader.

In Emerson’s “Divinity Schools Address” he stresses to he new graduates that the reason so many people have stopped going to church and having faith is because it is not spoken with power and passion by the preachers. Emerson state ” the test of the true faith, certainly, should be its power to charm and command the soul. (Emerson, Divinity School Address, paragraph 23).”  Emerson is saying that these new preachers are heading out into the real world where the current ones have essentially bored the public into poor faith. It is in a way these young, new preachers duty to charm and capture this group of people that their soul is so commanded by what they say they go back to way of good faith by free choice. If they fail to do so they are failing at their duties. He expresses this time as a “famine (Emerson, Paragraph 23).” the people no longer seek words of faith and the church is hungry for new comers. The main idea of this paragraph and the point that Emerson is stressing is that these young preachers must revamp the church and make it a desirable place by the way they speak.

Emerson portrays the way faith should be preached by using imagery and metaphors and comparing it to peaceful and enjoyable animals and nature. Emerson states that it should be “the sining bird. (Emerson, Divinity School Address, paragraph 23).” Singing birds are peaceful and people want to listen to them he is creating this sensory detail to help make a vivid example of what he feels is the right way to preach and what will make people come and listen to church and the message it has to provide. Emerson continues to use sensory images and metaphors to explain the way a church sermon should be opened and closed. He thinks it should ride and set like a sun. With this he is implying that the message should be natural and smooth and enjoyable to listen too as a sunset and rise are to see. Maybe he is saying that he even wants people to see the message as beautiful so it really reaches them.

 

One of Stowe’s goals of this novel is to convince her audience to have sympathy and feeling for slaves. She does this by using her female characters who disagree with their husbands on the subject of slavery creating a parallel of opinion between the men and women in the story. “Why not make a pecuniary sacrifice? I’m willing to bear my part of the inconvenience. O, Mr. Shelby, I have tried—tried most faithfully, as a Christian woman should—to do my duty to these poor, simple, dependent creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched over them, and know all their little cares and joys, for years; and how can I ever hold up my head again among them, if, for the sake of a little paltry gain, we sell such a faithful, excellent, confiding creature as poor Tom, and tear from him in a moment all we have taught him to love and value? I have taught them the duties of the family, of parent and child, and husband and wife; and how can I bear to have this open acknowledgment that we care for no tie, no duty, no relation, however sacred, compared with money? I have talked with Eliza about her boy—her duty to him as a Christian mother, to watch over him, pray for him, and bring him up in a Christian way; and now what can I say, if you tear him away, and sell him, soul and body, to a profane, unprincipled man, just to save a little money? I have told her that one soul is worth more than all the money in the world; and how will she believe me when she sees us turn round and sell her child?—sell him, perhaps, to certain ruin of body and soul!” (Stowe, Ch. 5). In this passage Mrs. Shelby is upset that her husband is willing to sell the slaves for monetary reasons. She thinks it’s immoral and not Christian. She has taught them and raised them and even given Eliza a proper wedding. She is has very strong feelings for the slaves she owns. While Mr. Shelby was reluctant to sell Tom and Harry he was still over run by his greed. The fact that Mrs. Shelby has grown so fond of Tom, Harry and some of the other slaves shows her sympathy and emotional care for them unlike Mr. Shelby who is more concerned about keeping his monetary status.

Again in the second section of the reading we see the Birds’ argument and how there is more emotion from the female and more duty reasoning from the man. “You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures! It’s a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can’t give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!” (Stowe, Ch. 9). Mrs. Bird is upset because she knows again refusing to aide those in need is unchristian, and her husband has just voted for the fugitive slave act which prohibits this. He claimed it was his “painful Duty” (Stowe, Ch. 9). We can see she is disregarding his place in government and what the people want for what is morally right. She again, like Mrs. Shelby, has sympathy and feelings for the slaves. One of Stowe’s main reasons for this novel was to persuade people to have sympathy and feeling for slaves, not necessarily to end it all together. You can see through these two women characters she is trying to get this message across. Stowe targeted women as her audience; she picked these two characters to embody the domesticated women of the time,and the message she wanted to convey. Her hope in doing this was to reach these women in real life and for them to use their moral reasoning to try to convince their husbands to do the same since this was one of the only ways they could influence society at the time.

In both readings Franklin thinks very highly of himself and his works. He then turns around and stresses the importance of humility. Contrary to his narcissistic attitude he openly admits that he practices humility because people listen to him and like him more because he portrays himself as humble. “The frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else, but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it” (Franklin Way to Wealth). Here he is highly pleased with the mentions of his work, although the story is fictional by characters he has made up himself. this shows he isn’t very humble by essentially creating this reading to glorify himself. In the 9th paragraph of Franklin’s “Autobiography” he states that “I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading.” Here he suggest that people say this is a good reading and recommends his works and that people listen better when ha takes this approach instead of saying he suggest his own work. In the lines before he mentions that this method, a method of humility rises one reputation.

Franklin tries to persuade the reader to be humble and have humility by providing examples showing how pretending to be humble works in helping him be successful. While he portrays himself as a not so humble guy through his self glorification in “The Way to Wealth” he emphasizes in his autobiography that humility is a key to being perfect. The way he talks about how he suggest thing how he gives discreet inputs so that people will read his work but they wont think down on him for glorifying himself. This adds to his success. He states this by saying “The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. (Franklin Autobiography,  Chapter 8).” Overall he was not a humble man but he recognizes that it is necessary to be successful, and he continuously sates this to show the reader and to persuade that this is a good American value and it is needed to prosper.

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