The School Days of an Indian Girl
Zitkala-Sa
In her collection of writings, The School Days of an Indian Girl, Zitkala-Sa shares her experiences of attending a Quaker missionary school when she was younger. She accomplished this through a non-fiction narrative writing style that enables the reader to see the emotional consequences of her forced assimilation through personal first hand stories during her time spent at the school. Zitkala-Sa faced many tumultuous experiences that she writes about in a story like structure, for example in “The School Days of an Indian Girl” page 187, when she states, “I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair.” She was inevitably forced to have her braids cut off which caused her to loose her spirit.
Additionally, another challenge Zitkala-Sa faces is confusion of the routines and the general context of the school from her lack of understanding of English or Anglo culture. This is felt by both her peers and herself, which causes one of her friends, Thowin, to be violently reprimanded which “frequently took place, bringing unjustifiable frights and punishments into our little lives” (page 188). The author continually writes about the hardships she faces, and the uncomfortable feelings she endures while attending this missionary school through her personal accounts of events, which allows the reader to closely attend to the emotions she faces, and to feel empathy for her in moments of pain, or misunderstandings she faces while acculturating into the Anglo culture.
This is really well-written and you really utilized your quotes perfectly. I definitely agree with you about how the expression of Zitkala-sa’s uncomfortable feelings allows the reader to connect and empathize with her. I think talking about her writing style was also a great approach. Nice job!
I completely agree with you about her use of uncomfortable experiences to help readers empathize with her.
Rachel – I think you’re right to frame this in terms of the complexity of assimilation. She’s trying to convey what it felt like, rather than to argue about whether it had any value or not; to generate a sense of empathy and understanding for the children who lived these experiences. Nice observations here.