American Indian Stories Essay -- essays research papers

In her leger American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sas central role as both an active and writer surfaces, which uniquely combines autobiography and fiction and represents an attempt to merge heathen 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 olive-sized girls nightmares of paleface devils and delineates her bitterness when her classmate died with an open Bible on her bed. In this advanced scene, she inverts the allegation of Indian religion as superstition by labeling Christianity.     Also, the keep as a whole reflects her empowerment, but also speaks eloquently in a conquering cultures language of what it is to have no power oer your destiny or selfhood. Her integration of several competing selve s led her to write this, in "The Great Spirit" "The racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now servicing nothing more than marking out a living Mosaic of human beings."     In "The Great Spirit" she demonstrates her rhetorical savvy in embedding palatably her critique of oppressive hierarchy. She evokes this theme again in " sunbathe Dance Opera," which she composed later in life. Here and elsewhere, she illustrates that the...