In the short story “In the Hour of the Wolf” (1949), Betty Louise Bell asserts that Native Americans have to be assimilated into the mainstream white culture which causes them to have serious identity crisis issues. When the Indian’s leave their tribe, it puts a major strain on how they perceive their old traditions which molds them to be all alike white people. This short story supports the claims of how inferior Indian’s feel to white people because of the emphasized comments about white people doing certain things that Indian’s do not do.
Bell’s intent seems to challenges readers to see how ridiculous it is that ssumptions are made about each of the white and Indian’s cultures. Her purpose is to make us aware of how Indian’s feel like outsiders when entering the mainstream world. The author also uses the parent-child relationships to display the importance of cultural differences in an Americanized setting. Each metaphorical way of describing spirits alludes the readers to learn to respect the Indian’s beliefs. By examining the beginning it’s evident that the Indian’s rely heavily on trying to carry out their traditions.
The story begins with a very sick mother in the hospital and her daughter Lucie inding out that she is ill from her mother’s landlady. This example of parent-child relations seems to show us that theirs’s lacks security, because they have not kept in touch, the daughter did not even know who her mother’s boyfriend was. It was because of the assimilation into American culture of having to be recreate the new identity of fitting into the white culture. Her mother was dating jail break white men who did not treat her in the best way that they could and she kept getting new ones.
Is the American way having awful relationship and trying to fit into the cultural norms as the mother thought? Upon arriving to the hospital the daughter had to travel from California to Oklahoma to get to, she notices how separated this Indian hospital seems to the public. Her thoughts of the unfairness in the government circulate as she walks in and notices the sign of how to properly dress when seeing a doctor, in seeing this, feelings of uneasiness disperse because of the way American’s are instinctively adjusted to cultural normality’s.
The flashbacks of reentering in this world of modern technologies and unwritten rules hit the daughter hard inside, she is a minority, her beliefs are not valued to these white eople who think they are so great. The smell of white people continues to be repeated in negative connotation as the smell of urine is associated with it. The stories that are told over and over had to come from somewhere and each time they were retold, they lost a little bit of their original value time after time. The children are then expected to remember the stories so that they can be passed down.
The parent-child relationships are often full of respect, discipline, and do not interfere with the children’s social and physical developments. They want the hildren to learn decision making from their own consciousness and build confidence in their endeavors. With their development the traditional guidelines must be followed. In creating this fictional piece of writing the use of parent-child relationship continues to be evident throughout as racial tension is described, as well as the daughter’s frustration with her relationship with her mother.
The daughter is most resentful of her mother’s actions in trying to blend into the white people culture because of the way her mother has disconnected with her tribe and pretended like she never was an Indian. Not only the loss of her culture, but in dying in the hospital bed it shows how the mother didn’t even try to die a natural death as the Indian’s believe. The symbolism at the end has a purpose to hit readers because of all of the hospital cords wrapped around the dead mother and her Indian way of life seemed to have never even happened.
Parent-child relationships in Indian cultures are very close, this story amplifies the irony of showing that white culture parent-child do not remain close and are often disconnected and very selfish. When My Brother Was an Aztec y Natalie Diaz collection of poetry conveys poems with messages of deep hurt that deal with the memories of living the Indian reservation life. Diaz is blatantly honest in her work using very descriptive imagery. The connotation harsh feelings for her and all of the things she saw while living on the reservation.
Each poem is extremely personal and creates haunting images for the reader but opens new perspectives to shut down our stereotypes of the reservation life. In the poem “Why I Hate Raisins” it significantly displays parent-child relationships as violent and brings in ideas of olitical and social issues that often go unnoticed. The first stanza compares love to sticky raisins which is a negative image of poverty with absolutely no food in the house other than raisins.
When the complaining of the child happens the child instinctively wants to be the white kid that has regular food, regular family, and a regular life. It is in this moment of no pride for who this Indian child is that his mother slaps him across the face. First of all, the child disrespected the mother and she would never put up with that. Each stanza is emotionally giving nd this style of poetry opens Diaz up to the readers. With the use of displaying social and political issues with Indian’s that live on reservation it gives us a stereotype of their culture that is one of troubled family dynamics.
Diaz is desperately trying to open the public’s eyes to the awful conditions of living that entail living with people that struggle with drug addictions, poverty, and emotional issues. The Indian’s are criticized by mainstream society and by growing up seeing awful things as Diaz has, she wants people to be aware. All of the poems in this book are motionally understanding what the true meaning of being rugs, violence, and poverty all human is like.
In the organizing of how each page is structured, Diaz uses the whole page to showcase her work especially in the use of her broken up stanza’s and the space on the page concept of making the poem look how it sounds. This visual imagery creates a fantasy-like feel when the words are spread out further than normal with odd spacing. The brokenness of stanzas also seems unsettling just like the parent-child relationships faced on Indian reservations. Children that grow up on the Indian reservation are exposed o awful things at a young age, traditions filled with drinking, drugs, and fighting.
The brutal reality of reservation life leaves families frustrated with each other and children confused as to why their life is the way it is. All of the poems showcased in Diaz’s book emphasis mother-daughter relationships greatly which are not portrayed in a good way. The damages done to the self within while living in a disrupted environment are hurting overtime with relationships being viewed in an obscure way. Finally, throughout all of these themes it’s safe to say that the ringing back together of the circle that the Indian’s so adamantly believe in happens within the healing process.
In my previous experience with Native American literature I had not faced the intensity of such a work like these. The poetry surfaces the realities of living in a damaged relationship with the child’s parents on the Indian reservation. Within the depressing poems there was a sense of finding oneself the themes of mother- daughter were poems that cut deep like a sharp knife. Diaz’s use of imagery words helped to analyze correctly the ideas that were meant to come out of these works of poetry.
