Sa - The soft-hearted sioux PDF

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Summary

Analyse og tolkning av novellen The soft-hearted sioux. Notatene er tatt fra både forelesning, seminar og egenstudier, og disse ble brukt til eksamenslesing....

Description

Zitkala Sa – The Soft-Hearted Sioux

Genre Short story Title is almost an oxymoron (contradiction): A Sioux is not supposed to be soft-hearted, but a killer and a fighter – ironically he becomes it in the end “soft-hearted”: sums up both what is wrong and what is right with the protagonist

Plot summary The protagonist, a young Sioux man, left his home in order to go to a Christian boarding school. The man returns to his people as a new person with new ideas and foreign objects as he is sent back to preach Christianity to them. When he tries to tell his village about Christ and the Bible, the medicine man comes forward and accuses him of being a fool and a traitor, because the Christian teachings do not mesh with the teachings of the Native American people. Later, the family’s food supply is running short and his father is ill. The young man realizes that his father will die unless he goes out and hunt for food. He goes out and kills a cow, but is attacked by an Anglo man whom the cow belonged to. On instinct the young man kills the Anglo and brings the food home, but it’s late as his father has already died. At last he gave himself up to the authorities and is sentenced to death.

Structure and style 

Style: melodramatic and tragic

Setting  

Takes place in the Sioux community, in the home village of the young man Effect: emphasizes how much the young man has changed when he comes home from mission school, and how much his Anglo ideals are conflicting with the Sioux culture

Characters 

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The young Sioux man o Is put into boarding school and returns back to his community after several years o After his return: the young man has become a stranger in his own community and cannot function as a traditional adult male member of that community – was supposed to be a warrior, huntsman and husband, but has instead chosen to hunt for the heart of Christ o Stands between two worlds and is part of neither of them (liminal position) o “Soft-hearted”: positive in Christianity, but a weakness for the N-As as life required a toughness Father

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o The ideal for his son o The reason his son became a killer – pivotal role Medicine man o Accuses the young man for being a traitor o Represents the tribe and its belief -> incompatible with the Bible

Point of view  

1st person point of view – the young Sioux man Tells the story in his voice

Symbolism   

The knife Buffalo hunt Bible

Subject and themes   

Sioux ideals of masculinity and white middle-class Christian ideals of masculinity comes into conflict in the story’s protagonist and first-person narrator The terrible conflict that Native Americans experienced when being anglicised (taken away from birth families -> into boarding schools) 2 conflicting cultures – different demands, norms, values -> falling into a liminal position where one does not really belong in either

How to read/interpret story   

A literary response to the era’s policy of re-educating Native Americans (assimilation – making the N-As like everyone else) Brings attention to the identity crisis of people trapped between cultures – the traditions of his tribe vs his newfound Christianity Intended audience: white Americans -> didactic purpose of story...