- ISBN13: 9780142437094
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, refuses to be caged by married and domestic life and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Kate Chopin shows Edna’s transformation-and its tragic consequences. This unique volume also includes some of Chopin’s finest stories, among them “At the ‘Cadian Ball” and “D?sir?e’s Baby.”
Edited with an Introduction by Sandra M. Gilbert… More >>
American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings
Wonderful book. Gives insight into not only Lakota Cultural Past and Present, but very personal looks at life through the eyes of a Lakota woman at a tenuous time in US history.
Rating: 5 / 5
I was required to read this for my American Multicultural Literature class in college, and I actually enjoyed it! It’s a great history lesson into Native American culture. It also has great Native American tales that would be great to share with any age!
Rating: 5 / 5
Outstanding book; fascinating stories told by an amazing woman; so important for minority women writers and all serious readers.
Rating: 5 / 5
There are two short stories by Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) that have greatly effected my consciousness.
“Why I Am a Pagan,” writen for the Atlantic Monthly in 1902 is a brilliant essay. It deals with the spritual independence of Native Americans. An independence found outside the walls of a church, as Bonnin herself writes:
“A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”
Her voice is innocently defiant, because she is a native of a land under the occupation of a foreign government. Only by being conquered are her beliefs, and customs, found to be immoral. To hold on to them in the face of oppression takes great courage.
This theme is continued in another short story “The School Days of an Indian Girl” (Atlantic Monthly, 1900). In this short story, Zitkala-Sa, writes about the experience of a young Native girl going to a distant “White” school. The story hits upon the cultural clashes that occur.
At home the young Native girl is the apple of her mother’s eye. Taken from her home she becomes a subject to authority. Zitkala-Sa describes the event of her hair being cut at the “White” school:
“I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities.”
Zitkala-Sa’s writing is unrelentingly honest, but has some comedic tones in it as well.
Rating: 5 / 5
“American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings” is a collection of pieces by Zitkala-Sa (also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin). The book is edited, with an introduction and notes by, Cathy N. Davidson and Ada Norris. Born on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota in 1876, Zitkala-Sa worked as a writer and activist for Native American causes, and died in 1938.
The editors divide Zitkala-Sa’s writings into 4 main sections: “Old Indian Legends,” “American Indian Stories,” “Selections from _American Indian Magazine_,” and “Poetry, Pamphlets, Essays, and Speeches.” I really loved the legends, which are Zitkala-Sa’s versions of tales that had been passed down orally. These stories are full of magic, transformations, fantastic beings, and amazing feats. Many tales feature Iktomi, a “spider fairy” who is a mischievous trickster.
The section on stories features realistic narratives of Indian lives. All together these stories create a vivid and fascinating portrait, with details about Indian crafts, food preparation, and social customs. The many nonfiction pieces in the book cover a number of topics, such as Native American soldiers in World War I, Native American religion, and Indian political issues. Many of these pieces show the author to be a really forward thinking woman with a global perspective; her acknowledgement of the “universal cry for freedom from injustice” really seems to foreshadow the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other great activist-writers of the later 20th century.
The book is full of great supplemental materials: a comprehensive introduction; a lengthy bibliographic list of suggestions for further reading; an informative note on the texts; and endnotes. Zitkala-Sa is truly a fascinating figure. As the book’s introduction notes, she “trod the unstable terrain between radicalism, separatism, assimilationism, and intermittent conservatism.” The American Indian experience as embodied in her writings shows both fascinating parallels and contrasts with other ethnic American experiences. I consider this book a valuable contribution to Native American studies, women’s studies, and American literature; I recommend it highly both for classroom use and individual reading.
Rating: 5 / 5