Senin, 26 Oktober 2009

Experiencing Multiculturalism through Literature:The Fruitfulness of the Student-Centered Approach of Teaching Literature

Asih Sigit Padmanugraha
Yogyakarta State University
asih.uny@gmail.com

Extremism occurring in this world and, specifically, in Indonesia recently is one form of the failure of education which does not accommodate multiculturalism. Terrorism is obviously the result of the distorted education which only focuses on mono-cultural values. Later, this will develop exclusivism in which there is no room for pluralism. This one-sided way of communication is dangerous for multiculturalism, which is, in fact, basic for human being. Therefore, the paper will explore how literature is fruitful for the students to experience multiculturalism and freely communicating its values.
Literature is one of the best ways to lead the students to experience multiculturalism. This is supported by the fact that it is multi-interpretable. Even literature itself has so many definitions though it means nothing without appropriate appreciation. When asked to read and interpret particular literary text there will be so many ideas different one another. This is in point of fact the real representation of multiculturalism in its specific and particular definition. In addition, these colorful interpretations come about as a consequence of the different milieu of the author, the work it self and the reader: be it social, cultural, and religious background. The communication of the readers’ and authors’ values through literature is what most matters in teaching literature. Additionally, the teaching-learning process must emphasize more to embed, grow, and develop the affective side of the students than the cognitive one. And since the students as the readers are from different backgrounds, those differences must be highly appreciated and it will enrich the teaching-learning process. This is possible if the student-centered approach is employed consistently and should be explicitly stated in the course syllabus and also lesson plan.
To conclude, it is evident that the communication of the different and various values of life becomes the key of teaching literature in multicultural context. If this kind of teaching-learning process works well, one-sided way of communicating values, which is obviously dangerous, will no longer have a place to grow up, for the affective mission of literature is to be sensitive and to understand others. The students will be more open-minded and will not be trapped in the destructive extremism as differences are basic for human being. They will see life in this world not as black and white but as the rainbow, which is always beautiful through times.
Key words: experiencing multiculturalism, student-centered approach, teaching literature, communication of values

Minggu, 25 Oktober 2009

Crow Mythology and Intelligence of these Birds

Crow

Mythology and Intelligence of these Birds

http://www.thewonderofbirds.com/

Crow - Birds of the Corvus genus

Crow Mythology and Intelligence

Home to more interesting bird information and facts

"I'll keep lookout while you see what you can find in there". Picture of two busy crows on a roof.

Photo of Crow on a railway water pipe.

"This will be nice for the nest". Picture of a Crow who has found some fluffy feathery material.

Continued from...Crow - Birds of the Corvus genus

Crow intelligence

As group, Crows demonstrate admirable examples of intelligence and they are considered by many to be the most intelligent birds. They seem to show signs of planning and communication between individuals. One of their species, the New Caledonian Crow (Corvus moneduloides), has recently been studied intensively regarding its ability to make and to use its own tools to obtain its food. It creates hooks from plant materials, and uses these self-made tools to skilfully remove grubs from logs.

Crows can count slightly. For example if three people enter a bird observation hut and two then leave, they know that the hut is not empty. Crows can learn to speak words and short sentences even clearer than parrots.

All crows have the interesting habit of collecting and hiding away bright objects that they do not seem to have any particular use of, apart from their attraction to the object's brilliance. Despite their remarkable abilities though, Crows and Ravens are very rarely kept as pets or domestic animals. This may be partly due to their mischievousness, which can be annoying.

Crow Legends and Mythology

The remarkable Crows and Ravens have roles in legends and myths worldwide. Their wisdom, intelligence and flying powers were used by Ancient Gods and Kings. These birds and superstitions surrounding them also played a role in the day-to-day lives of people.

In the Nordic mythology the Raven symbolizes wisdom. The God Odin had two Ravens called Hugin and Munin who flew around gathering news of happenings in the world, and sat on the God's shoulders telling him of what they had seen. The Greek God Apollo considered the Raven to be a sacred bird.

King Arthur of the English tale of Camelot and the Round Table was said to have not died but have been transformed by magic into a Raven or Crow, although other stories, particularly in Cornwall say Arthur was turned into a Chough or a Puffin. Legend says that if all the living Ravens leave the Tower of London, a catastrophic end will come to the English monarchy, and the Tower of London will fall. The "Beefeaters" who run the Tower therefore keep a group of Ravens there - just in case!

Previous...Crow - Birds of the Corvus genus

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Mythology

http://www.omnipelagos.com/index

Mythology

The word mythology (Greek: μυθολογία, from μύθος mythos, a story or legend, and λόγος logos, an account or speech) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. In modern usage, mythology is either the body of myths from a particular culture or religion (as in Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology) or the branch of knowledge dealing with the collection, study and interpretation of myths.

In common usage, myth means a falsehood — a story which many believe to be based on fact but which is not true. However, the field of mythology does not use this definition.

Definition

Myths are narratives about divine or heroic beings, arranged in a coherent system, passed down traditionally, and linked to the spiritual or religious life of a community, endorsed by rulers or priests. Once this link to the spiritual leadership of society is broken, they lose their mythological qualities and become folktales or fairy tales. Not every religious narrative is a myth however; unless it is deeply rooted in tradition, it may also be trivial pious anecdote or legend.

Myths are often intended to explain the universal and local beginnings ("creation mythss" and "founding myths"), natural phenomena, inexplicable cultural conventions, and anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself.

In folkloristics, which is concerned with the study of both secular and sacred narratives, a myth also derives some of its power from being believed and deeply held as true. In the study of folklore, all sacred traditions have myths, and there is nothing pejorative or dismissive intended in the use of the term, as there often is in common usage.

This broader truth runs deeper than the advent of critical history which may, or may not, exist as in an authoritative written form which becomes "the story" (Preliterate oral traditions may vanish as the written word becomes "the story" and the literate become "the authority"). However, as Lucien Lévy-Bruhl puts it, "The primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development." Most often the term refers specifically to ancient tales from very old cultures, such as Greek mythology or Roman mythology. Some myths descended originally as part of an oral tradition and were only later written down, and many of them exist in multiple versions.

According to F. W. J. Schelling in the eighth chapter of Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology, "Mythological representations have been neither invented nor freely accepted. The products of a process independent of thought and will, they were, for the consciousness which underwent them, of an irrefutable and incontestable reality. Peoples and individuals are only the instruments of this process, which goes beyond their horizon and which they serve without understanding."

Religion and mythology

Mythology figures prominently in most religions, and most mythology is tied to at least one religion. While in common usage of myth, the word may indicate a fiction or half-truth (nearly all dictionaries include this definition), myth does not imply that a story is either objectively false or true, it rather refers to a spiritual, psychological or symbolical notion of truth unrelated to materialist or objectivist notions. While many adherents of modern dominant religions regard the events surrounding the origin and development of their faith as literal historic accounts, there are many followers who instead regard them as figurative representations of their belief systems. Most of the new age religions, such as the Neopaganss, have no problem characterizing their religious texts as mythical.

The word mythology is used to refer to stories that, while they may or may not be strictly factual, reveal fundamental truths and insights about human nature, often through the use of archetypes. Also, the stories discussed express the viewpoints and beliefs of the country, time period, culture, and/or religion which gave birth to them. One can speak of a Hindu mythology, a Christian mythology, or an Islamic mythology, in which one describes the mythic elements within these faiths without speaking to the veracity of the faith's tenets or claims about its history.

Classifications

Ritual myths explain the performance of certain religious practicess or patterns and associated with temples or centers of worship. Origin myths describe the beginnings of a custom, name or object. Cult myths are often seen as explanations for elaborate festivals that magnify the power of the deity. Prestige myths are usually associated with a divinely chosen hero, city, or people. Eschatological myths are stories which describe catastrophic ends to the present world order of the writers. These extend beyond any potential historical scope, and thus can only be described in mythic terms. Apocalyptic literature such as the New Testament Book of Revelation is an example of a set of eschatological myths. Social myths reinforce or defend current social values or practices. Myths may fit in more than one category.

Related concepts

Myths are not the same as fables, legends, folktaless, fairy tales, anecdotes or fiction, but the concepts may overlap. Notably, during Romanticism, folktales and fairy tales were perceived as eroded fragments of earlier mythology (famously by the Brothers Grimm and Elias Lönnrot). Mythological themes are also very often consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer. The resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself being part of a body of myths (Cupid and Psyche). The medieval romance in particular plays with this process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism refers to the process of rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into pragmatic contexts, for example following a cultural or religious paradigm shift (notably the re-interpretation of pagan mythology following Christianization). Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time, for example the Matter of Britain and the Matter of France, based on historical events of the 5th and 8th centuries, respectively, were first made into epic poetry and became partly mythological over the following centuries. "Conscious generation" of mythology has been termed mythopoeia by J. R. R. Tolkien, and was notoriously also suggested by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

Formation of myths

What forces create myths? Robert Graves said of Greek myth: "True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially." (The Greek Myths, Introduction). Graves was deeply influenced by Sir James George Frazer's mythography The Golden Bough, and he would have agreed that myths are generated by many cultural needs.

Myths authorize the cultural institutions of a tribe, a city, or a nation by connecting them with universal truths. Myths justify the current occupation of a territory by a people, for instance.

All cultures have developed over time their own myths, consisting of narratives of their history, their religions, and their heroes. The great power of the symbolic meaning of these stories for the culture is a major reason why they survive as long as they do, sometimes for thousands of years. Mâche distinguishes between "myth, in the sense of this primary psychic image, with some kind of mytho-logy, or a system of words trying with varying success to ensure a certain coherence between these images.

A collection of myths is called a mythos, e.g. 'the Roman mythos.' A collection of those is called a mythoi, e.g. 'the Greek and Roman mythoi.' One notable type is the creation myth, which describes how that culture believes the universe was created. Another is the Trickster myth, which concerns itself with the pranks or tricks played by gods or heroes.

Joseph Campbell is one of the more famous modern authors on myths and the history of spirituality. His book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1948) outlined the basic ideas he would continue to elaborate on until his death in 1987. His theories, popularized in a series of books and videos, are more inspirational than scholarly, being more accepted among the general public than in academic circles.

Myths as depictions of historical events

As discussed above, the status of a story as myth is unrelated to whether it is based on historical events. Myths that are based on a historical nucleus over time become imbued with symbolic meaning, transformed, shifted in time or place, or even reversed.

One way of conceptualizing this process is to view 'myths' as lying at the far end of a continuum ranging from a 'dispassionate account' to 'legendary occurrence' to 'mythical status'. As an event progresses towards the mythical end of this continuum, what people think, feel and say about the event takes on progressively greater historical significance while the facts become less important. By the time one reaches the mythical end of the spectrum the story has taken on a life of its own and the facts of the original event have become almost irrelevant. A classical example of this process is the Trojan War, a topic firmly within the scope of Greek mythology. The extent of a historical basis in the Trojan cycle is disputed, see historicity of the Iliad.

This method or technique of interpreting myths as accounts of actual events, euhemerist exegesis, dates from antiquity and can be traced back (from Spencer) to Evhémère's Histoire sacrée (300 BCE) which describes the inhabitants of the island of Panchaia, Everything-Good, in the Indian Ocean as normal people deified by popular naivety. As Roland Barthes affirms, "Myth is a word chosen by history. It could not come from the nature of things".

This process occurs in part because the events described become detached from their original context and new context is substituted, often through analogy with current or recent events. Some Greek myths originated in Classical times to provide explanations for inexplicable features of local cult practices, to account for the local epithet of one of the Olympian gods, to interpret depictions of half-remembered figures, events, or account for the deities' attributes or entheogens, even to make sense of ancient icons, much as myths are invented to "explain" heraldic charges, the origins of which has become arcane with the passing of time. Conversely, descriptions of recent events are re-emphasised to make them seem to be analogous with the commonly known story. This technique has been used by some religious conservatives in America with text from the Bible, notably referencing the many prophecies in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation especially. It was also used during the Russian Communist-era in propaganda about political situations with misleading references to class struggles. Until World War II the fitness of the Emperor of Japan was linked to his mythical descent from the Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu.

Mâche argues that euhemerist exegesis, "was applied to capture and seize by force of reason qualities of thought, which eluded it on every side." This process, he argues, often leads to interpretation of myths as "disguised propaganda in the service of powerful individuals," and that the purpose of myths in this view is to allow the "social order" to establish "its permanence on the illusion of a natural order." He argues against this interpretation, saying that "what puts an end to this caricature of certain speeches from May 1968 is, among other things, precisely the fact that roles are not distributed once and for all in myths, as would be the case if they were a variant of the idea of an 'opium of the people.'"

Contra Barthes Mâche argues that, "myth therefore seems to choose history, rather than be chosen by it" , "beyond words and stories, myth seems more like a psychic content from which words, gestures, and musics radiate. History only chooses for it more or less becoming clothes. And these contents surge forth all the more vigorously from the nature of things when reason tries to repress them. Whatever the roles and commentaries with which such and such a socio-historic movement decks out the mythic image, the latter lives a largely autonomous life which continually fascinates humanity. To denounce archaism only makes sense as a function of a 'progressive' ideology, which itself begins to show a certain archaism and an obvious naivety."

Other theories

Middleton argues that, "For Lévi-Strauss, myth is a structured system of signifiers, whose internal networks of relationships are used to 'map' the structure of other sets of relationships; the 'content' is infinitely variable and relatively unimportant."

In their book Hamlet's Mill, Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend suggest that myth is a "technical language" describing cosmic events, They write:

"One should pay attention to the cosmological information contained in ancient myth, information of chaos, struggle and violence. [..] Plato knew .. that the language of myth is, in principle, as ruthlessly generalizing as up-to-date "tech talk". .. There is no other technique, apparently, than myth, which succeeds in telling structure [..] The main merit of this language has turned out to be its built-in ambiguity. Myth can be used as a vehicle for handing down solid knowledge independently from the degree of insight of the people who do the actual telling of stories, fables, etc"

Catastrophists Researchers include Dwardu Cardona (author of God Star ISBN 1-4120-8308-7), Ev Cochrane (The Many Faces of Venus ISBN 0-9656229-0-9), Alfred de Grazia (Quantaevolution series), David Talbott and (Saturn Myth ISBN 0-385-113376-5 ), and authors at Catastrophism! Man, Myth and Mayhem in Ancient History and the Sciences such as Immanuel Velikovsky believe that myths are derived from the oral histories of ancient cultures that witnessed cosmic catastrophes. In his book Worlds in Collision, he writes:

"The historical-cosmological story of this book is based on the evidence of historical texts of many peoples around the globe, on classical literature, [..] to establish (1) that there were physical upheavals of a global character in historical times; (2) that these catastrophes were caused by extraterrestrial agents; and (3) that these agents can be identified.".

The catastrophic interpretation of myth, forms only a small minority within the field of mythology.

Modern mythology

Film and book series like Star Wars and Tarzan sometimes have strong mythological aspects that sometimes develop into deep and intricate philosophical systems. These items are not mythology, but contain mythic themes that, for some people, meet similar psychological needs. An example is that developed by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. Fans will sometimes incorrectly refer to a complex fictional world such as that of the Star Trek series as a mythology.

Fiction, however, does not reach the level of actual mythology until people believe that it really happened. For example, some people believe that fiction author Clive Barker's movie Candyman was based upon a true story, and new stories have grown up around the figure. The same can be said for the Blair Witch and many other stories.

The word is also used to refer to common, rarely questioned contemporary value systems, especially when seen as ideological or socially constructed, as in "the mythology of love". In the 1950s French structuralist thinker Roland Barthes published a series of semiotic analyses of such modern myths and the process of their creation, collected in his book Mythologies.

Myths by region

Africa

Akamba mythology - Akan mythology - Alur mythology - Ashanti mythology - Baluba mythology - Bambara mythology - Bambuti mythology - Banyarwanda mythology - Basari mythology - Baule mythology - Bavenda mythology - Bazambi mythology - Baziba mythology - Bushongo mythology - Dahomey mythology (Fon) - Dinka mythology - Efik mythology - Egyptian mythology (Pre-Islam) - Ekoi mythology - Fan mythology - Fens mythology - Fjort mythology - Herero mythology - Ibibio mythology - Igbo mythology - Isoko mythology - Kamba mythology - Kavirondo mythology - Khoikhoi mythology - Kurumba mythology - Lozi mythology - Lotuko mythology - Lugbara mythology - Lunda mythology - Makoni mythology - Masai mythology - Mongo mythology - Mundang mythology - Ngbandi mythology - Nupe mythology - Nyamwezi mythology - Oromo mythology - Ovambo mythology - Pygmy mythology - San mythology - Serer mythology - Shona mythology - Shongo mythology - Songhai mythology - Sotho mythology - Tonga mythology - Tumbuka mythology - Xhosa mythology - Yoruba mythology - Zulu mythology

Asia (non-Middle East)

Ayyavazhi mythology - Buddhist mythology - Bön mythology (pre-Buddhist Tibetan mythology) - Chinese mythology - Hindu mythology - Hmong mythology - Japanese mythology - Korean mythology - Philippine mythology - Turkic mythology- Vietnamese mythology

Australia and Oceania

Australian Aboriginal mythology - Hawaiian mythology - Maori mythology - Melanesian mythology - Micronesian mythology - Papuan mythology - Polynesian mythology - Rapa Nui mythology

Mythological archetypes

Books on mythology

Mythologies by Roland Barthes
Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other titles by Joseph Campbell
Mythology by Edith Hamilton

Notes

References

Kees W. Bolle, The Freedom of Man in Myth. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968.
Caillois, Roger (1972). Le mythe et l'homme. Gallimard.
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.
Mircea Eliade. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton University Press, 1954.
Louis Herbert Gray [ed.], The Mythology of All Races, in 12 vols., 1916.
Edith Hamilton. Mythology (1998)
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
- Mental Functions in Primitive Societies (1910)
- Primitive Mentality (1922)
- The Soul of the Primitive (1928)
- The Supernatural and the Nature of the Primitive Mind (1931)
- Primitive Mythology (1935)
- The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism (1938)
Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation. George Braziller, 1963.
Barry B. Powell, "Classical Myth," 5th edition, Prentice-Hall.
Santillana and Von Dechend (1969, 1992 re-issue). "Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth", Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-87923-215-3.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
- Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, 1856.
- Philosophy of Mythology, 1857.
- Philosophy of Revelation, 1858.

External links

Myths and Myth-Makers Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by comparative mythology by John Fiske
Godchecker Easy-to-use searchable encyclopedia of gods and goddesses from around the world; currently has over 2,500 gods listed, including many obscure deities.
www.mythologyweb.com Information about myths, legends and folklore, as well as a message board.
Timeless Myths

Minggu, 18 Oktober 2009

HOW INDONESIA SHOULD DEAL WITH THE US: VALUABLE LESSONS FROM AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURE

A SUMMARY

ASIH SIGIT PADMANUGRAHA
YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY
asih.uny@gmail.com

This paper will not talk much about the relationship between Indonesia and the US officially but will explore more the ways to deal with the US culturally. Like the other countries, Indonesia cannot escape from the American influence: be it politically, economically, technologically and even culturally. The three factors that usually become the important issues are the identity, geographically strategic Indonesian position for the US, and also religion. Unfortunately, Indonesia is unable to deal with the US in equity as two great nations. This fact only shows inferiority and the ‘doubled-standard policy’ conducted by the US make it worse.

In the US perspective, there is no such a policy since all policies are for the US domestic interest and benefit. Therefore, Indonesia must be able to deal with the US using Indonesian perspective, for the sake of Indonesian domestic need. The most effective way to deal with the US in equity as the two great and respected nations is the cultural way, which is often neglected by the Indonesian governments. The cultural way to deal with the US has been significantly done by the American Indian people. After being invaded by the Europeans which was ceaseless and finally led to their destruction by the end of the 18th century and losing their identity as the Indian among the white society, in the end of the twentieth century they tried to gain back their identity and try to communicate and bargain with the US, their own official government in their culturally unique way. This is best exemplified in the globally-read-and-awarded American Indian literature which explore that identity is the core of a nation, of a people, to survive and to be respected by others. The American Indian experience is the best lesson for the Indonesian to deal with the US.

Key words: dealing with the US, lesson from the American Indian literature, equally respected communication, Indonesian cultural values and identity

Clarification for Celia Lowe

Dear Ms Lowe

I just want to clarify that I didn't talk about Forster's A Passage to India but Whitman's "A Passage to India."

Thanks

Senin, 31 Agustus 2009

Sherman Alexie's "The War Dances"

Fiction
War Dances
by Sherman Alexie August 10, 2009
(http://www.newyorker.com/fiction)

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Keywords
Fathers;
Sons;
Cockroaches;
Hearing Loss;
Native Americans;
Seattle, Washington;
Brain Tumors

MY KAFKA BAGGAGE

A few years ago, after I returned home to Seattle from a trip to Los Angeles, I unpacked my bag and found a dead cockroach, shrouded by a dirty sock, in a corner. Shit, I thought. We’re being invaded. So I threw the clothes, books, shoes, and toiletries back into the suitcase, carried it out to the driveway, and dumped the contents onto the pavement, ready to stomp on any other cockroach stowaways. But there was only the one cockroach, dead and stiff. As he lay on the pavement, I leaned closer to him. His legs were curled under his body. His head was tilted at a sad angle. Sad? Yes, sad. For who is lonelier than the cockroach without his tribe? I laughed at myself. I was feeling empathy for a dead cockroach. I wondered about its story. How had it got into my bag? And where? At the hotel in Los Angeles? In the airport baggage system? It hadn’t originated in our house. We’ve kept those tiny bastards from our place for fifteen years. So where had this little vermin come from? Had he smelled something delicious in my bag—my musky deodorant or some crumb from a chocolate Power Bar—and climbed inside, only to be crushed by the shifts of fate and garment bags? As he died, did he feel fear? Isolation? Existential dread?

SYMPTOMS

Last summer, in reaction to various allergies I was suffering from, defensive mucus flooded my inner right ear and confused, frightened, and unmoored me. My allergies had never been this severe. I could barely hear a fucking thing with that side, so I had to turn my head in order to understand what my two sons, ages eight and ten, were saying.

“We’re hungry,” they said. “We keep telling you.”

I was embarrassed.

“Mom would have fed us by now,” they said.

Their mother had left for Italy with her mother two days before. My sons and I were going to enjoy a boys’ week, filled with unwashed socks, REI rock-wall climbing, and ridiculous heaps of pasta.

“What are you going to cook?” my sons asked. “Why haven’t you cooked yet?”

I’d been lying on the couch reading a book while they played and I hadn’t realized that I’d gone partially deaf. So, for just a moment, I could only weakly blame my allergies.

Then I recalled the man who went to the emergency room because he’d woken having lost most, if not all, of his hearing. The doctor peered into one ear, saw an obstruction, reached in with small tweezers, and pulled out a cockroach, then reached into the other ear and extracted a much larger cockroach. Did you know that ear wax is a delicacy for roaches?

I cooked dinner for my sons—overfed them out of guilt—and cleaned the hell out of our home. Then I walked into the bathroom and stood before the mirror. I turned my head and body at weird angles and tried to see deeply into my congested ear; I sang hymns and prayed that I’d see a small angel trapped in the canal. I would free the poor thing, and she’d unfurl and pat dry her tiny wings, then fly to my lips and give me a sweet kiss for sheltering her metamorphosis.

* from the issue
* cartoon bank
* e-mail this

When I woke at 3 A.M., completely deaf in my right ear, and positive that a damn swarm of locusts was wedged inside, I left a message for my doctor, and told him that I would be sitting outside his office when he reported for work.

This would be the first time I had been inside a health-care facility since my father’s last surgery.

BLANKETS

After the surgeon had cut off my father’s right foot—no, half of my father’s right foot—and three toes from the left, I sat with him in the recovery room. It was more like a recovery hallway. There was no privacy, not even a thin curtain. I supposed this made it easier for the nurses to monitor the post-surgical patients, but, still, my father was exposed—his decades of poor health and worse decisions were illuminated—on white sheets in a white hallway under white lights.

“Are you O.K.?” I asked. It was a stupid question. Who could be O.K. after such a thing? Yesterday, my father had walked into the hospital. Yes, he’d shuffled while balancing on two canes, but that was still called walking. A few hours ago, my father still had both of his feet. They were black with rot and disease, but they were still, technically speaking, feet and toes. And, most important, those feet had belonged to my father. Now they were gone, sliced off. Where were they? What had the hospital done with the right foot and the toes from the left foot? Had they been thrown into the incinerator? Were their ashes already floating over the city?

“Doctor, I’m cold,” my father said.

“Dad, it’s me,” I said.

“I know who you are. You’re my son.” But, given the blankness in my father’s eyes, I assumed he was just guessing.

“Dad, you’re in the hospital. You just had surgery.”

“I know where I am. I’m cold.”

“Do you want another blanket?” Stupid question. Of course, he wanted another blanket. He probably wanted me to build a fucking campfire or drag in one of those giant heat blasters that N.F.L. football teams use on the sidelines.

I walked down the hallway—the recovery hallway—to the nurses’ station. There were three women nurses there, two white and one black. I am Native American—Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Indian—and I thought my darker pigment might give me an edge with the black nurse, so I addressed her directly.

Kamis, 13 Agustus 2009

Interpreting Poetry Through Music: A Attempt to Redefine Poetry Teaching

Asih Sigit Padmanugraha
Yogyakarta State University

(A paper presented in LIA, August 13, 2009)

Based on the decree of the Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Arts of Yogyakarta State University about the appointment of the skripsi consultant of the English Language and Literature Study Program on March 30, 2009, there were 60 students writing proposals for their final projects. Among those, there were only 14 students who choose literature or only 24% and, unfortunately, in this percentage no one analyzes poetry as the subject of their research. This empirical data show that there are imbalances among concentrations in this study program. In the long run, this situation is problematic since it influences the development of a particular science, which is literature especially poetry, compared to linguistics and translation.
That problem evidently involves the students, the teachers, and teaching-learning process. However, it appears that the last two aspects contribute more to that problem. Most students still think that poetry is ‘scaring’ because of its unfamiliar words, uncommon use of language, imaginative writings, connotative words, sophisticated use of words, etc. In turn, this will result in their poor comprehension and interpretation of poetry. For them, poetry is imaginative and its meaning is beyond their reach. This usually ends in the failure to realize those meanings in their own life or to experience those life values shared in poetry, which is in truth the essence of poetry interpretation. In fact, this is actually not the students’ failure but the teacher’s and the fruitlessness of the teaching leaning process.
Considering those complicated problems above, this paper offers an attempt to redefine the ‘ordinary’ teaching of poetry generally conducted hitherto. It will explore the possibilities of teaching ‘fun’ poetry through music, without losing its essence. Music, especially the everlasting one, is closely related to poetry and is very useful in helping students understand and interpret poetry. They will find it enjoyable at their first encounter and eventually be able to share the values of life offered by the poet, and realize those values into their own life. Truly, this approach is worth applying to have a fruitful teaching and learning process.

Key words: poetry interpretation, music, teaching and learning process

Minggu, 24 Mei 2009

Serious and Popular Fiction

INTRODUCTION TO
ENGLISH LITERATURE

SERIOUS AND POPULAR FICTION

SEMESTER : III
AIMS : Identifying the differences of popular and serious fiction
MATERIALS :
- Article
- Worksheet
- Key Answer

Source : Maxwell, Ann and Elizabeth Lowell. “Popular Fiction: Why We Read It, Why We Write It” 5th September 2007 <www.elizabethlowell.com/popfiction.htm>
Developed by : Asih Sigit Padmanugraha

SELF ACCESS LEARNING CENTER
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE STUDY PROGRAM
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF YOGYAKARTA

2007

I. ARTICLE

Popular Fiction: Why We Read It, Why We Write It
by Ann Maxwell/Elizabeth Lowell

My life's work has been popular fiction. Writing alone and with Evan, I have published more than sixty books. They range from general fiction to historical and contemporary romances, from science fiction to mystery, from nonfiction to highly fictional thrillers.
Through the years, I've discovered that most publishers talk highly of literary fiction and make money on popular fiction; yet asking them to describe the difference between literary and popular fiction is like asking when white becomes gray becomes black.
Some people maintain that, by definition, literary fiction cannot be popular, because literary equals difficult and inaccessible. Rather like avant-garde art: if you can identify what it is, it ain't art. Rather than argue such slippery issues as taste and fashion, I'll simply say that there are exceptions to every rule; that's how you recognize both the rule and the exceptions. As a rule, accessibility is one of the hallmarks of popular fiction.
In literary fiction, the author is often judged by critics on his or her grasp of the scope and nuance of the English language, and on the lack of predictability of the narrative itself. The amount of effort readers put into this fiction can be almost on a par with that of the authors themselves. In order for an author to be successful in literary fiction, positive reviews from important critics are absolutely vital. Indeed, in a very real sense, the critics are the only audience that matters, which explains why literary fiction often pays badly: critics get their books for free.
In popular fiction, the only critics who really matter are the readers who pay money to buy books of their own choice. Reviews are irrelevant to sales. Readers of popular fiction judge an author by his or her ability to make the common language uncommonly meaningful, and to make an often told tale freshly exciting. The amount of effort a reader puts into this fiction is minimal. That, after all, is the whole point: to entertain readers rather than to exercise them.
Critics are human. They don't like being irrelevant. They dismiss popular fiction as "formulaic escapism" that has nothing to do with reality. From this, I'm forced to conclude that critics view life (and literary fiction) as a kind of nonlinear prison.
This would certainly explain why the underlying philosophy in much literary fiction is pessimistic: Marx, Freud, and Sartre are the Muses of modernism. Life is seen as fundamentally absurd. No matter how an individual strives, nothing significant will change. Or, in more accessible language, you can't win for losing.
The underlying philosophy of much popular fiction is more optimistic: the human condition might indeed be deplorable, but individuals can make a positive difference in their own and others' lives. The Muses of popular fiction are Zoroaster and Jung, the philosphy more classical than to modern. Popular fiction is a continuation of and an embroidery upon ancient myths and archetypes; popular fiction is good against evil, Prometheus against the uncaring gods, Persephone emerging from hell with the seeds of spring in her hands, Adam discovering Eve.
In a word, popular fiction is heroic and transcendent at a time when heroism and transcendence are out of intellectual favor. Publishers, whose job is to make money by predicting the size of the market for a piece of fiction, are constantly trying guess where a manuscript falls on the scale of white to gray to black. Publishers to understand why readers read the books they do. Marketers give tests, conduct surveys, consult oracles, etc., and constantly rediscover a simple fact: people read fiction that reinforces their often inarticulate beliefs about society, life, and fate.
People who believe that life's problems can be solved through intelligence and effort are often attracted to crime fiction, which centers around the logical solution of various problems. People who believe along with Shakespeare that there are more things on heaven and earth than we dream, are attracted to science fiction of various kinds.
People who believe that a good relationship between a man and a woman can be the core of life are attracted to romances.
People who believe that absolute evil lurks just beneath the surface of the ordinary are attracted to horror. And so on.
Think about that the next time you hear someone dismiss what they (or usually other folks!) read as "escapism." Existentialists escape into their fictional world. We escape into ours. The fact that our world feels good and theirs feels bad doesn't mean theirs is always more valuable, much less more intelligent: I have known many intelligent people who need to be reminded of the possibility of joy; I have known no intelligent people who need to be reminded of the reality of despair.
Some things are worth escaping from. Despair is definitely one of them.
So much for escapism. What about the charge that popular fiction is formulaic?
The concept of formula has an interesting history as first a literary device and then a literary putdown. The Greeks divided literature into tragedy and comedy. A tragedy had a political, masculine theme and ended in death. A comedy had a social, often feminine theme and ended in marriage, the union of male and female from which all life comes. We have kept the scope of tragedy, of death and despair, but we have reduced the concept of comedy to a pottymouthed nightclub act. Perhaps that is why critics of popular fiction reserve their most priapic scorn for the stories called romances. Romances follow the ancient Greek formula for comedy: they celebrate life rather than anticipate death. In addition to being almost exclusively female in their audience and authorship, romances address timeless female concerns of union and regeneration. The demand for romances is feminine, deep, and apparently universal. Harlequin/Silhouette has an enormously profitable romance publishing empire in which the majority of the money is earned outside of the American market, in more countries and languages than I can name.
Even worse than their roots in ancient feminine concerns, romances irritate critics because they often have a subtext of mythic archetypes rather than modernist, smallerthanlife characters.
I have heard mystery authors complain that they don't get any respect from critics. As a mystery author, I agree. I have heard science fiction authors complain that they don't get any respect. As a science fiction author, I agree. But as a romance author, I have experienced amazing intellectual bigotry.
For example, mysteries, like romances, were once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. Then, about seventy years ago, the idea of class warfare came into intellectual vogue. Mysteries, particularly American mysteries, came to be viewed as politically correct (and therefore) wellwritten metaphors of class warfarethe downandout detective bringing justice to the little guy in a society that cares only for privilege and wealth.
That's a pretty heavy load to lay on Lew Archer's modernist shoulders, but I suspect the male academic types were tired of getting their thrills reading by flashlight in a closet. The fact that mysteries at the time were written by men for men did not hurt the genre's status at all.
Yet many authors continued to write mysteries in which brains, bravery and brawn mattered more than political commentary; these books were roundly disdained by critics...and avidly bought by readers. The division between mythic and politically correct mysteries still exists. You can usually tell which is which by the tone of the review.
Science fiction, like romance, was once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. Then, in the nineteen fifties, there was a rash of AftertheBomb science fiction books. Either directly or indirectly, these books criticized the course of modern civilization. Their stories predicted disaster for the human race. Endlessly.
Voila. The genre of science fiction became politically and intellectually correct, a wellwritten body of literature with a proper appreciation of man's raging greed, stupidity, and futility. Gone were the garish covers of little green men hauling busty blondes off to far corners of the galaxy for an eternity of slap and tickle. Gone were the heroic rescuers of said blondes. In their place were caring and despairing antiheroes who tried and tried and tried to make things right, only to finally fail, going down the tubes with a suitable Existential whimper.
The critics loved it.
The fact that science fiction at that time was largely written by men for men did not hurt the genre's status one bit. The retrograde authors who continued to write rousing galactic adventures in which bravery, brains and brawn saved the day were roundly disdained by critics...and avidly purchased by readers. Again, the tone of the reviews told you which was which.
Westerns were once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. Westerns are still often viewed that way, despite valiant efforts on the part of a few academics to push politically correct westerns (antiheroes, disease, cruelty, bigotry, degradation, despair and death). The readers were not fooled. They avoided these academic westerns in droves. The heart of the western's appeal is largerthanlife; it is heroism; it is people who transcend their own problems and limitations and make a positive difference in their own time and life. That is what made Louis L'Amour one of the bestselling authors in the English language—or any other language, for that matter. That is what readers pay to read.
That is what critics disdain. Heroism. Transcendence.
Romances were once scorned as badly written, formulaic, lurid escapist fare best read in closets. They still are. I suspect they always will be. Their appeal is to the transcendent, not to the political. Their characters, through love, transcend the ordinary and partake of the extraordinary.
That, not bulging muscles or magic weapons, is the essence of heroic myth: humans touching transcendence. It is an important point that is often misunderstood. The essence of myth is that it is a bridge from the ordinary to the extraordinary. As Joseph Campbell said many times, through myth we all touch, if only for a few moments, something larger than ourselves, something transcendent.
Unfortunately, transcendence has been out of intellectual favor for several generations. Thus the war between optimism and pessimism rages on, and popular culture is its battlefield. Universities and newspapers are heavily stocked with people who believe that pessimism is the only intelligent philosophy of life; therefore, optimists are dumb as rocks.
How many times have you read a review that disdains a book because it has a constructive resolution of the central conflict—also known as a happy ending? The same reviewer will then praise another book for its relentless portrayal of the bleakness of everyday life.
This is propaganda, not criticism. What the critics are actually talking about is their own intellectual bias, their own chosen myth: pessimism. They aren't offering an intelligent analysis of an author's ability to construct and execute a novel.
Contrary to what the critics tell us, popular fiction is not a swamp of barely literate escapism; popular fiction is composed of ancient myths newly reborn, telling and retelling a simple truth: ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Jack can plant a beanstalk that will provide endless food; a Tom Clancy character can successfully unravel a conspiracy that threatens the lives of millions. A knight can slay a dragon; a Stephen King character can defeat the massed forces of evil. Cinderella can attract the prince through her own innate decency rather than through family connections; a Nora Roberts heroine can, through her own strength, rise above a savagely unhappy past and bring happiness to herself and others.
The next time you hear a work of popular fiction being scorned as foolish, formulaic or badly written, ask yourself if it is truly badly written, foolish and formulaic, or is it simply speaking to a transcendent tradition that emphasizes ancient hope rather than modernist despair?
In our society, popular fiction is story after story told around urban campfires, stories which point out that life is not a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. There is more to life than defeat and despair. Life is full of possibilities. Victory is one of them. Joy is another.
And that's why people read popular fiction. To be reminded that life is worth the pain.
Maxwell, Ann and Elizabeth Lowell. “Popular Fiction: Why We Read It, Why We Write It” 5th September 2007 <www.elizabethlowell.com/popfiction.htm>

II. WORKSHEET

INSTRUCTION:

Read the text carefully!
Identify some differences between serious and popular fiction based on the article available!
Fill in the table provided!

SERIOUS FICTION
DIFFERENCE ON
POPULAR FICTION
1.
1.
1.
2.
2.
2.
3.
3.
3.
4.
4.
4.
5.
5.
5.
6.
6.
6.
7.
7.
7.
8.
8.
8.
9.
9.
9.
10.
10.
10.

III. KEY ANSWER

SERIOUS FICTION
DIFFERENCE ON
POPULAR FICTION
1. Pessimistic
1. Philosophy
1. Optimistic
2. Idealism
2. Goal
2. Profit
3. Varied and complex
3. Characters
3. Stereotyped
4. Complex
4. Plot
4. Formulaic
5. Critics
5. Valuable Criticism
5. Reader
6. Limited
6. Production
6. Mass
7. To exercise
7. Purpose
7. To entertain
8. No hero
8. The main character
8. Hero
9. Unpredictable
9. Ending
9. Happy ending
10. Inaccessible
10. Accessibility
10. Accessible

Format Penulisan Skripsi Sastra: Metode Kualitatif

Skripsi kualitatif untuk Konsentrasi Sastra

Chapter I Introduction
A. Background : alasan memilih topik
B. Research Focus:
-Penjelasan pengertian judul
-Teori yang digunakan dan ahli yang menggagas teori tersebut
-Alasan pentingnya teori tersebut dalam penelitian
-Pembatasan topik
C. Research Objectives
D. Research Significance

Chapter II Literature Review
A. Theoretical Description
B. Previous Studies
C. Background (historical/social, etc): optional
D. Analytical Construct (kata-kata/chart) à bagaimana teori diterapkan dalam analisis (teori-karya-background)

Chapter III Research Method
A.Research Approach: content analysis/conversational analysis, etc.
B. Data Type: gambar/kata-kata
C. Data Source: film, novel, puisi, drama
D. Data Collection: interview/reading
E. Research Instrument: human instrument, additional instruments
F. Trustworthiness: reliabilitas dan validitas dicapai dengan pembacaan berulang
G. Data Analysis: data mau diapakan? deskriptif/kualitatif

Chapter IV Findings and Discussion

Chapter V Concluding Remarks
A. Conclusion
B. Suggestion (Optional)

References
-Printed Sources
-Interview
-Electronic Sources

Appendices
- Plot Summary (novel, short story, drama, paraphrase (poetry))
- Data Collection
- Charts/Pictures

Selasa, 12 Mei 2009

Jogja and Multiculturalism

It is evident that Jogja is one of multicultural cities in the world. It is the city of multi-etnics, multi-religion, and multi-social background. It can bee seen in the Universities spread all over Jogjakarta. Not only Indonesia students study in those universities but foreigner do too. Multiculturalism in Jogja is the best way out of so many problems, like terrorism, economic crisis, political crisis, and many other problems, like what happaen in 1998. In Solo or Surakarta, the riot became horrible destructive because the people are homogenerous, to be continued......

Senin, 27 April 2009

Apakah Sastra?

Apakah Sastra?

Asih Sigit P (Yogyakarta State University)

Ilmu sastra merupakan ilmu yang istimewa. Bahkan Teeuw (2003) menilainya sebagai keanehan yang tidak terdapat dalam cabang ilmu pengetahuan yang lain, karena menurutnya objek utama penelitiannya tidak tentu, malahan tidak keruan (Teeuw, 2003:19). Mungkin inilah yang menyebabkan belum (tidak) terjawabnya pertanyaan yang paling mendasar dan hakiki dalam ilmu pengetahuan (Teeuw, 2003:19), yaitu “apakah sastra?”: pertanyaan yang selalu muncul dari para mahasiswa di perguruan tinggi. Pertanyaan (manusiawi) yang selalu muncul ini seringkali tidak mendapatkan jawaban yang memuaskan, karenanya, dalam bab ini, beberapa definisi sastra akan diperbincangkan.Definisi pertama yang didiskusikan adalah pendekatan sastra dari sudut pandang sastra sebagai bahasa tulis. Dalam bahasa-bahasa barat gejala yang akan didefinisikan disebut literature (Inggris), literatur (Jerman), littérature (Prancis), dan semuanya berasal dari bahasa Latin litteratura. Kata litteratura sebenarnya diciptakan sebagai terjemahan dari kata Yunani grammatika; litterature dan grammatika masing-masing berdasarkan kata littera dan gramma yang berarti “huruf” (tulisan, letter) (Teeuw, 2003:20). Menurut asalnya litteratura dipakai untuk tata bahasa dan puisi. Literature dan seterusnya dalam bahasa Barat moderen umumnya berarti “segala sesuatu yang yang tertulis, pemakaian bahasa dalam bentuk tertulis (20). Definisi ini juga diuangkapkan oleh Barnett yang mengatakan bahwa The word ‘literature’ can be used to refer to anything written (1993:1).Dari sudut pandang ini, banyak pertanyaan yang muncul. Bagaimana dengan pemakaian bahasa dalam resep masakan misalnya. Apakah resep masakah bisa disebut sastra? Tentu saja tidak. Oleh sebab itu definisi ini bisa dikatakan tidak memuaskan, karena definisi tersebut bisa terlalu luas. Sastra sebagai sesuatu yang ditulis bisa juga terlalu luas, karena sebuah buku tentang psikologi ataupun hukum bisa saja dimasukkan ke dalam sastra. Dan pertanyaan yang muncul selanjutnya adalah di manakan posisi sastra lisan? Sastra dalam bahasa Indonesia berasal dari bahasa Sanskerta. Akar kata sãs-, dalam kata kerja turunan berarti “mengarahkan, megajar, memberi petunjuk atau instruksi.” Akhiran –tra biasanya menunjukkan alat, sarana. Maka dari itu sastra dapat berarti “alat untuk mengajar, buku petunjuk, buku instruksi atau pengajaran” (20-21).Dari definisi sastra dalam bahasa Indonesia tersebut, kita bisa mengambil kesimpulan bahwa bahwa diktat-diktat yang ditulis oleh para dosen di perguruan tinggi yang dipergunakan dalam kuliah bisa disebut sastra.Memang perdebatan mengenai “apakah sastra?” sudah berlangsung lama. Jawaban mengenai pertanyaan tersebut sebenarnya sudah berusaha untuk dijawab sejak jaman Yunani Kuno. Horare (65-8 BC), seorang penyair Yunani mendefinisikan sastra dari sisi tujuan utamanya. Ia mengatakan bahwa tujuan utama sastra adalah dulce et utile atau “to give either profit or delight, or to mix the giving pleasure with useful precepts for life” (Richard Dutton, 1991:25). Inipun tidak selalu memuaskan, karena apakah sastra selalu bertujuan untuk menyenangkan dan bermanfaat? Meskipun keberadaan sastra memang berawal dari “our inborn love of telling a story, of arranging words in pleasing patterns, of expressing in words some special aspect of our human experience” (Moody, H.L.B. (1987:2).Robert Frost, seorang penyair terkemuka Amerika menyebutkan bahwa sastra merupakan “performance in words.” (Barnett, 1963:1). Pendapat Frost mengindikasikan sastra harus memberikan kesenangan. Batasan yang diungkapkan Frost itu kemudian menjadi agak lemah ketika kita menghadapi puisi kotaknya Danarto yang berujud gambar sembilan kotak segi empat (Situmorang, 1983:72). Puisi Danarto ini juga melemahkan dikotomi sastra tulis dengan sastra lisan yang diungkapkan oleh Danziger dan Johnson yang mendefinisikan sastra secara umum sebagai “verbal art” (Danziger dan Johnson, 1961:1).Barnett lebih jauh menjelaskan bahwa sastra merupakan hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan imajinasi sehingga menjadi imajinatif (1963:1), seperti terlihat dalam genre sastra: puisi, fiksi dan drama, yang merupakan cerita rekaan. Pendapat Barnet yang mengatakan sastra sebagai hal yang imaginative seperti dalam fiksi-cerita yang tidak nyata - akan menimbulkan problematika tersendiri. Eagleton (1986:1) mengemukakan bahwa pembedaan antara “fakta dan fiksi” seringkali menimbulkan pertanyaan. Ia memberikan contoh, misalnya, Kesusastraan Inggris adab ke-17 tidak hanya memasukkan karya-karya William Shakespeare, Andrew Marvel ataupun Milton, tetapi juga esai-esai Francis Bacon, the khotbah-khotbahnya John Donne, ataupun Otobiografi spiritualnya John Bunyan. Contoh lain, misalnya sastra merupakan karya fiksi, maka “Ayat-Ayat Setan”nya Salman Rushdie tidak perlu dikutuk. Melihal hal tersebut, jelaslah bahwa membedakan antara mana yang nyata dan yang fiksi merupakan hal yang sangat sulit.Kesulitan dalam mengklaim karya sastra merupakan karya yang fiktif berangkat juga dari kenyataan-kenyataan bahwa banyak karya sastra yang ditulis berdasarkan fakta atau kenyataan, seperti: Julius Caesar karya Shakespeare dan Surapati karya Nur Sutan Iskandar. Eagleton juga menegaskan bahwa pembedaan antara kebenaran “sejarah” dan “artistic tidak dapat diberlakukan dalam Hikayat Islandia (Eaglton, 1986:1). Hal ini juga berlaku dalam ceritera Hikayat yang ada di Indonesia seperti Babad Tanah Jawa dan Pararaton, misalnya.Jika sastra didefinisikan sebagai sesuatu yang ‘kreatif’ atau ‘imaginatif’, hal ini masih menimbulkan perdebatan. Eagleton (1986:2) mempertanyakan apakah sejarah, philosophy dan ilmu-ilmu alam tidak kreatif dan imajinatif.Apabila sastra didefinisikan sebagai “any writing which has the power to move the reader’s heart and emotions”, definisi ini terlalu sederhana. Banyak tulisan-tulisan yang bukan masuk kategori sastra, seperti tulisan yang menceritakan kejadian bencana gempa bumi dan Tsunami yang melanda Aceh dan Sumatera Utara 26 Desember 2004 dan juga bencana alam gempa Bumi di Nias pada akhir Maret 2005, tidak menimbulkan emosi para pembacanya?Definisi yang lain mengatakan bahwa sastra adalah “the expression of beautiful thoughts and ideas in beautiful language.” Definisi ini tidak selalu dapat diterima. Pertama konsep mengenai keindahan yang jelas selalu menjadi relatif dan tidak tegas; kedua, tidak semua karya sastra berisikan pemikiran yangt besar. Contonya, puisinya Shakespeare yang berjudul Winter yang merupakan puisi pendek yang menggambarkan kehdupan sederhana dalam sebuah musim dingin di Inggris abad ke-16. Puisi ini hanya menggambarkan pemandangan yang sederhana. Contoh lain, sebuah novel The Glass Canoe, sebuah novel Australia berisaikan ekspresi keras dan kasar sorang laki-laki Australia. Bahasa yang digunakan dalam novel ini jauh dari kategori bahasa yang indah.Menurut Jakobson, sastra merupakan “a kind of writing which represents an organized violence committed on ordinary speech (and which) transforms and intensifies ordinary language and makes it deviate systematically fro everyday speech.” Jika pembatasan definfi sastra berdasar penyimapnag nbahasa yang ada, maka graffiti 9tulisanpada tembok-temob di tempat umum atau dalam toilet bisa diterima sebagai sastra, atau bentuk karta seni. Atau, ketika nilai karya sastra dilihat dari penggunaan bahasa yang orisinil, maka bahasa dalam iklamn bisa juga dimasukkan dalam kategori sastra.Meskipun berbagai macam ketidka jelasan, mungkin defifinsi terakhir ini bisa depetimbangkan. Sapardi Djoko Damono (2002:9-16) mengatakan bahwa “sastra merupakan produk busaya yang dalam masyarakat tertentu dan era tertentu dianggap sebagai karya sastra.” Pendapat ini berangkat dari kenyataan bahwa sastra bukan sesuatu yang “bebas”. Sastra terbatas pada masyarakat yabng mendukung keberadaannn6ya dan menjadi pembacanya juga. Peran dan fungsi sastra selalu diteima secara berbega menurut waktu atau jamannya dan masyarakatnya. Karya sastra masyarakat pribumi Australia, misalnya tidak mungkin dianggap sebagai karya sastra jika ditulis pada jaman Elixabeth dalam sejarah sastra Inggris. Bahkan. D>h, Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover dulu diangap sebagai karya yang jorok dan dilarang benerapa tahun. Moby Dick pada saat penerbitan awalnya sama sekali tidak dianggap karya sastra yang beras. Karya-karya Pramodya Ananta Toer, misalnya dilarang beredar ketika dalam pemerintahan Soeahrto karena dianggap sebagai huku yang subversive.

Woman’s Values in Society as reflected in Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll”

Woman’s Values in Society as reflected in Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll”

by Asih Sigit Padmanugraha
Faculty of Languages and Arts
State University of Yogyakarta

Abstrak

Boneka Barbie merupakan simbol kecantikan perempuan yang dibangun oleh kapitalis dan media demi meraih keuntungan. Akibatnya para perempuan tidak menyadari pengaruh negatif yang banyak ditimbulkan, seperti kesehatan, pembodohan, fantasi berlebihan, dan yang paling penting adalah eksploitasi perempuan. Pengaruh negatif inilah yang memicu berbagai kritik terhadap keberadaan Boneka Barbie. Marge Piercy adalah seorang penyair Amerika yang sangat keras mengkritik keberadaan boneka barbie lewat salah satu puisinya “Barbie Doll.” Dengan menggunakan perpektif feminisme, artikel ini mengekplorasi pengaruh sosial dan budaya yang melatar belakangi keberadaan puisi ini. Puisi ini dipengaruhi oleh gerakan feminisme di Amerika pada tahun 1960an.
Persona dalam puisi ini adalah seorang gadis kecil yang harus kehilangan kebahagiaan ketika ia memasuki masa pubertas dan masyarakat menganggapnya tidak cantik. Nilai-nilai masyarakat inilah yang membuatnya berjuang keras demi mencapai kecantikan yang sesuai dengan keinginan masyarakat, kecantikan seperti Boneka Barbie. Pengaruh masyarakat ini sangatlah besar sehingga bunuh diri menjadi akhir yang memilukan bagi tokoh tersebut, namun ironisnya membahagiakan bagi masyarakat.
Piercy berhasil membandingkan perempuan dengan Boneka Barbie dalam puisi ini dengan menggunakan perbandingan, simbolisme dan ironi. Akhir tragis seorang gadis yang ingin terlihat cantik seperti Boneka Barbie mengindikasikan bahwa kecantikan perempuan seharusnya tidak dinilai dari penampilan fisiknya saja, tetapi dari pemikirannya, pengalaman hidupnya, sifat-sifatnya dan juga kearifannya.

Kata Kunci: Marge Piercy, boneka barbie, perempuan, masyarakat

Selasa, 24 Februari 2009

Native Americans’ Struggle for Existence in the Twentieth Century American Society as Reflected in Three Native American Short Stories

Asih Sigit Padmanugraha

I. Introduction

It is evident that Native Americans play important role in American history. Native American culture is exceedingly considerable to explore and to study the American experience. As Weston puts it in Native Americans in the News: Images of Indians in the Twentieth Century Press, the idea of the Indian holds a special, some would say essential, place in the American psyche (1996:10). Unfortunately, some American historians state that even a minimal consideration of Indian societies and achievements is all too frequently omitted from courses in American history (Einstadt, 1987:17).
As a result, the achievements on literature are also neglected for there are some problems in the construct of mind of the Euro-American literary scholars. Haslam (1970:2) proposes some problems of those concerning the existence of Native American literature. First, oral literature is rarely given serious consideration. The problem of oral literature’s exclusion is basic enough among scholars in the English-American lineage. As Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, in their outstanding and prominent Theory of Literature (1956), state that:

… one of their objections to the use of the word ‘literature as the semantic equivalent of art’ is its suggestion of limitation to written or printed literature; for, clearly any coherent concept must include ‘oral literature’ (Wellek, 1956:22).

Secondly, literature written in languages other than English is too often ignored. This second weakness in American literary scholarship has been reluctance to seriously consider writing by Americans in languages other than English. Thirdly, only literary mode developed in Britain or Europe, in general, are consistently studied. American literary study tends to examine only genres developed in a European literary lineage. Fourth, the recital prejudices of the national majority have been too faithfully reflected in literary scholarship. This last fault is both the least esthetic and most insidious of all: the cruel fact that the same Americans who have been denied social, economic and education equality have also been consistently ignored by literary scholars.
From the previous four misleading notions, it is apparent that they disregard the significance of distinctive culture which is reflected in distinctive work of art. This is because the study of literature is a seminal human endeavor, for literature is an integral part of human cultures, reflecting through the special use of language subtle values unique to each (Haslam, 1970:1). Moreover, he states that in many ways literature offers the sharpest available view of a given culture’s soul.
Those are in line with Berkhofer’s notion on the myth covering Native American culture saying that whites tend to describe Indians in terms of white society.

…Rather than describing Indians as they saw themselves, they were viewed according to how they did or did not measure up to white norms (Berkhofer, 1978:10).

Therefore, Native American voices in Native American texts are representing their culture more than that written by Euro-Americans. And this article is aimed at explore Native American values as recorded in Native American text.

II. Native and Euro-Americans: A Long Conflicting Relationship

The aboriginal inhabitants of North America occupy an exceptional position in the history of America. They were the first people on this continent, the land was theirs. White Europeans ‘discovered’ the continent and a great and continuous conflict arose. The differences which fed this conflict, later to erupt in genocidal wars against the native peoples, were basic in their outlook upon life. The Indians had no form of writing in common usage, but the spoken word was highly valued. The Europeans, feeling that literacy was the mark of civilization, branded the natives as savages, innately inferior beings. (Deloria, 1981:xvii).
A second, and very important difference, was in the two groups’ relation to land. To the Europeans, land was a commodity to be owned and used. Land which was not included in some form of written title was free for the taking (Johansen, 2000: xi) The Indians’ relation to the land was entirely different. Though various tribes occupied particular territories and recognized each others’ boundaries, the right to land was a right to use it, not to own it or buy and sell it. In addition, the Indians had a great reverence on land. In some Indians religions the land was thought of as the mother, nourishing and giving life to her children. The Indian would no more abuse or exploit the land than he would abuse or exploit a loved relative. This is clearly revealed in Red Cloud’s words, as follows:

The “Great Spirit” made us, the Indians, and gave us this land we live in. He gave us the buffalo, the antelope, and the deer for food and clothing. We moved on our hunting grounds from the Minnesota to the Platte and from the Mississippi to the great mountains. No one put bounds on us. We were free as the winds and eagle (Langer, 1996:58).

Thus, the stage was set for the conflict which continues today. The ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the white man decreed that he must push across the North American continent to the Pacific. The Indian culture were ignored, the Indian considered a savage, unworthy of notice unless his lands were desired (McDermott, 1998:7).
In time the United States Government made treaties with the Indians, buying some of their lands in return for tools and other implements of ‘civilization.’ In his quest for progress, for more land, the white man broke his treaties with the Indians, successively moving them out of their homes when their lands were wanted. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (Hirschfelder, 2005)
The Indians of the Northeast were required to move to the wilderness west of the Mississippi River. The Indians of the Southeast and Northwest were similarly ‘removed.’ When the native people resisted, the government countered with armed force. This was the prototypic situation that set off the series of wars between the Indians and whites. The following is the great speech by Red Cloud, the notable and powerful Chief the Lakota Sioux concerning the whites’ invasion:

They made us many promises
more than I can remember.
But they kept but one-
they promised to take our land-
and they took it.” (Langer, 1996:58)

The war between the two sides physically ended in the end of the 19th century by the defeat of the Sioux tribes in the Massacre of the Wounded Knee, and they were put into reservations. Indian reservations are tracts of lands set aside for the ownership or use of particular Native American tribes, in which the tribes ceded their lands to the U.S. government except for portions “reserved” for their own use.
Native American reservations are created to avoid clashes over land boundaries between Native Americans and white settlers and to confine Native American tribes to tracts where they could be watched and (occasionally) provided for by federal effort. The tribes were generally free to live as they wished on their lands, as long as they remained peaceful. As the American frontier pushed westward, however, Native American land became increasingly attractive to white settlers, while the Native Americans themselves were considered impediments to progress. As a result, reservations were made smaller or were relocated to remote areas undesirable to whites.
According to Robert L. Bee (2005), by the 1880s areas reserved for the Native Americans had shrunk to about 53.4 million hectares (about 132 million acres). Native Americans had difficulty making a living from the land, and their older cultures had been shattered by contact with whites. As a remedy, the government tried to force them to assimilate into the mainstream of American life. The plan called for breaking up reservations into allotments, then issuing the allotments to individual Native Americans. Ideally, they were to farm their plots; instead, many of them sold their allotments or leased them to whites. Thus, by 1934, Native Americans were left with only about 25 percent of the reservation land they had held in the 1880s.
Bee explains further that although many Native Americans regard their reservation lands as a key to the survival of Native American culture, most reservations are still underdeveloped, and their inhabitants among the poorest of the nation's poor. (Robert L. Bee, 2005)

III. Native American in Twentieth Century America: the Problems of Poverty and Assimilation

The following are some accounts on the problems which affect the life of the contemporary American Indians. In the nineteenth century the Indians resisted the incursion of the whites with guns and arrows. Though valiant, their struggle was doomed. By the turn of the century their numbers were decimated by wars and diseases, their land stolen, the religion outlawed. The white had conquered the continent.
As the twentieth century opened, the Indians were faced with many new problems. The disappearance of the buffalo (effected by hunters and traders) and the loss of land had rendered their previous lifestyles impossible. The reservations they were forced to occupy possessed meager resources. Their land, water, fishing and mineral rights were (and continue to be) abrogated at will by the federal and state governments. While the standard of living rose astronomically for white society during the twentieth century, the Indians were consigned to a life of poverty.
David (1970:136) describes the deficiency in Native Americans’ life, as follows:
1. The worst economic situation:
The economic situation of the Native American is the worst of any minority group in the country. For most Indians on these reservations living conditions are squalid, worse than condition in America’s urban slums.

2. The problem of unemployment.
Unemployment statistics of 70 percent are not unusual and on some reservations unemployment is even greater.

3. The problem of alcoholism
Because of the white’s influence the incident of disease and alcoholism is very great. This is also related to the frustrated condition of unemployment.

4. The disease and life-expectancy problem
These problems are caused by the bad sanitation facilities. Not only is life poorer for the Indian than for all other people in America, it is also shorter. Infant death rates for Native Americans are twice those of the general population.

Equally damaging to the collective life of the Indian in America during the twentieth century has been the government’s press for total assimilation into white society. From the beginning of the century Indian children have been sent away to government boarding schools to be taught to become white. In the 1950 ‘relocation’ became a government policy. Under this program Indians were shipped to the cities to assimilate and disappear (David, 1972: 137).
In the second half of the twentieth century there has been a growing articulation by Indians of their own needs and rights. While the specific proposals of these groups may vary, it is their common goal to assert their cultural and legal independence as Indians and to work for a better life for their people. (David, 1972: 138)
The relationship between the Indian and the white in America has demanded the assimilation of the Indian, the denial of his culture. Rather than capitulating, the Indians have insisted on treatment as a separate people, having their own customs, cultures, and laws. This is the purpose of this article: to explore the phase of Indian life in having their own identity in twentieth century American society as reflected in three Native American short stories.

IV. Native American Self Identity in Twentieth Century American Culture

Nineteenth century in American history witnessed the greatness as well as the decline of one of the Native American culture. In this century, the Indians experienced the significant changing on war culture. In pre-contact era, the Indians were devoted to a war culture such that people proved manhood in combat with neighboring tribes. In post-contact era, as the Euro-Americans moved west across the country and began to extinguish the Indian tribes, the Indians fought for survival. The war culture gradually changed from the emphasis of individual fighting and tribal honor toward an emphasis upon the survival itself. Then, the question to ask is, “Does the war in Native American culture still exist in twentieth century, in which physical war no longer exists?”
The idea on the twentieth century definition of war in Native American culture is based on the findings after reading three evocative Native American short stories written by the three great twentieth century Native American writers. They are The Warriors written by Anna Lee Walters (Pawnee-Otoe), The Toughest Indian in the World written by Sherman Alexie, and The Red Convertible written by Louise Erdrich (Anishinaabe).

1. Native American’s Self-Recognition in Anna Lee Walters’ The Warriors

Anna Lee Walter’s Uncle Ralph spent a good majority of his life as a “warrior.” Often he speaks of findings his other warriors to fight a battle. He told us his version of the old story of Pahukatawa, a Skidi Pawnee warrior.

He was killed by the Sioux, but the animals, feeling compassion for him, brought Pahukatawa to life again. (p.396)

He also talks of himself as a warrior and the reason why the warrior fought and died for, and he talks of some requirements a warrior should have.

For beauty is why we live, and we die for it, too. Warriors must brave all storms and odds and stand their ground………….. Uncle Ralph talked obsessively of warriors, painted proud warriors who shrieked poignant battle cries at the top of their lungs an died with honor. (p. 396)

The increasing influence of Western customs and lifestyle has caused a number of Native American to forget who they are. Uncle Ralph harbors such a strong belief in the quality of his people that he comes to believe his fight to be “just, worthy, and beautiful.”
Throughout Anna Lee Walter’s life in which she spends with Uncle Ralph, she develops a strong sense of who she is, and she is aware of her values as an Native American. Her experience with the hobos shows her a people who forget their identity or choose to ignore it. The hobos reject their past and choose to believe in nothing, which, in Uncle Ralph’s eyes, was not the act of living for beauty. Without living for something to believe in and value, there is really no point in continuing in life. The mere fact that a faithfully kept set of beliefs has the power to give someone the desire to live is a form of beauty in itself.
To believe in something alone is not enough to be considered beautiful, only when one is faithfully chooses to believe in an ideal even in times when this particular may result in inconvenience or offer no rewards to the believer can it be considered an act of beauty.
Beauty is not necessarily always the embodiment of personal human desires, but it can be unique in its own way as it is often overlooked in many cases. Because “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” many ideals could be beautiful whether a majority decides so or not. As long as something is recognized for its ability to stand out and emote genuine thoughts and feelings in us it can be thought of as beautiful.
Uncle Ralph holds fast in his traditional Indian values even when times were hard for people like him. Unfortunately, he begins to give way to the negative habits of Western culture when he realized that he is only one warrior who could not win his fight by himself. His alcoholism has pushed him into a life with the hobos that he has often spoken as people who “see things differently.”

…hobos are different kind. They see things in a different way. Them hobos are kind of like us. We’re not like other people in some ways and yet we are. It has to do with what you see and feel when you look at this old world. (p.397)

Perhaps these are his warriors after all, for they may have given up their fights just as he does. As the hobos steers clear of cooperating with the American system, Uncle Ralph may have done the same in an effort to retain his American identity.
His efforts may not have ended the way he had hoped, but he see the beauty in what life had given him because he stays faithful to his values despite his hard times. He sees his ultimate accomplishment through his niece, Anna, who remembers all he had taught her about heritage and identity. Uncle Ralph hopes desperately that she will not forget his words over he years so that she will at least be able to live for beauty even if the rest of the world will not. However, he is certain that his fight is not in vain, because he knows that Anna and her sister will remain faithful to his teachings and they try to continue his fight into the future as his warriors.

“Beauty,” she said to me.” Our battle is for beauty. It’s what Uncle Ralph fought for, too. He often said that everyone else just wanted to go to the Moon. But remember, Sister, you and I done been there. Don’t forget, after all we’re children of the stars. (p. 403)

To truly know one-self is as important as it is beautiful when one is surrounded in a world dominated by humans who will stop at nothing to hide the beauty of their own identity.

2. Native American’s Regaining of Self-Identity in Sherman’s Alexie The Thoughest Indian in the World.

Sherman Alexie, born in 1966, is Native American writer and filmmaker. His writings explore the complex issues facing Native Americans, such as the accelerating destruction of traditional cultures and the deep-rooted problems associated with life on the reservation. Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr., was born in Spokane, Washington, to parents who hailed from the Coeur d’Alene and Spokane Indian tribes. He grew up on the Spokane reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Alexie suffered from seizures as a child, and he developed into a loner and an avid reader. He attended reservation schools but later transferred to a mostly white public high school (Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006.[DVD].
The second short story is The Toughest Indian in the World (1999). Sherman Alexie’s The Toughest Indian in the World proposes an idea of how the Spokane Indian reporter lives in the white society.
In his childhood and teenage life, he lived among his Indian family, and he was taught not to live in a white society, because his father always said:

…..they’ll kill you if they get change. Love you or hate you, white people will shoot you in the heart. Even after years, they still smell the salmon on you. The dead salmon, and that will make white people dangerous. (p. 96)

He used to pick up Indian hitchhikers with his father who always believed that the salmon might be stars. This signifies the Indian values and identity his father still believes. As a child, he still had a great and strong Indian identity because of his father’s beliefs and lessons.
Separation from Indian life happens in his adult life. As the times passed, he finally decides to leave the Indian society and he lives among the white society. In this period, he makes a separation or “migration” between himself and his own Indian life. He works as reporter; he lives among the white society; he has a white value of life, although it was not a fully separation.
He follows the life style and the value of the white. He works a reporter and has a great life financially (he has a 1998 Toyota Camry, the best-selling automobile in the United States, and therefore the one most often stolen). However, he still picks up Indian hitchhiker, things which his father used to do, in his spare time or during his working time on reporting. The nostalgia of the memories of hitchhiking the Indians with his father always lies in his heart and mind.

“…I loved the smell of the Indians, and of the Indian hitchhikers in particular…” (p. 98)

In this phase of life, his position is between the two great different worlds, the white and the Indian world.
The white’s value, lifestyle, society and culture do not fit him because the people always underestimate, disrespect and often laugh at him. His white fellows always laugh at him and think that he is crazy and wasting time for picking up Indians, who, based on the article they write, always commit crimes against the whites. However, he always ignores that and focuses on his work.

They are always laughing at me, at one another, at themselves, at goofy typos in the newspaper, at the idea of hitchhikers. (p. 98)

On the bad situation, the reporter still tries to give himself a chance. Although his co-workers always bother him, he finally decides to date one of his white female co-workers. Unfortunately, the date is so worst that he only becomes “an object”; and therefore he does not feel the passion and never feel the emotion in his lovemaking. This bad love relationship with a white female signifies that he could not enjoy his place and position among the white society. In addition, that is not the only one reason why he hates his life.
In the office, he works as a features writer and the only Indian on that. He gets so bored by all the shit jobs (Alexie’s term). This is because he has to write the articles designed to please the eye, ear, and heart (of the whites). According to him, there is no journalism more soul-endangering to write than journalism that aims to please. He hates his jobs (actually he hate his life in that society), and it seems that could not stand it any longer. (p.100)
Situation changes when, one day, he meets an Indian hitchhiker in his way on writing some stories for the newspaper. He is a Lummi Indian fighter whose scars have proved that he is a great Indian fighter. The fighter tells him that he fights from one reservation to another until he finally meet a huge Flathead Indian kid whom he beats him as hard as he could but he never get him down. He lost the fight, but he thinks that he is not as stronger than he is for he never fought back but too strong to fall down; he is not “the toughest Indian in the world.” During the way, he recalls the old memories about the smell of the Indian. He seems to enjoy this nostalgia of hitchhiking Indians.
During the travel, the reporter is excited by the stories of the fighter and he silently admires his brave and his strength as if he was “a warrior.” The Spokane reporter is actually “leaving” his white society. This is signified and symbolized by his travel along with the Lummi fighter. This travel represents the way towards his regaining his identity as an Indian.
Because the fighter does have any place to stay, he asks him to stay with him in a small hotel Pony Soldier Motel when the day goes dark. Both stay in the same room, the reporter sleep on the bed while the fighter sleep on the floor. Unexpectedly, both are involved in a homosexual interrelationship. Although he is not a gay, he does nothing to stop. In his lovemaking, he feels that he wants the fighter to save him. He says:
Believe me. I wanted him to save me. (p. 104)

In addition, he smells like a salmon, the smell he had during his teenage live when he still lived with his father and was always hitchhiking Indians. Finally, the fighter has to leave because the reporter asks him to do so. The fighter decides to leave that night and says that the reporter is “a tough guy” (tougher that the Flathead kid whom he beats so hard) (p. 104) Compared to what his co-workers have thought of him, this compliment has a great influence on him as an Indian.
After taking a shower and wondering if he was a warrior in this life and had been a warrior in the previous life, he falls asleep. The next morning he goes out and he walks past his car and steps onto the warm pavement. He starts walking in bare feet towards the place where he was born and will someday die. His heart is filled with thin white skeleton of a thousand salmons (p. 104) He has left the car which is the symbol the white culture. The salmons symbolize his Indian identity. He has regained back the most important thing for an Indian--the Indian identity.

3. Native American’s Struggle against White’s Dominant Culture in Louise Erdrich’s The Red Convertible

Louise Erdrich, born in 1954, American writer, whose work focuses on Native American characters. Her writing is distinguished by a lyrical prose and the recurring theme of magic. Born in Little Falls, Minnesota, and educated at Dartmouth College, Erdrich was the daughter of a German American father and a Chippewa mother. Her early schooling was in a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. She began writing as a child and majored in creative writing in college. Erdrich earned a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University in 1979, then went to Dartmouth as writer-in-residence. (Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006.[DVD].
The third short story is The Red Convertible. In this story, Louise Erdrich offers a unique perspective on a kind of maturation process and coming to terms with a discriminatory world. The main character and narrator, Lyman Lamartine, is a young Chippewa Indian trying to define who he is and what is important to him. The environment where he lives offers him two alternative lifestyles: his own native culture and the white culture.
Lyman begins by favoring the more affluent white culture, and Henry, his brother, does, too. The white culture is clearly the empowered society, and perhaps this is what initially attracts Lyman. The whites see it as unusual for a native (Lyman) to make money for example, in his café (p. 232), and they encourage it (they want the native to become like them); he does not see that they wish to resist or erase differences, not accept them.
Lyman is the only native child who is allowed to enter the American Legion Hall (to shine shoes) (p. 232); Lyman is the first and perhaps the only native to drive a convertible on his reservation (p. 232). This is a symbol of marginalization.
The natives appear to live in less than ideal conditions; Lyman observes that the reservation roads are full of holes, as are the promises made by the government--this is an example of paternalism (governing a group in a manner suggesting a father-child relationship, in which the child has no voice). Lyman is aware that the whites use an image of Red Tomahawk, the native who killed Sitting Bull (who objected to white oppression), to give the state an "authentic" identity along the North Dakota highways (p. 234). Again, this is an example of marginalization.

The whites engage in war against other peoples (Vietnam); “dominion” is a key characteristic of the whites, even if the cause is dark. Lyman says: "I could never keep it straight, which direction those good Vietnam soldiers were from." (p. 234)

The whites that welcomed Lyman into their businesses, Lyman realizes, would not welcome the war-torn Henry at the hospital; if they did take him, they would numb his suffering with drugs. (p. 235)
The television, which the young Lyman buys with enthusiasm but later destroys, exemplifies the presence of white values in the native community; in particular, the artificial images of television anaesthetize Henry from the pain of war and capture; he shuts himself from his own family and community (the photograph of Henry suggests that his spirit is already dead). (p. 237)
Henry experiences a bad process of way of his life. He moves from an acceptable life to a completely distressed life. Henry is associated with blood (he bites through his lip and his own blood runs down into his food (p. 235), and with the color red (he has a nose like the Red Tomahawk Indian on all the road signs (p. 234), and he ultimately chooses to drown in the Red River. Thus, Erdrich associates the notion of blood with the "red" race (a white label).
The red convertible is a symbol of marginalization for both Henry and Lyman. However, both men are willing to give it up for more important values (Henry gives it to Lyman when he leaves for the war, and Lyman damages it in an effort to bring Henry back to health; in the end, Lyman erases any evidence of its presence)

The following is the pattern of Lyman life:
1. The phase of separation: Lyman separates himself (although not fully) from the native culture and aspires to succeed in the white world; buying the red convertible, which he at first believes is "alive", is a clear signal that he is making this shift.
2. The phase of transition: Henry returns severely damaged by the war. Lyman finds himself looking to the white culture to heal Henry. He thinks that the repair of the car (a white symbol of success) will stimulate Henry back to life), yet he destroys the TV, also a symbol of the white culture, in an attempt to return Henry to interacting with his native community. He also does not trust the whites to cure Henry at their hospital, should they even accept him as a patient.
3. Aggregation: Lyman completely disconnects himself from the red convertible (and the trappings of white culture) when he submerges it beneath the water; he confirms his status as native when he says.

The Native American people are clearly disempowered in this story. However, despite the oppression, Lyman ultimately chooses to embrace his native heritage, not the white. Lyman and Henry both indicate that the ownership of the red car is not important to them. Lyman destroys the car in the end because it no longer represents success and good times to him. On the contrary, it represents the white world, which has destroyed Henry. He recognizes the enormous sacrifice that Henry has made on behalf of the whites (he has paid for his connection to the white world with his life).
The story concludes that minorities within a dominant culture are often confronted with two choices: to assimilate or to be annihilated. Clearly, Henry has been annihilated, and Lyman, too, finally decides to disconnect his white society, which is symbolized by the drowned car.

V. Conclusion

The three short stories clearly show the problems of Native Americans living in whites’ society. Those are evidences that the assimilation programs fail, since stereotyping and marginalization still exist. Again, the long conflicting relationship between the two cultures and the long history of American Indian Wars still continues, although in the new manifestation.
For the twentieth century Indians, Native Americans are involved in a war to maintain their existence in American culture by preserving a sense of identity in a white man’s world. This war is a battle to attain back the Indian value they has lost in white community, to regain the identity as Indian in white community, and to fight against marginality, colonization, domination of the white society

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Crow

Mythology and Intelligence of these Birds

Crow intelligence

Crow Legends and Mythology

Mythology

Definition

Religion and mythology

Classifications

Related concepts

Formation of myths

Myths as depictions of historical events

Other theories

Modern mythology

Myths by region

Africa

Asia (non-Middle East)

Australia and Oceania

South America and Mesoamerica

Mythological archetypes

Books on mythology

See also

Myth and religion

Lists

Notes

References

External links

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