Fire of Eden: Zitkala-Sa's Bitter Apple

伊甸园 白色(突变) 女孩 历史 女儿 艺术 艺术史 谱系学 法学 心理学 政治学 发展心理学 生物化学 化学 基因
作者
Catherine Kunce
出处
期刊:Studies in American Indian Literatures [Project MUSE]
卷期号:18 (1): 73-82 被引量:13
标识
DOI:10.1353/ail.2006.0013
摘要

Fire of EdenZitkala-Ša's Bitter Apple Catherine Kunce (bio) In the largely autobiographical "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" (1900–1901), Lakota Zitkala-Ša tells of missionaries enticing her to attend their mission school, promising the eight-year-old her fill of apples if she left her Yankton reservation. What appears to be a textual detail actually signals Zitkala-Ša's retelling of the Garden of Eden story. In casting her mother as God, her brother as Adam, the missionaries as the Serpent, and herself as Eve, Zitkala-Ša reveals the catastrophic consequences of forced relinquishment of her language, and subsequently of her culture. Fighting fire with fire through her subversive and extended metaphor, Zitkala-Ša articulates, through the oppressor's own language, the hypocritical and sadistic underpinnings of an attempted silencing of her native tongue. Zitkala-Ša ("Red Bird") was born as Gertrude Simmons in 1876 on the Yankton reservation in South Dakota. There she lived with her mother (her white father abandoned the family before his daughter's birth). Missionaries, following radical assimilation policies of the day, coaxed the young girl away from her home. She attended the Quakers' boarding school, White's Manual Labor Institute, in Wabash, Indiana, for a year and a half. While attending Earlham College, Zitkala-Ša excelled in debate. It seems deeply ironic that she would later teach at the Carlisle Indian School, where children were brutalized in order to "Kill the Indian and save the man!" (Davidson and Norris xvii). As a talented violinist and writer, the young woman made a big splash with East Coast society when she began performing and writing works for the Atlantic Monthly, which first featured [End Page 73] her autobiographical stories over a period of three months in 1900. Although after her 1902 marriage to Raymond Bonnin she never again wrote for the Atlantic, Zitkala-Ša continued to write, to produce an opera, and to promote Indian rights. Cathy N. Davidson and Ada Norris point out that conspicuously absent from Zitkala-Ša's autobiographical works is mention of the massacre at "Wounded Knee and the murder of Sitting Bull, [which] occurred while she was at home on the Yankton reservation on a school break" in 1890 (xii). But to decry the atrocity would have marked Zitkala-Ša as an enemy of the culture committing the atrocity. Additionally, other writings reveal Zitkala-Ša's cognizance of the importance of calculation in administering effective counterattacks.1 Jeanne Smith alludes to Zitkala-Ša's strategy, noting, "In order to fight back against the white cultural powers which threaten her, [Zitkala-Ša] [learns] that she must fight in their medium: spoken and written English" (55). So too does Zitkala-Ša fight back with allusions to a religion that justifies silencing Indigenous languages. Zitkala-Ša's frequently veiled yet persistent connecting of her own experience to the biblical Fall displays her ingenuity in reconciling her white audience's sensibilities with the more urgent need to instruct that audience about the cataclysmic results of religious hypocrisy. In short, Zitkala-Ša offers her white audience a brilliantly subversive recitation of the missionaries' own teachings. Before the invasion of missionaries, Zitkala-Ša enjoyed an Edenic existence, marred only by her mother's memory of white barbarity, which not only incurred the deaths of Zitkala-Ša's uncle and sister but defrauded Lakotas of their land. In spite of her mother's resultant taciturn and frequently somber demeanor, Zitkala-Ša at seven was "as free as the wind that [blows her] hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer" (8). As Martha J. Cutter observes, "Zitkala-Ša portrays a type of Eden, a world of perfect peace and cooperation between humankind and nature, a world where food is not earned by the sweat of the brow and language is not distorted" (n.p.). Untouched by cruelty, Zitkala-Ša was taught "no fear save that of intruding [herself] on others" (8). Drawing water from the river, roaming the hills, and playing with friends, the young girl lived close to the [End Page 74] land, her mother, and the local elders, one of whom, in his affection and respect of Zitkala-Ša, did not correct...
最长约 10秒,即可获得该文献文件

科研通智能强力驱动
Strongly Powered by AbleSci AI
更新
大幅提高文件上传限制,最高150M (2024-4-1)

科研通是完全免费的文献互助平台,具备全网最快的应助速度,最高的求助完成率。 对每一个文献求助,科研通都将尽心尽力,给求助人一个满意的交代。
实时播报
文档完成签到,获得积分10
1秒前
嘻嘻嘻完成签到 ,获得积分10
3秒前
正直时光发布了新的文献求助30
6秒前
阿秋完成签到,获得积分10
8秒前
天天快乐应助star采纳,获得30
9秒前
一一应助汉关明月采纳,获得10
9秒前
可爱的函函应助汉关明月采纳,获得10
9秒前
10秒前
xlong应助不要讨好十三采纳,获得10
11秒前
星辰大海应助Sor采纳,获得10
11秒前
12秒前
SC完成签到 ,获得积分10
12秒前
12秒前
14秒前
14秒前
15秒前
Song发布了新的文献求助10
16秒前
16秒前
研友_VZG7GZ应助流星雨采纳,获得10
17秒前
一一发布了新的文献求助30
18秒前
威风完成签到,获得积分20
18秒前
Song完成签到,获得积分10
19秒前
19秒前
zho发布了新的文献求助10
20秒前
ling发布了新的文献求助10
20秒前
正直时光完成签到,获得积分20
21秒前
lxd完成签到 ,获得积分10
21秒前
懵懂小尉发布了新的文献求助10
22秒前
23秒前
23秒前
24秒前
田様应助VANGOGH采纳,获得10
24秒前
汉关明月完成签到,获得积分10
24秒前
24秒前
NexusExplorer应助扶桑采纳,获得10
25秒前
25秒前
梦锂铧完成签到,获得积分10
26秒前
Sor完成签到,获得积分10
26秒前
直率的心情完成签到,获得积分10
27秒前
懵懂小尉完成签到,获得积分10
28秒前
高分求助中
Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary Executive Skills Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential (第二版) 1000
PraxisRatgeber: Mantiden: Faszinierende Lauerjäger 700
The Heath Anthology of American Literature: Early Nineteenth Century 1800 - 1865 Vol. B 500
A new species of Velataspis (Hemiptera Coccoidea Diaspididae) from tea in Assam 500
Machine Learning for Polymer Informatics 500
《关于整治突出dupin问题的实施意见》(厅字〔2019〕52号) 500
2024 Medicinal Chemistry Reviews 480
热门求助领域 (近24小时)
化学 医学 生物 材料科学 工程类 有机化学 生物化学 物理 内科学 纳米技术 计算机科学 化学工程 复合材料 基因 遗传学 催化作用 物理化学 免疫学 量子力学 细胞生物学
热门帖子
关注 科研通微信公众号,转发送积分 3222475
求助须知:如何正确求助?哪些是违规求助? 2871125
关于积分的说明 8173855
捐赠科研通 2538042
什么是DOI,文献DOI怎么找? 1370245
科研通“疑难数据库(出版商)”最低求助积分说明 645736
邀请新用户注册赠送积分活动 619535