Personal Analysis of Blue Winds Dancing The short story, Blue Winds Dancing by Tom Whitecloud is about a young Native American’s struggle to exist in both the white mans world and the Native American world. The narrator of the story perceives these two different worlds as the civilized and uncivilized America. This short story is an example of a human existence and communicates the importance of young Native American’s cultural struggle to fit into the white world within the history of America. This struggle is a direct link to the whites battling and conquering the Native American to create the civilized white man’s world. The young Native American yearns to return to the familiarity of home when he encounter may foreign concepts, he perceives
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Whitecloud use the five elements of structure, exposition, complication, climax, falling action and resolution in Freytag’s model to create a sense of chronological order to Blue Winds Dancing (Rossback 6). Rearranging the story would create disorder and chaos. Whitecloud sets up the exposition in the first eleven paragraphs of the story. A young native American attending college in California yearning for home. Whitecloud describes California as civilized and ordered when he writes “Here where the fall hide in the valleys, and winter never comes down from the mountains. Here where all the trees grow in rows; the palms stand stiffly by the roadside and in the groves of trees line in military rows, and endlessly bear fruit” (320). He contrasts this with his home, which he describes as uncivilized when he writes “The leaves change before snow comes” and “Bears dig roots and eat late fall berries” (Whitecloud 320). “I am tired” represents the fact that he does not want to do what is expected of him, but wants to be free to “walk among again the ghost birches” (Whitecloud 321). Blue Winds Dancing could be said to have several climaxes to the story. The first would be the act of the native American man deciding he has had enough of the white mans world and decides to go home, even though “they will say he has gone back to the blanket (Whitecloud 321). Whitecloud …show more content…
In Blue Winds Dancing I find the real conflict shows up towards the end of the story. Whitecloud uses the structure of the story to create the impression of several conflicts within the story. The real conflict is internal; man verses himself. The repetition of the differences between the white world and the Native American world is evidence that our narrator is feeling an outcast. Our narrator yearns to be home, but is stuck in the white mans world. It isn’t until he starts making his trek home for the holidays that he starts to worry about what his family and tribe will think him a stranger. “Suddenly I am afraid, now that I am but twenty miles from home. Afraid of what my father will say, afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people (Whitecloud 322). He is wondering where the young Native Americans belong in this world. He is confused because he states “We just don 't seem to fit anywhere-certainly not among the whites, and not among the older people” (Whitecloud 322). This thought is felt by many of young people who are from a different culture. Acceptance is something that all young people struggle to attain, however many young people of different cultures want to be accepted in the white mans world as well as within their own
Whitecloud use the five elements of structure, exposition, complication, climax, falling action and resolution in Freytag’s model to create a sense of chronological order to Blue Winds Dancing (Rossback 6). Rearranging the story would create disorder and chaos. Whitecloud sets up the exposition in the first eleven paragraphs of the story. A young native American attending college in California yearning for home. Whitecloud describes California as civilized and ordered when he writes “Here where the fall hide in the valleys, and winter never comes down from the mountains. Here where all the trees grow in rows; the palms stand stiffly by the roadside and in the groves of trees line in military rows, and endlessly bear fruit” (320). He contrasts this with his home, which he describes as uncivilized when he writes “The leaves change before snow comes” and “Bears dig roots and eat late fall berries” (Whitecloud 320). “I am tired” represents the fact that he does not want to do what is expected of him, but wants to be free to “walk among again the ghost birches” (Whitecloud 321). Blue Winds Dancing could be said to have several climaxes to the story. The first would be the act of the native American man deciding he has had enough of the white mans world and decides to go home, even though “they will say he has gone back to the blanket (Whitecloud 321). Whitecloud …show more content…
In Blue Winds Dancing I find the real conflict shows up towards the end of the story. Whitecloud uses the structure of the story to create the impression of several conflicts within the story. The real conflict is internal; man verses himself. The repetition of the differences between the white world and the Native American world is evidence that our narrator is feeling an outcast. Our narrator yearns to be home, but is stuck in the white mans world. It isn’t until he starts making his trek home for the holidays that he starts to worry about what his family and tribe will think him a stranger. “Suddenly I am afraid, now that I am but twenty miles from home. Afraid of what my father will say, afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people (Whitecloud 322). He is wondering where the young Native Americans belong in this world. He is confused because he states “We just don 't seem to fit anywhere-certainly not among the whites, and not among the older people” (Whitecloud 322). This thought is felt by many of young people who are from a different culture. Acceptance is something that all young people struggle to attain, however many young people of different cultures want to be accepted in the white mans world as well as within their own