The figurative language throughout “Dear John Wayne” really makes the piece come to life. It allows readers to see what John Wayne and the Westerners felt about the first nations. The figurative language allows for a better understanding during this time. For example, Erdrich uses a metaphor to describe the disease in the poem. Erdrich says, “Even his disease was the idea of taking everything. / Those cells, burning, doubling, splitting out of their skin” (41-42). This was raising awareness as to how cancer was taking the lives of many people. It can also be the way that the government treated First Nations. The government put First nations people in residential schools, so that the First Nations culture would die, and assimilate First Nations
