Journal Of Jesse Smoke Analysis

In the interview with Amanda Swimmer she comments on how her people are less and less concerned with community, or as the pan Indian values handout states, “group emphasis rather than individual emphasis. In the first of Swimmer’s two interviews she comments, “And people don’t love each other like they used to way back. They used to help each other… they’d go out and help this person’s that’s got sick… they don’t (know) who’s sick and who’s dying.” She does not seem to have much hope that the situation will get better with time, and blames alcohol partly for this change saying, “…lot of them around here, goes down there, gets a case of beer, and gets drunk, even the women’s doing all that.” It is clear the Swimmer believes that the sense of …show more content…
She is a single mother who navigates and takes care of her three children through the Trail of Tears. Like the women from Erdrich’s novel, Sallie is portrayed as a woman who needs no help from men, but rather holds the family together basically by herself. She is resourceful and takes care of her family fiercely, making sure they are all feed and taken care for. Jesse talks of his mother’s role saying, “In our Cherokee way, it is the women who are the real heads of our household. Our homes and their contents belong to the women…” (Bruchac). Throughout their trek on the Trail of Tears, Sallie maintains her role as head of the household. Typically in Western culture, and many other cultures, it is the other way around, as the man is considered the head of the house and the women and children are below him. In some aspects, Bruchac’s novel reminded me of Wilder’s children’s novel Little House on the Prairie, but for very different reasons. In Little House on the Prairie it is clear that the father is the head of the household, and his wife and children are forced to bend to his will unquestionably. It was very refreshing to see women portrayed as the head of the household or as the real breadwinners of the