The Medicine Bag

Being proud of who you are is an important thing to live by. In the short story of The medicine bag by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve; Martin a boy with, native American roots, is surprised by his native American grandpa. The only problem is Martin is embarrassed of his grandpa and finds out that he must carry out the tradition of carrying the medicine bag. A brown leather bag that has been carried throughout the family and stored with important things. This story is interesting and brings many possible themes to a reader's mind. I believe the theme of the short story is to be proud of who you are. The 3 main reasons I think this is are, Martin wears the medicine bag on the reservation. Cheryl Martin’s sister is never embarrassed by her grandpa, and lastly, how the author Virginia, shows Martin's character growth over the story. Another reason why the theme is to be proud of who you are is because martin wheres it on the reservation. An example of Martin wearing the medicine bag on the reservation to further explain my thinking can be found on page 123. On this page Martin explains to us that two weeks later he visits the reservation, Martin ends up putting a sacred sage in the medicine bag. This shows that Martin respects his tradition and will follow it through. Even though on page 118 Martin …show more content…
This can be shown on page 115. When Martin’s grandpa walks into the house after randomly appearing at their neighborhood. Cheryl runs and is explosively happy at the sight of her grandpa. A different time this happens in the story is on page 116 when Martin’s sister Cheryl says “You came to see us!”. This sentence shows she was very happy to see her grandpa because of the author's craft using the exclamation point to show her excitement. The evidence reveals to us the reader that Cheryl is not afraid of who she is and or her native american