Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Power of Alcohol
In four souls, Alcohol does play some role. Fleur got pregnant because drinking whiskey, Nanapush been like a fool because drinking wine. Other Indians had been fool by the whites because of Alcohol too. Alcohol is not good if too much drinking, and it seems Fleur, Nanapush and other Indians know that but just cannot get away from it. In "The Warriors", Uncle Ralph got kick out from his family because drinking too much. He is in trouble with alcohol too. In To The American Indian, the Klamath Bluffs store owner got in trouble because selling whiskey to the Indians too. From these, I realize the relation between alcohol and the Indians. In these works, it seems the alcohol troubles the Indians much and cause them lost mind and judgment. Some Indians in these works seem to know it is bad to drink, but they just can't help it so they drink and got themselves into trouble. Even though To the American Indian is kind of non-fiction, and "The Warriors" and Four Souls are fictions, I still can relate them in terms of Alcohol. All three of them outline how alcohol affect Indians, how the characters got into trouble because of alcohol. They are different stories but they all have the bad image of alcohol. They try to tell the audiences not to drink alcohol too much and alcohol is a bad thing. They tell that by showing how fool a person can turn out to be when they drink alcohol. They tell the audience they do not want to be just like Uncle Ralph got kick out from his family, or like Fleur got pregnant and the child be mental ill, or like Nanapush show up it a meeting wearing a woman's dress. (Oh, I wish I could write about this topic more for my Essay 3 and make some researches on alcoholism, but it's too late to change my topic for Essay3, too bad :( )
5 comments:
I'm not sure if these stories actually reach out to the audience to tell us that alcohol is bad. I think it is just a common part of the lifestyle of native americans. Maybe the characters throughtout all the works who are involved in alcoholism represent something further than abuse. Maybe the use of alcoholic characters enhance the degree of life struggles the native americans faced which and alcoholism was a way to cope with the hardships of life. I really like your findings in all these works. Did you also notice the smoking of tobacco in many of the fiction and non-fiction works?
I think that it is important to recognize this stereotype and the reason that Erdrich includes it in the book. It seems to me that she is giving alcoholism a context of suffering and seeking revenge since Fleur begins drinking while she is married to Mausser and Nanapush drinks when he is driven to madness thinking about Margaret with Shasheeb. We can think of all Native American people as living in a similar context, having their land and spouses taken from them. In this way it seems like Erdrich is explaining the stereotype. However, this stereotype brings rise to yet another, that of being tragic which we could argue that she explains or defies as well.
You make a good point in most of the stories we read in class, they talk about alcohol being miss use by the Indians. i don't think that this stories were necessarily telling us, that alcohol was bad, however i do think that they are implying that the introduction of American ways of life had a big impact in the life of most Indians. for example Alcohol was a temptation to them something that they were not use to so when they were introduce to it, they did not know who to handle it.
You're definitely right, alcohol is present in many of the stories we've read and certainly has never been a positive element in any of them (though Fleur does feign inebriation to get her land back). However, I think alcohol has negative effects on all people, no matter what race. Nevertheless, alcohol can be seen as yet another metaphor for the destructiveness that whites have had on the Native people. Though Indigenous people had forms of alcohol prior to white appearance, it does seem like alcoholism and its impact were not problematic until the whites showed up. Either way, it's still seems like yet another Indian stereotype in Erdrich's novel.
I dont think these stories were meant to teach lessons about alcohol, but rather were written to show how easy people can lose the important things in their lives. Alcohol is usually a cause of this loss, but it can also happen in many other ways. The important thing is to be smart and fight for what you love because it can be taken from you. This was seen in the Soft-Hearted Sioux when he lost his family, his culture, his respect from his village and his life.
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