A/N: I wrote these opinions for an assignment. These are my interpretations of these specific pieces of American Literature. If you are easily offended, be cautious when reading these reading responses. Honestly, most of these responses are just me trying to meet a word requirement and they should and are meant to be taken lightheartedly. Also, I am editing some of these responses as I post them because my opinions changed, or I wanted to say something better than what was originally written. I will be happy to discuss these responses further, just please be nice :)
Warnings: There is one part about a race issue in Chopin’s piece, and also a rant on having to read yet another piece of Native American literature. I do not have anything against Native Americans or their culture, I’m just annoyed that every other assignment we have in this class is about Native Americans even though we are currently in the late 1800s. As I have said before, if it is overly offensive I will take that part out and repost.
I love the way Sarah Orne Jewett writes!!! She is very descriptive, yes, but it is in a way that keeps the reader interested as the story continues. Not many people can write about a cow for that long and keep my interest until the story is over. Also, I love her word choices. The reader can tell that Sarah Orne Jewett was very meticulous in her word choices, because the text of the book sounds so sophisticated, but the dialogue is worded to show the accents of the characters in “A White Heron.” Jewett uses sentences such as, “Suddenly, this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away,” but the dialogue of her characters reads as, “There ain’t a foot o’ ground she don’t know her way over, and the wild creaturs counts her one o’ themselves.”
The way Jewett described Sylvia and Mistress Moolly at the beginning reminded me of the little boy who has to sell his cow in the musical Into the Woods, in that both have a cow as a best friend. There’s nothing more to add about that, I just thought you might like to know!
Chopin – “Desiree’s Baby”
I love Kate Chopin, too! She is quite strange, and it shows in her writings when she uses phrases such as, “He absented himself from home.” She could have just said, “He left,” but she chooses to draw out her sentences instead. This is how long sentences should be written. Not just slapping words on paper and creating a run-on sentence, but creating a clear image that keeps the reader interested.
Another reason I love Chopin so much is how scandalous she was for her time-period! I remember reading “The Storm” in high school and thinking, “I am so sorry, she lived when?” Her taboo writings are what she is remembered for, and “Desiree’s Baby” is no different. Armand thought that Desiree was black, and he was very angry that she did not tell him. During this time period, one did not hide their race from their spouse. So, Desiree’s mother tells Desiree to pack up the baby and come home, and she does. Meanwhile, Armand is burning his wife’s belongings and comes across a letter. His mother had written his father, “night and day, I thank God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.”
Sa – “Impressions of an Indian Childhood: My Mother, The Legends, The Big Red Apples” and “The Soft-Hearted Sioux”
After reading about the Native Americans all semester, I am, in today’s terms, done! The problem is not that I have some sort of vendetta against the American Indians, only that I am bored of reading about them so much – just like I would be bored of reading any other one subject three hundred times in one semester.
That being said, I did like the way Zitkala Sa wrote. Her writing style is similar to Kate Chopin and Sarah Orne Jewett in that I, the reader, am not bored the entire time. No matter how bored I was on the subject of American Indians, Sa still seemed to keep my interest at least long enough to read her stories. The reader can tell that Sa’s childhood had a great impact on her life. This is evident throughout her writings, not just in the titles of her stories. For having not spoken English as her first language, she writes very well in English. I might even go as far as to say Zitkala Sa writes better in English than most of the English-speaking population of the world.
