Dec 2
Please read the poem "The Powwow at the End of the World" by Sherman Alexie. Follow this link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177413
Afterward, choose one of the following responses:
1. Analyze the poem's overall message by discussing Alexie's poetic techniques.
2. Compare the poem to one of the political cartoons we discussed yesterday.
You can receive extra credit by responding to a comment that answers the other question!
2. This poem is about how European Americans believe that Native Americans should apologize for everything that they do. The author responds by saying that this is something he will do when things that are merely impossible occur. This is similar to the political cartoon we looked at yesterday where the European Americans are yelling at the Native American to leave, and the Native American is responding by saying that that is what he is thinking. Both the poem and the cartoon show that the European Americans believe that the Natives should not have a place in this country, even though they were in the country before the Europeans. The Natives clearly do not agree, but they do not rebel back like European Americans would. In the poem, the author says that he will apologize for being there when things occur in nature, instead of saying that he will apologize when something tragic occurs. As seen in the cartoon, the European Americans protest and fight back instead of being peaceful. These are very similar in the way that they are displaying how European Americans want the Natives to apologize for existing and that the European Americans will do anything to make sure the Natives leave.
ReplyDeleteI really like your comparison between this poem and the political cartoon. In both instances the Americans act harshly and try to say that it is their right to be here and not the Natives. I like that the Native Americans do not ask for special treatment in return to the harsh actions that the immigrants do, they simply want to go back to their original way of life when they could live their native lifestyle. In both the cartoon and the poem that Native Americans show that they are dumbfounded by the expectation that the Americans have of them, which they rightly should be. If you were put in the situation that the native are would you forgive them?
DeleteIn his poem, he talks about the native americans and their reservations and about some of the things that they would do like telling stories and dancing. In one of the political cartoons, there is an image of a native american being yelled at by a large group of angry white people, but the native american is keeping his calm. That is similar to the poem, because he talks about how he is told to forgive and in this case, he could be talking about forgiving all of the rude white people who are yelling at him and taking his land. He said how he will forgive people when they are all back together on their reservation telling stories, laughing, and dancing. Once that goal is finally achieved, he can forgive the people who separated them and took their land.
ReplyDelete1. The overall message about “The Powwow at the End of the World” is about how the author can’t forgive. He wants to exemplify how impossible it is to forgive “all of you”, referring to individuals in the audience, and he does this by using the poetic device of repetition. He constantly repeats the phrase “I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after” to demonstrate the great amount of time that would pass before he would actually “forgive” the people for what they had done to him and his tribe. Also, after this phrase, he goes on to describe the events that must occur before he would be willing to show forgiveness, such as the destruction of the nearby cities and the renewal of his family and friends. We can infer that the people within these cities have mistreated his tribe and drove them out of their home and he is being told to forgive them, but the author states that he can’t unless his land has been redeemed for him and his people.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you about how the overall message of the poem is that the author cannot forgive the people for what they have done. I think that this is somewhat of a big allusion for all Native American people in the fact that they can't forgive European Americans for what they have done to them.
DeleteI definitely agree with your inference and your analysis. He is trying to show that he will not be forgiving anyone until things that are practically impossible occur. I think one thing we can also infer is that he will not forgive them until mass destruction happens to the European Americans because they destroyed his world.
DeleteI agree 100% with your analysis; I think you did a really good job pointing out the repetition and everything else. I think something else to add about the mistreatment of his people from surrounding cities is that he makes sure to include the "abandoned reactors." This is significant, at least to me, because he is saying that they have taken his land, mistreated him and his tribe, and now they aren't even using a lot of that land anyway. This only adds to his frustration.
DeleteThis poem reminds me a lot of the political cartoon we looked at yesterday where the pilgrims left the Native American with the check after they ate all of his food. This poem tells the message that Sherman will forgive Americans once the things they have done to his people are reversed. I think his message relates to the political cartoon because the cartoon represents how Americans took all of the Natives possessions and techniques, and left them with nothing, and the poem explains how Sherman, a Native American, won't forgive the Americans for what they have done until those things are fixed. Both pieces of literature go to show the effects and outcomes of what the Europeans had done to the Native Americans.
ReplyDeleteI think this poem is somewhat like one of the political cartoons we looked at yesterday. The one I think it most compares to is the first cartoon we looked at where we saw a Native American being told by a mob of European Americans to "go back to where you came from" because he was an "immigrant", and the Native American replies by saying "you took the words right out of my mouth." I think that these are kind of similar because Alexie is talking about how his whole life he was told that he doesn't really fit, and was being told to go away, just like the Native American in the cartoon. They both spent their whole life being told that they should go away because they weren't like the other people around them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you are saying but I would live to add some things. I feel like, in both cases, the natives are very resentful of the "Americans." The Americans came into their land and destroyed their way of life and they still have the nerve to get angry at the Indians for wanting to stay in their own land. In this sense, the Indians are being treated unjustly in two regards.
DeleteSherman's overall message looks to be that it's basically impossible for him to forgive what the Americans did to his people over 100 years ago, after the genocide of the American Indian people. Current Americans are trying to force the Natives to forgive what they have done to them, but from this we can see its seemingly impossible. This can correlate really well with the one political cartoon we saw of all those white americans yelling that the Native American and saying go home. When we see that the Americans are trying to force ideals on the Natives like they are trying to force them to forgive. It's going to be really difficult to forgive people who wiped out most of your elders in a mass genocide,
ReplyDeleteI agree because it is very hard for them to forgive them after all the bad that the european americans had caused for them. The native americans were kicked out of their own land, killed, and after all of that, they are expected just to forgive them. It is not easy when they know that their relatives were treated the way they were and their lives have been changed forever due to the actions done by thise americans back then.
DeleteThe poem is talking about an Indian being told that he needs to forgive the Americans for what they have done to their tribe, which he will do once their community has received all of the things that the Americans took including salmon and the Native American culture. This story relays the message that one cannot change another person’s life distinctly and expect them to think that this new way of life is still now the best way to live. Alexie uses anaphoras of “I am told” to show that the Americans are repetitive in their dampening of the Native American culture and that it is not one small thing that the Natives are supposed to forgive. Alexie puts the readers in a state of suspense as they do not know when the list of wrongdoings is going to end and each event is general until he ties the events into Native American tribal culture in the last few lines. The reader is left with the idea that the Natives will forgive them when they are allowed to live the life that they did when they were able to occupy their reservations in peace.
ReplyDelete2) He is lonely and has nobody to talk to like the Indian chief sitting down at the empty table, with the pilgrims all leaving him with the bill. both of these writings lots of similarities, because they are both about some of the struggles that happen to people back then. The political cartoon was meant to show that the pilgrims left the Indians with no food to hunt and with bills for living on the land. And in this poem it shows how this young Indian boy could not fit in comfortably anywhere rather if he was with white people or his people. In the poem i like how he is also talking about how they get there fish through out the story, because it makes it more interesting and entertaing to read.
ReplyDeleteThere are many similarities between the political cartoon and the poem. Both are about how Native Americans are being oppressed or have been oppressed. Both prove that natives have been discriminated against. The dominate group that is discriminating them is the white Americans. Both show how hard life is for Native Americans and how much they need to overcome. One example of this comes from one of the political cartoons. It shows a Native American being taunted by a sports fan with the sports fan covered in "Indian" apparel. The fan is fat ugly and has beer in his hand which suggests that he is intoxicated. This makes the viewer of the cartoon sympathies with Native American. The sports fan is being stereotypical of natives and a bit racist. The native looks at him with confusion. This is an example of how natives are being discriminated against in today's society.
ReplyDelete1. The overall overall message that this author is trying to show his readers is that you should not keep a grudge on someone for a long time because no matter what, that anger will eventually pass by it’s own self. The reason on why I said this was because, this authors used a lot of imagery as well as repetition throughout his whole poem. This imagery gave the reader a better understanding on the things that he had to be before he started to forgive the people that he had to forgive. The author other literary device that he used was the use of repetition. Having this author uses the words, “I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after” over and over again, it gives the audience a better understanding on the overall message of the poem.
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DeleteI agree that he used imagery but I believe some of the imagery in is poem also had more signfigiant meaning behind it. Like the dam bursting could have expressed what it felt like when the Europeans took all their land and the Natives had to start all over on new and not as good land. Like they are holding in all their emotions and if it were to burst then they are exploding all their emotions.
DeleteQuestion #1
ReplyDeleteI believe that the overall purpose/meaning for this poem is for the author to persuade his fellow Native Americans to forgive the persecution and horrible treatment that they received from the European settlers over the last few centuries. The author Sherman Alexie also wants the audience to realize that the Native Americans will only forgive the people if all of the destruction to the their land is taken down. Some poetic techniques he uses includes repetition, which is often used to get a message or point across to the reader, like it is used here. The poem also has a mellow but serious tone, not an angry one. I believe that the author chose this tone in order for his message to be more clear and acceptable. Lastly, the poem is almost like a communal dance or ceremony done traditionally in Native American culture. I think the reason he chose to do this was for the purpose of showing that Native American culture is worth saving.
I think that what Alexie is trying to say is that he is upset with how the world is being destroyed. In the poem, he talks about how he will forgive after the Grand Coulee dam bursts. This indicates that he doesn't like what the dam had done to the environment and wants things to change. He also tells a story about a salmon swimming down the Columbia river and going through all of the broken land. I think he is maybe symbolizing the salmon to be Native Americans as a whole unit, and they are going through the broken land and sorta admiring what they had taken back. All he wants is his tribe to be together again and to have a community that isn't being socially looked down on my society. Since he used to have social issues, maybe he incorporated some of that into his writing and how he feels about society.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is related to the political cartoon where the Native is sitting at the table alone with the check, with pilgrims standing behind him. In the poem it says that he has been told to forgive, he said that he will after specific events occur. All of these events have to do with nature. The cartoon shows the table with all of the food eaten. Both of these symbolize that the Native Americans were left with their land taken and their resources taken. Sherman Alexie said that can't forgive for what the white people did to him and his tribe. He doesn't want to forgive because he believes the European immigrants destroyed their way of life. He would forgive when the same thing happens to the European immigrants.
ReplyDeleteThe poem “Powwow at the End of the World” is about how discriminant and selfish the European Americans are towards the Native Americans. This Poem represents how this Native American will not forgive the things the European Americans did to them like taking away their land, putting up dams, destroying nature. He won’t be satisfied until it all goes back to the way it was before and he won’t really forgive them until it all happens. They basically took away his way of living and had to change his lifestyle. A political cartoon that opposes this view is the one with a stereotypical americans that say go back where you came from. They believe it's fine they did that and they should still leave. shows how discriminant the European Americans are against the Natives.
ReplyDelete"The Powwow at the End of the World" is about the atrocities the European Americans brought upon the Natives. The repetition sets a pattern the resembles a chant, which were used by Native Americans during their ceremonies. The barriers being broken allowing the water to flow symbolize the barriers of humanity falling in order to create a better, more unified world.
ReplyDelete2. The poem, "Powwow at the End of the World" is similar to the political cartoon with the Native American sitting alone with the check and nothing left. The political cartoon suggests that Native Americans were left with nothing. Settlers took everything from them and left the natives with consequences. They took away their land and moved them to the unwanted land across the country. Thousands of them died and they weren't given many rights. They were moved on to reservations with limited resources. The poem is saying that he will forgive once he is given back land, resources, freedom, his tribe. He wants back what was taken from him so long ago. However, this will never happen and so he can never forgive. Both the political cartoon and the poem demonstrate the loss that the Native Americans experienced, and are still experiencing, and how they were left with nothing.
ReplyDelete2. This poem is about how Alexie cannot forgive European Americans and how he is angry that he is the one being asked for forgiveness. This directly relates to the political cartoon from class where the 'Americans' were telling the lone Native to "go back where he came from." The poem and the cartoon relate to each other with the fact that Native Americans are not at fault. European Americans want Alexie to forgive them (which he finds appalling), while the Native in the cartoon is telling them that they should go back they came from. In both situations, the Native American wants the European Americans to be at fault, or at least to realize how wrong they were and have been for so many years. The political cartoon is slightly more aggressive with this fact because that Native American wants the Europeans to leave whereas the narrator in the poem is more focused on the fact that many things are still wrong because of the European Americans, but eventually with hard work, it may be able to be fixed. I know that is not the direct message because he makes the "forgiveness requirements" quite impossible, but they are existent. Also, although the narrator of the poem is being told to forgive, the European Americans are not "owning up" to how much damage they really caused, which makes the narrator so unforgiving towards them. The Native American in the political cartoon is also unforgiving because it was his land first. They both also demonstrate how much European Americans are *still* asking from Native Americans, even after taking everything.
ReplyDeleteI am responding to the second question by comparing the poem to the political cartoons from yesterday. The one theme all of the cartoons held in common was that the Native Americans have been wronged by us, the Americans who immigrated here. There has been centuries of time where we have wronged the Native people, and yet we expect to appease them by simply offering our apology and relatively small reservations for them to live on where they can continue their way of life so long as it doesn't effect us. This injustice is and should be held by the Native Americans and here in this poem Alexei expresses this poetically. He uses the breaking of the dams and the salmon returning to symbolize the release of the Native Americans from their reservations and restrictions so they can re-establish their way of life, hence the celebration described in a more classical Native American sense at the end of the poem. Alexei calls for more action to be done in order to right a larger portion of what has been wronged before he and the other Native Americans who share his view actually forgive us. This type of message is seen in the political cartoons as the authors objectify us Americans as the intruders, thieves, and monsters that we were, and to some level still are, to the natives. Whether it is through satirical irony or poetic metaphor the message holds true throughout: we still have much to fix before we can be forgiven.
ReplyDeleteThe poem, "Powwow at the End of the World", by Sherman Alexie, is a very complex poem. After hearing the poem be read aloud, I had to reread it my self in order to understand its meaning. The part that really struck me and got me to think about the poem they way I have is when he says that he will forgive when the damn topples over, and burst. This intense beginning made me think that he just wants what should have happened. He will not forgive because he is upset at what the European Americans did to his ancestors. Instead he wants these man made things, like damns taken down so the salmon can swim through without barriers and see the land for what it should have been. I also believe that the salmon is the native american group as a whole. They need to be able to go through land without being discriminated and be able to live their life the way it should have been. They must feel more free and equal before any native Americans can forgive for what the Europeans Americans did to their ancestors so long ago. Then in the end when he says that the salmon must teach how to pray, dance, and laugh, is really that Native Americans want to be able to celebrate their beliefs and teach them without ridicule. And all this must happen before he can forgive.
ReplyDeleteThis poem can be related to the political cartoons that we looked at yesterday. The two main cartoons that stand out in my mind is the one with the Indian confronting the Americans angry about immigration and the one where the Indian is at the table and was left with the paycheck. The poem is, as I interpreted it after reading it a few times, saying that Alexie will forgive what the Europeans did, but it will take a lot for him to do so. In the first political cartoon that I mentioned (the one about immigration) the Indian is saying how the Americans "took the words right out of [his] mouth". The Indian isn't ready to forgive the Americans for what they did to their land and is pointing out the hypocrisy of their statement considering the Americans' ancestors drove out the Natives. The poem can also be compared to the cartoon with the Indian and the check. The Indian pretty much has everything stripped bare and is left to clean up the mess left behind. The native american isn't going to just forgive the Europeans on a whim. What the Europeans did to them was substantial and destructive and it can only be healed with time and whenever the natives effected feel ready. Nobody should tell them when to forgive because it was the natives that were hurt the most in the end.
ReplyDeleteThe poem, “The Powwow at the End of the World” is a poem written by a native American, Sherman Alexie, who is stating his conditions for forgiveness. People commonly ask him to forgive the immigrants who came and took over their land and he lays out, what appear to be, his conditions. Upon further analysis, however, it becomes clear that what Alexie is asking for is not possible. What he wishes for becomes less and less realistic until his demands are practically impossible. His reason for doing this is not because he feels as though his demands should be met, but should instead tell the reader that he does not forgive the immigrants, nor will he ever in the future. By the end of the poem, he even states that he will forgive when he is, “dancing with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.” With this, he implies that even if all of his demands are somehow met, he will not forgive until the very end of the world.
ReplyDeleteI am going to compare this poem to the political cartoon where there was a mob of immigrants yelling at the native american to go back to where he came from. When the author writes “I am told by many of you” they are referring to all the people that author has heard tell him how to live his life. This is similar to the political cartoon because in there the mass crowd was telling the one native how to live his life. In both these situations the mass crowds are incorrect and should take their own advice. In the political cartoon the mass crowd was the true group of people who were the immigrants. In this poem the person who is being told they have to forgive is saying it is impossible to forgive what has happened to his people at this point. What others have done to his kind is too harsh to erase. The damage is done and there is no going back now.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is about how the author cannot forgive the European Americans for taking over what was not theirs and forcing the Native Americans out of their home. The author says that he will forgive them when the impossible happen, so never. This relates to the political cartoon where the European Americans were on one side telling the lonely Native American to leave and the Native American says that they should leave. The European Americans don't believe that the Native Americans belong here and that they need to leave but the Native Americans are the ones who were here first and the European Americans just took over with no consideration of the Native Americans. The Native Americans feel that the European Americans shouldn't be here either but they don't really do anything about it, unlike the European Americans. In the past, the European Americans forced the Native Americans out of their territory and had them walk the Trail of Tears to their new reservations in land that was of no use. This poem shows how the author feels about the situation and the political cartoon also shows how the Native Americans feel by the Native American in the political cartoon saying that the European Americans should leave too.
ReplyDelete1. This poem's overall message is that the Indian's will fully forgive the people that took everything from them once their freedom is returned. He achieves this message through a variety of devices. He first uses repetition of "I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after" to continually reiterate his desire to forgive, but his inability to do this because of the sheer amount of things he is being asked to forgive. He also utilizes symbolism to achieve his message. The salmon is used to symbolize the Native American's freedom that has been taken away by European settlers. Another symbol was the dams. When the restrictions (symbolized by the dams) put on Native Americans are destroyed, the Native Americans can finally forgive. Lastly, the author uses metaphor to get his message across. The "powwow at the end of the world" can be interpreted to mean the celebration of the Native Americans when the world--or their present reality--is improved.
ReplyDelete"The Powwow at the End of the World" is about how the Europeans killed the Native Americans and their culture but ask for forgiveness. The narrator of the poem is one such Native who now lives on a reservation. He says he will only will forgive once this long list of expectations is met. But these expectations is basically restoring the land to it's former glory before the Europeans came and the tribes reuniting. This is similar to the political cartoon where the fat lazy Americans were complaining about immigration when they too were once immigrants.
ReplyDeleteThis poem and the political cartoons that we discussed in class yesterday are very similar. In this poem, the narrator is trying to persuade the reader about the Native Americans suffering a lot and what they have been going through is terrible. Similarly, the political cartoon with the “warrior-sports fan”, he was unknowingly trying to praise the Native American, but in reality he was insulting him. In this poem, the repeating verses of “I am told by many of you that I must forgive...” is emphasizing the message the narrator is trying to get across. In the warrior-sports fan political cartoon, the artist was emphasizing, or exaggerating the European American with his weight and hair to get his point across as him looking stupid. The poem and political cartoons, send a similar message through various ways.
ReplyDelete1. This is a really hopeful poem. Sherman Alexie shows the spite of the Native Americans towards the European Americans. He starts the poem off with "I will forgive them when this impossible thing happens". This shows the irony in all of the following statements, because none of them are going to happen. Especially the talking fish. Through this irony we can infer that he thinks that the Indians will never be reunited, they will never be as faithful to the catholic god as the others, they wont be filled with joy, and will never be full of energy and joy enough to dance. They wont be together even at the end of the world. Who started this chain of impossibilities? An Indian woman who can't bust down this European american invention which is strong and is permanent. European Americans have taken over and there is barely any hope for the Native American people to have a life like how it was back in the early 1700s.
ReplyDelete2. The poem "The Powwow at the End of the World" is comparable to the political cartoon of the one Native American left alone at the table while the pilgrims have turned and walked away from him. The political cartoon shows how the European people came in and took the Native Americans land and resources and left them on reservations with limited resources. This relates to the poem because the author talks about how he won't forgive them until he is given back his land, resources, and tribe. He won't forgive them until they give back what they took away awhile ago.
ReplyDeleteThis poem reminds me of the political cartoon where the pilgrims left the one native american at the table with the check. One similarity between the poem and cartoon is that native Americans are coping with the new lifestyle of the pilgrims. In the poem the Indian breaks a damn and all the dams that are downstream. By destroying these dams the native Americans are making the landscape as it was before the pilgrims took over their land by putting up the dams and limiting the salmon's to stay in the ocean. The cartoon shows the natives struggling to deal with pilgrims as well. It shows it through symbolism though. The table with no food on it and a lonely native that appears to be weak symbolizes that the pilgrims left the native to resources to survive on. In both of these instances the Indians had to deal with their natural environment changing due to the pilgrims.
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