Sunday, September 18, 2011
a sore from america's past
Linenthal uses narrative as a opening by going into personal memory of how the old western movies and books made him feel as kid. The stories that he heard and read made him proud to be a American because they was always the heroes who died with honor and wasn’t scared to make sacrifices. The Indians were told in stories as the bad guys who were totally opposite of the Americans. They were savages who ran wild that were not brave or heroes. His visit to Little big horn brought back the memories of watching those old western movies and how a place can connect you with memory. He does a effective job in showing how different perspectives of memory and the stories that comes from those memories can in a way change a nation and our way of thinking . Stories of general Custer last stand tells of a Hero who went down fighting to his death for us Americans against savage Indians. What also effective about his use of narrative is that he tells the story from many different perspectives. He goes into details about the native Americans side of the story and how they feel about the memorial and how it brings back memories of the Battle Of Bighorn in which they want to forget. I think he becomes ineffective because he stops talking about how being there made him feel more into controversy of the memorial.
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I liked how you mentioned how a "place can connect you with memory". I thought Linenthal played on that theme a lot, especially because many of the remembrances he described took place directly at the Little Bighorn. It's interesting to consider how a place that Linenthal had never been before could cause him to remember Custer's Last Stand, an event he hadn't personally witnessed. I think Linenthal was trying to point out that places can be linked to both a cultural/historic memory (the battle itself) and personal memories (him watching Old Westerns as a child). The narrative said he experienced both the first time he saw the Little Bighorn. Is one or the other more strongly connected with place?
ReplyDeleteI also liked when you commented on how the narrative creates a personal or emotional component, talking about how he was proud to be an American and how he felt watching the movies as a kid. It seems like that one of the key uses of narratives is to make those emotional connections. Maybe he is better able to write about numerous perspectives because readers can connect to him emotionally.
Overall, I thought your blog post touched on a lot of important points in the reading. I would have been interested to hear you expand on them more!
I like the way you discussed the different emotions Linenthal felt, and the comparison between childhood emotions and his emotions as an adult. I really liked the way you expanded that to reveal how his environment helped his childhood emotions resurface. You also did a good job of expanding how his personal narrative changed the view we, as the reader, view his discussion of the expansion of that to the changing views of the nation. I think you will be able to use a lot of these tactics in your own personal narrative!
ReplyDeleteI agree also that the many perspectives are important for the quality of the paper. I got confused by what you meant by your last sentence. Do you think that he should have gone more into depth with how he felt being at Little Bighorn? Or that you wished he continued the personal narrative throughout the piece? Either way, I think I would agree, I think Linenthal’s paper got less interesting once he stopped including his personal experiences.