The Unity of Culture; the Separation of oneself
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“It was called the Earthboy place, although no one by that name (or any other) had lived in it for twenty years.”(166)James Welch in his fictitious allegory, “The Earthboy Place,” presents the idea of how assimilation has caused many Indians to stop continuing with their lives as a native. Consequently, they leave their homelands to earn a living in another “world” which shows adaptation to the Westerners culture; likewise to the writing of McNickles.
“He wore a blue suit and a white shirt and his tan shoes were new and polished.”(113) In “A Different World” as depicted by DArcy McNickle, Archilde loses his freedom of native life and has now followed the rules of a White mans way of life to survive. These authors have portrayed in their fictions how assimilations have changed the way of a natives life into a Whites. Assimilations have separated todays Native Americans from their tribal cultures and traditions, learning a lifestyle that has stolen them off their freedom, customs, backgrounds and leaving them an outcast of their society.
Back to the American history, “assimilation” policy was introduced to the Native Americans during the earliest colonial times. During that time, all American Indians must either adopt the Whites lifestyles or perish. With the declaration of the Dawes Act, a goal of destroying all tribal structure and their communal life were summoned. Tribal lands were divided among natives and the Westerners, leaving the natives, a land surrounded by the foreigners. With such acts, the American Indians were slowly assimilated into the Whites culture and without their own people around them, they will have to communicate with the Westerners with their language instead of their indigenous languages; they will have to learn the Westerners cultures and traditions. Consequently, they will have to discontinue their tribal backgrounds. Young Indians were also sent to school to cultivate the Westerners way of life and to diminish their own cultural backgrounds. These initiate the published narrations of Welchs and McNickles.
“The Earthboy Place,” as written by Welch, describes how the narrator finds he has become indifference towards his family and community. Having to live in a place so far away from home, he could no longer feel anything for home, “no hatred, no love, no conscience, nothing but a distance that had grown through the years” (166). Welch, being a mixedblood understood how assimilation has progressed into the Indians minds. He named the title, “The Earthboy Place” to correspond to the home of the Native Americans. The characters he had chosen to write about in the story are Indians who have long been living in a White mans lifestyle and the main character show no concern to his family due to the distance that he has spent over time. Relating it back to the history of America when the assimilation policy was declared, the first person in the story talks about himself being “as distant from [himself] as a hawk from the moon” (166). Welch illustrates the hawk as an Indian and the moon symbolizes the tribe. No matter how high the hawk flies, it can never reach the moon; no matter how hard an assimilated Indian tries to return to his cultures and traditions, he can never be the same Indian he once had been.
Welch, in his allegory, writes about how the rich man places a bet with the narrator of the story that they will be able to fish in the river of Malta. If the rich man loses to the narrator, he would buy him the “biggest steak” (171) and two fishing outfits as the rewards. Welch has written these to represent how the Westerners have entered America and then, proceeded with policies to change Indians lifestyle; in this story, its recognized as the thinking of the narrator. The narrator insists that “there are no fish in the river,” (171) but the rich man perseveres with his statement that there are fishes. Welch uses the different characters as metaphors to the individuals who are involved in the assimilation policy; the Westerners have provided many different systems to the Indians so that they could adopt the foreigners lifestyle without causing any havocs and protests. The Westerners proceeded in missionization and colonization of the tribes. They gave them education in terms of language, trading, and religions. Every time the Westerners try to assimilate the Indians with their cultures, they try to give something to them so that less questioning will be done. Likewise to the written story, the rich man makes sure the narrator agrees to fish with him by placing a bet to attract the narrator into the activity. The “rewards” placed, pulls the Indians farther away from their cultural backgrounds into another world, a Whites world.
Likewise to the idea Welch has written, McNickle also engrave his opinions in his fictitious piece that has proved to the readers that assimilation succeeded in changing the Indians lifestyles. “A Different World”, as the title says it all, a life of an Indian has greatly changed through the assimilation during the colonial times and it has become the distance between the two societies. In McNickles “A Different World”, he writes about Archilde Leon, who has gone through assimilation of the White culture. McNickle uses colloquialism in his fictitious allegory to show an informal expressions, leaving a good effect on the readers as the readers would then understand how Archilde feels when he returns to his other world at “Flathead Reservation in Montana” (111). In this story, it is well written to show how assimilation has thoroughly changed Archilde into a person who adapted well in the Westerners cultures and no longer be able to accept the life of an Indian. “I had a job. I played my fiddle in a show house. I can always get a job now any time I go away” (113). Archilde proclaims that he could leave at any time to anywhere he would like to visit and work on his fiddle to make a living. Unlike his brother who steals horses from ranchers to earn his living. This, to Archilde, is of great shame and a sign of immorality. Seeing that, he realized he could no longer acknowledge the Indian in him. Relating