Zitkala Sa

My first impression of these narrative stories was the level of innocence present through all of the observations made by the young girl. She has experienced bad things throughout her life, such as the death of family, but she still sees it as something natural and even bad. She does not yet understand the injustice or cruelty of it as her mother does. Her mother tries to explain the hate she has for the “paleface” but the girl cannot yet comprehend that kind of evil.
I believe that the essence of these stories is the focus on her innocence. She knows what it is to fear, but it is a natural fear of the unknown. For example, she fears the wild (wolves howling at night, etc.) and she also is afraid of Wiyaka-Napbina, the man that roams the fields and hills around her village. But it can be asserted that this man is also a wild part of nature that she fears. She does not have any fear of the missionaries, mostly just curiosity. It is not until she is in an alien atmosphere, having left her family that she “was as frightened and bewildered as the captured young of a wild creature.”(1019).
I think that an important theme that the narrator also wants to emphasize is the idea of respect and community. The whole village is like one family, which is evident in how they address each other. For example, when the girl goes to the teepees of the elders, they say “What do you seek, little granddaughter?”(1010) She is not their real granddaughter in the way we think, but for her, they are the elders and therefore her grandparents in light of the level of respect they deserve. Also, in the incident with the plum tree, the impression the girl gets from that significant day is what her mother told her about the tree because it emphasizes the importance of respecting the dead.