My+Mother

SUMMARY

In this chapter Zitkala-sa'a mother tells Zitkala-sa about the palefaces. While Zitkala -Sa and her mother are pulling laundry off the hangers her mother is crying. Zitkala-Sa then asks her mother why she's crying her mother then says "hush, my little daughter must never talk about my tears." Her mother then tells Zitkala- Sa what they had done to her, her other daughter, and her brother. As they are going to the river her mother says how fast can you run today, so Zitkala-Sa ran and this made my mother cheer up a little bit because she had pride in Zitkala-Sa's freedom. When they are returning back to thier wigum Zitkala-Sa says her mother if when shes as big as her cousin she will get the water from the stream for her. After that her mother says "if the pale face does not take away from us the river we drink" then seeing her mother say this she becomes angry with the pale faces. She also says because of the palefaces your uncle and your sister died. After her mother had told Zitlkala-Sa about this she became angry. She was mad at them and because they made her mother cry.

Analysis

From this chapter you can interpret that her mother doesn't like the paleface even though she doesn't say it she expresses it on many different levels like when she says how the bronzed Dakota is the only real man, this is putting down the pale faces saying they are not on the same level as the men in her tribe. You can also tell that zitkala-sa's mother is secretive and parental because she doesn't want her daughter to know why she's crying and you can tell that Zitkala-Sa is caring because she wants to know what makes her mother cry and try and help her. The reason why her mother cries is because of the hill where her daughter and brother are buried, this is a reminder of what had happened and what the palefaces did to her and her family. This then makes her cry and her daughter ask why she cries but zitkala- sa's mother doesn't want her to know but she ends up telling her anyway. The reason her mother does not want her to know why she's crying is because she doesn't want Zitkala-sa to know that the palefaces have affected her and she doesn't want to show weakness. Now zitkala-sa is angry, after her mother tells her the story. The reason why is because the the palefaces had made her mother cry, which causes her to stomp her foot and yell at the palefaces. To Zitkala-Sa family is very important. When someone hurts her family she takes it very personally, most likely when someone hurts her mother it hits the heart for her. She wants to protect her mother and she can't do that. She needs to understand she can't protect an adult. Also it is important for her mother not to put pressure on her daughter to always find out whats wrong with her. She loves her mother and she wants to make her mother happy and she wants to make everything perfect for her.

This chapter shows that the mother has a very strong feeling about the palefaces (the white men) and children tend to follow their parents beliefs and opinions because they don't know how to make their own and children idolize their parents so what they do and feel, the children want to do and feel also.

In this part of the book when her mother is crying and doesn't want zitkala-sa to know shows me that she wants to protect her from the pale faces. But she found out anyway and after reading this I understand why this would make Zitkala-sa's mother upset with the palefaces, because the are taking away her children 1 by 1 and trying to assimilate them into American society. On page 8 when she says "I was a wild little girl of seven." in that one sentence gives me the sense that she has a lot of freedom and she has great pride in her amount of freedom.