Love Medicine
Detail of beadwork from an Ojibwe medicine pouch
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Three Plays
While I think that most people can agree that Wherrit does not truly care about the well-being of the Native American children, currently i think his motive to work at the boarding school is questionable. Maybe he is there because he wants to seem as some sort of a samaritan or hero. Or perhaps, he has such hatred for the Native Indian culture that he wants to eradicate it altogether, and feels that the best way to accomplish this is through the brain-washing of the children. Do you think that perhaps Wherrit could have been modeled after Pratt?? Maybe he is like Gerry from Love Medicine in that he is a character used to convey the characteristics of an important person in Native American history. What do you think are Wherrit's motives??
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9 comments:
I think Wherritt was in fact trying to finish what Pratt might have started in a way. He can also be related to disciplicarian in the article ,"Corporal Punishment". His name was John Brown. Gregory tries to make him understand that he can not generalize an ethnic group by calling then all "children".
I think he wants to get rid of the Native American culture like Pratt wanted too. He admitted that one kid, Pai, was really smart but he'd be a child because he was Native American. And he goes off in a rant about how they are terrible and all are children no matter how old they are.
Good work, Jess.
i don't think that Momaday intended to model Wherritt after Pratt, but I do think that the reader is most likely going to see that connection. In reality, we see in Wherritt really a microcosm for American society in the 1800's, he tries to generalize a very diverse and lavish race with one word because he does not understand them. This is very similar to have American Society operated in these times.
i dont think that wherrit was entirly racist towards indians. i just think we wanted them to be more white. thats what the schools were for and everything
i agree with wade and think that wherrit wants the indians to be more white and christian like. even though he may seem he may be racist he is jsut trying harder for the indians to become white
you hit it dead on sophie .wherritt's intentions i think are exactly what soph said
Jess is brilliant..an Macie. genric random statement=Wherritt is the hitler in the novel, (not as dicatorly though)..
I think Wherritt was the kind of person to try and make it look like he had people's best intentions in mind when he really didn't. I think he did want to get rid of the Indians.
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