This week I read the Native American Hero Tales in the un-textbook. This unit was a very interesting
unit, and different so far compared to some of the other units. I have only
read one Native American story unit and I can already see how creative they are
with storytelling. The Natives are one with nature. I can tell that they are in
sync with the animals and the spirits. In fact, some of their gods are animals,
such as an eagle.
The first mini story I read was called the jealous uncle and
found this story to be my favorite one within the section. It had a familiar
plot that I recognized but a completely different story. The story was about an
Uncle who would become jealous of any Nephews that were born, so we would have
then killed. Once day the mother tricked the uncle into believing that the next
child she had was a girl meaning that the uncle wouldn’t kill her. The uncle
eventually found out that the kid was a boy and he tried to kill him.
Throughout the story the nephew out-smarted the uncle with his attempts to kill
him. In the end the boy killed the uncle because of the way he treated his
parents.
This stories main theme in my opinion is “loyalty” and
Jealousy”. The boy was loyal to his
uncle even though he was trying to kill him over and over. He knew this and
still obeyed what his uncle told him to do. The other theme is jealousy. The uncle was
fueled by jealously basically the entire story. If he had been then he would
not try to kill his nephew. I really
enjoyed this story because I liked reading about how the boy handled his uncle.
He stayed positive and confident in the whole story. Not once did he ever doubt
and think that he would die. It was nice seeing the boy overcome the obstacles
and then eventually put a stop altogether to his uncle.
Finally, the only thing that confused me was the conclusion
of the story. When the boy went to the other island, did he receive “powers”
that turned him into an eagle? I wasn’t exactly sure how he killed the uncle. I
know he dropped him somehow, but I didn’t know it he had an eagle kill him or
if the boy turned into an eagle.
Bald Eagle by: Ryan McFarland
More information of Bald Eagles: Wikipedia
I really like what you did with the original story! You made it your own, rather than just retelling it. After reading yours, I went back and read the original. I think it’s interesting that you gave the mother a motive that people could understand, even if they don’t agree with it. It makes her more humane than the uncle in the original story, who just killed his nephews because he was jealous of them. Also, I’m glad you made the ending to your story happy! I hate sad endings, so it’s nice that you allowed the son to find happiness and the mother to stop killing people.
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