The Authors’ Attitude on the Indigenous People

Each author depicts the indigenous people in their own way through each individual story. As we see in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne,  we see the view and the attitude towards the indigenous people is shown by the dialogue of the old man describing how he helped Goodman Brown’s father set ablaze upon an Indian village. The author shows how he does not care much for the indigenous people since he does not tell or show much else of them either then the fire set on their town. We get no reaction or dialogue in regards to them as well. This can show that the author does not show some sort of sympathy even by the use of Goodman Brown in little to no reaction to the people but rather is more concerned with his father betraying his faith. Hemingway depicts the indigenous people different in his story compared to Hawthorne. Hemingway depicts them is his story “Indian Camp” not much of the indigenous people except that they are obedient to the doctor trying to help a fellow indigenous woman give birth. They do not speak much nor do they show much emotion throughout the story. I feel as if the author uses the indigenous people just to carry out the story till the end then show much care about them in the first place. In addition, even though the indigenous people are the reason for the doctor traveling to their village to help the woman in labor with his son, Nick, and his fellow friend George, they are not even the center of the story. The story mostly revolves around our three outsiders previously mentioned. Another example of Hemingway not showing much care or emotion towards the indigenous people would be when the doctor and his son react towards the dead body of the indigenous man who committed suicide as he is laying in a pool of his own blood. Their reaction was not as shocking as one may be when they come across a body of someone who committed suicide especially Nick since he is still young.

One thought on “The Authors’ Attitude on the Indigenous People

  1. TiffanyCarmona

    I agree with the way Chris described the author’s lack of sympathy within the reading of “Young Goodman Brown”. I will disagree with the way Chris depicts how Hemingway depicts the indigenous people in “Indian Camp”. I feel as if Hemingway’s style of writing throughout the reading was very straightforward, but I also feel that the Doctor was trying to show Nick, that the indigenous people were to be treated as regular people even if they did live in a camp. I feel as if Hemingway did not use much emotion throughout the reading, because he did not want the readers to look at the indigenous people as anything less than strong. I do feel that in minor parts of “Indian Camp” Hemingway does allow small emotion to show that the Doctor does care for the Indigenous people. For example, when Nick asks his dad to give the woman something to stop her from screaming, the Doctor replies by saying “I don’t hear them because they are not important”. I do not think he was being nonchalant or malicious, he was letting Nick know indirectly that the pain of labor is something he cannot change, its painful so he has to ignore it in order to complete the task at hand. So Nick should know going forward that screams will happen, but it should not stop what he came to do. Also when Uncle Nick was bitten by the woman in labor, he did not walk away and leave the scene which he could have. As far as the suicide scene, I feel that Hemingway did not allow the Doctor to overreact because he did not want Nick to be turned away from helping the indigenous people, so he kept a calm attitude. Some may take it as he did not care, but I saw it as a way for Nick to understand how people handle things, and how he should react and deal with matters of life.

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