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Motorcycles And Sweetgrass Essays

In motorcycles and sweetgrass, to what extent and how do one or more characters develop while attempting to achieve balance, popular essay topics.

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Motorcycles And Sweetgrass

In the novel “Motorcycles and Sweetgrass,” author Drew Hayden Taylor is concerned with aboriginal community politics, identity, mythology, and intergenerational legacies. It is written in an adventurous perspective on aboriginal life and traditions. The characters respond to change and they embrace it. this is shown by examining the actions/ roles of the characters in the novel such as Maggie, Wayne and Sammy considering the purpose of this book is to connect the experience of aboriginal life through the characters from Motorcycles and sweetgrass.

Sammy Aandeg is an individual of many residential school survivors who refuses change but somehow finds ways to adapt gradually to the new lifestyle in Otter Lake reserve. Back in residential school change was forced upon Sammy from the different hairstyle to a different believe in cultural values. His will to stay true to himself lead him to rebellious actions while his stay at residential school,”when he arrived he’d bitten a nun attempting to shave his head.

That was seven years ago, and time and repeated punishments had not managed to subdue him.”(Taylor 11). He has strong will to resist the regular beatings and abuse done to him by the priest and nuns for continuously clinging onto his true identity and refusing to give up his language. This connects back to aboriginals and their will to resist in order to continue their traditions and teachings of their culture passed down to the younger generations. Although Sammy resists change, he still makes effort to adapt in the new lifestyle, he speaks in iambic pentameter which is Shakespeare and Anishnawbe combined,”he speaks iambic pentameter.

Proficient in: Communication

“ Really polite, and a great writer! Task done as described and better, responded to all my questions promptly too! ”

Only in Anishnawbe. Same structure, weak, strong, weak strong. Ten syllables. All the usual rules.”(Taylor 170). Shakespearean is the only thing that Sammy tolerated during his time in residential school, therefore his use of iambic pentameter in anishnawbe is giving him the satisfaction of winning afte…

“Motorcycles and Sweetgrass” Book by Taylor Report

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Introduction

The story of the book takes place somewhere in central Ontario, Canada, where fictional Anishnawbe Reserve of Otter Lake is located. The central character of the novel is 35-year-old Maggie Sacord, who is raising her teenage son Virgil alone. Additionally, she assumed the duties of chief of the reserve after the death of her husband. Such a number of responsibilities present difficulties for a woman, especially in recent years.

However, her life is significantly compromised when the local authorities decide to return to the reserve the land that was previously borrowed from them. Maggie not only has to deal with a huge amount of paperwork and many meetings with representatives of various levels of government, but also constantly communicate with members of the reserve, each of whom has their own opinion on the situation with the lands. The author, through comical events, explores the nature of traditional beliefs and values, and also emphasizes the need to preserve traditions in continuous contact with the wider society.

In addition to Maggie’s routine worries, a mysterious white man called John suddenly appears on the reserve. He arrives on an old Indian motorcycle and shows up at Maggie’s mother’s house shortly before her death. Lillian, Maggie’s mother and Virgil’s grandmother, has become a unique character who combines features of traditional and modern culture. She managed to preserve her native language and beliefs, receiving an education within the framework of the culture of white people. Lillian was able to keep her faith in traditional values by telling her children stories about the Nanabush, “the central character of Anishnawbe mythology, the paramount metaphor in thei cosmology” (1 p293), while still going to Christian church on Sundays. Lillian’s death is also a difficult event for both Maggie and Virgil, for whom it was also a connection to traditional Indian culture.

Virgil witnesses John kissing his grandmother shortly before her death. The white male raises a lot of suspicions in the teenager, as he speaks the Anishnawbe language perfectly and knows about all local traditions including how to braid sweetgrass. In addition, John looks strange and has an influence on the local fauna, which makes the teenager even more worried.

In the end, Virgil decides to draw his mother’s attention to the appearance of a strange white man. Gradually, Maggie falls in love with a mysterious man, which leads to a number of changes in both the character and the reserve. It turns out that John is the Nanbush trickster of the tribal lore that Vivian told of, the embodiment of traditional values and beliefs. He was acquainted with Maggie’s mother, who, before her death, asked him to do her one last favor. Over the course of the story, Nanabush helps Maggie and Virgil redefine their ideas about heritage, culture, and tradition, acknowledging that “There are no such thing as dead ends. Only people who find dead ends” (1 p341).

The book contains several important themes, which the author discusses through an often comic plot. First of all, Nanabush and his actions force the characters to reconsider their attitude to faith. He gradually helps them to understand that faith is necessary but only within reason. The constant striving to preserve traditional values and refuse to learn new orders are erroneous if there is a need to assimilate to new conditions. The constant interaction of the community with the government, which accounts for much of their difficulty, emphasizes that while the Indians need to preserve their own traditions, they cannot isolate themselves from the contemporary majority culture.

Lilan, in her younger years, was sent to a residential school where she was forced to abandon the traditions and language of her tribe in favor of the values of white society. However, it has managed to preserve its heritage and culture by combining the traditional and the modern. This approach is the key to the survival of Indian communities in the modern world, where it is impossible to exist separately from the whole society. Indian reserves in Canada need to be more supportive of their traditional beliefs within the new values of modern culture. This approach will allow them to develop organically without losing touch with their own roots.

It was not by chance that the author chose Nanbush as the central figure of changes in the book of the trickster. This character is a universal archetype for various cultures, which personifies the transition from one state to another. In this situation, Nanabush personifies the collective as opposed to the individual, and also offers a freer attitude towards the traditional values of the local culture. It allows the reserve’s members to understand that they are part of a larger context and not confined within their own separate space. Nanabush emphasizes that it is possible to share the values of one’s tribe within a community, but also be part of a whole society with modern advances. The universality of the trickster allows the author to simultaneously emphasize the uniqueness of the traditions of the tribe that they are trying to preserve and their commonality with all other ethnic minorities anywhere in the world.

Taylor DH. Motorcycles and sweetgrass. Knopf Canada; 2010. 368 p.

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"Let Us Mix Mythologies: Aboriginal Tradition vs. Contemporary Canadian Multiculturalism in Motorcycles & Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor"

Considering Identity: Views on Canadian Literature and History. Ed. Jiri Flajsar and Pavlina Flajsarova. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackeho v Olomouci, 2015. 39-48.

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Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

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Cultural Context: Indigenous Canadian People

Taylor’s Motorcycles and Sweetgrass takes place in Canada on a fictional Indigenous reserve called Otter Lake First Nation. Reserves are defined under the 1876 Indian Act as “tract[s] of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that ha[ve] been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band [of Indigenous people].” Though such reserves are analogous to reservations in the US, they constitute a legally distinct entity, and for this reason, this guide uses the term “reserve” rather than “reservation.” The fictional Otter Lake reserve is based on real locations in Canada: Among the Anishinaabe/Ojibwe people (spelled Anishnawbe/Ojibway in the novel), 14 such reserves and reservations exist in Canada and the US.

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Motorcycles And Sweetgrass By Drew Hayden Taylor

The novel Motorcycles and Sweetgrass written by Drew Hayden Taylor revolves within Otter Lake, an Anishnawbe community. A mysterious blonde, white man arrives riding on a motorcycle. This man is known as John, a man with a numerous amounts of surnames. John is seen around the neighborhood and found sharing a passionate kiss with Lillian, the grandmother of a boy named Virgil. The chief of this community, Maggie is head over heels for this white man; however Maggie’s son Virgil does not approve of John constantly being around his mother and has a bad feeling about this man. Within the Native culture and the Colonial cultures in North America, there are confusion, misjudging, assumptions and conflicts among the two. Motorcycles and Sweetgrass is packed with cultural conflict between Native and Colonial such as misunderstandings. Virgil, getting the wrong idea on John’s plan and John misunderstanding on what Maggie wanted. Followed by that comes preconceptions. People tend to believe Wayne is strange and crazy because he is isolated from everyone on his island and Virgil assuming John is up to no good due to all of his surnames. Denial also comes into play. Virgil denies the acceptance of John and Dakota’s parents not approving Dakota into learning the Native lifestyle. Usually when two cultures meet, they do not usually agree with each other and the result of that do not usually end up well, which can lead to misunderstandings, preconceptions and denials.

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The migration of European settlers and culture to North America is an often examined area. One aspect of this, however, is worthy of deeper analysis. The conquest of North America by Europeans and American settlers from the 16th to 19th centuries had a profound effect on the indigenous political landscape by defining a new relationship dynamic between natives and settlers, by upsetting existing native political, economic and military structures, and by establishing a paradigm where the indigenous peoples felt they had to resist the European and American incursions. The engaging and brilliant works of Andres Rensendez and Steve Inskeep, entitled respectively “A Land So Strange” and “Jacksonland”, provide excellent insights and aide to this analysis.

Motorcycle And Sweetgrass Analysis

Drew Hayden Taylor’s novel, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, has won many awards such as the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Award, and has been nominated for many others. The novel symbolizes many themes that represent what it means to be a Native Indian in real life. Virgil is one of the main characters in the novel, and the most important. He has been discovering himself, and others about who he is, what he is supposed to believe in, and more. Virgil has been changing throughout the novel.

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"No study of acculturation in colonial America would be complete,"(272) exclaims James Axtell in his book the european and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, "without giving equal thought to the question of how English culture was altered by its contacts with Native America." (272) during this anthropology and ethnohistory based work, James Axtell clearly lays on the table that this analysis inter-piled into a book wasn't meant to be simply a general assortment of Native american encounters and battles with the Europeans; but a real, real, and factual assessment of how they intermingled with one another. Showing how they were each able to interact as well as react to each others own beliefs and ways shows the

Diversity in American Colonies

      Colonial North America was a multifaceted melting pot of diversities. The amalgamation of different ethnicities, races, cultures and religious organizations created a circumstance in which the identities of the English, Native Americans, Africans and Germans were far from static. The interactions between these four groups helped to build the history of North America, and as such it is pertinent to understand the evolution of their identities. While old world traditions and increased interaction with cultural outsiders predominantly shaped the identities of English colonizers, religious appropriation and reinterpretation

Cultural Differences Between Native Americans and the American Colonists

The Europeans and the Native American’s come from very different customs and cultures. The colonists had very

Native Americans and Cultural Assimilation Essays

Native Americans have had a long history of resistance to the social and cultural assimilation into white culture. By employing various creative strategies, Native Americans have attempted to cope with the changes stemming from the European colonial movement into the Americas. There are fundamental differences in world views and cultural and social orders between Indians and Europeans, which contributed to conservatism in Native American cultures. In this paper, two aspects of such cultural and institutional differences of Native American societies will be examined: holistic Native American beliefs versus dualistic world views and harmony versus domination. These two aspects are important in terms of explaining changes (or lack thereof) in

Native American Conflict Theories

When thinking about relevant theories to the Native American conflict, there are a few that can be applied in a few different ways to help explain the various aspects of this conflict. Three of the theories discussed in this course – primordialist theory, social construction theory, and psychological theories - contain aspects that are applicable to this Native American conflict, while other theories do a poor job of explaining the conflict. On the other hand, one theory from this course – instrumentalism – is not useful in explaining the conflict.

Sociological Perspectives Of Native Americans

Our nation’s history has been deep rooted in the conflict involving Native Americans, ever since the beginning of America and it is one hard to get rid of even as the days go by. The impact of colonialism can be seen in Native American communities even today, and it can only be understood through a cultural perspective once you experience it. Aaron Huey, who is a photographer, went to Pine Ridge reservation and it led him to document the poverty and issues that the Sioux Indians go through as a result of the United States government’s long term actions and policies against them. One must question all sources regarding these topics because there is a lot of biased and misinformation about Native American struggles, and sometimes schools do not thoroughly teach the truth so students can get an insight. There are also different sociological perspectives in this conflict, along with many differing opinions on how to approach the problem and deal with it. This is where ideas clash because people believe their views are right regarding how to handle it.

AP US essay

Based on your existing knowledge of American Indian–colonial relations in North America, write an argument to use as the basis of your research.

Native American vs. European Way of Life Essays

Europeans lived a much more modern way of life than the primitive lifestyle of Native Americans. Europeans referred to themselves as “civilized” and regarded Native Americans as “savage,” “heathen,” or “barbarian.” Their interaction provoked by multiple differences led to misunderstanding and sometimes conflict. These two cultures, having been isolated from one another, exhibited an extensive variation in their ideals. Europeans and Native Americans maintained contradictory social, economic, and spiritual practices.

Relationship Between The English And The Native Americans

The relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

The European Domination Of Native Americans

Many prominent historians argue a clash between culture and religious philosophy was the primary cause of conflict between European settlers in North America and Native Americans. However, a closer analysis of American history suggests otherwise. While a clash in cultures and religious differences did exist, the European domination of Native Americans was primarily fueled by European economic motivations, a desire for valuable natural resources and a craving to expand the American colonial system. Due to this, the conflict was inevitable.

Native American And European Interaction

Throughout the course of history there have been numerous accounts regarding Native American and European interaction. From first contact to Indian removal, the interaction was somewhat of a roller coaster ride, leading from times of peace to mini wars and rebellions staged by the Native American tribes. The first part of this essay will briefly discuss the pre-Columbian Indian civilizations in North America and provide simple awareness of their cultures, while the second part of this essay will explore all major Native American contact leading up to, and through, the American Revolution while emphasizing the impact of Spanish, French, and English explorers and colonies on Native American culture and vice versa. The third, and final, part of this essay will explore Native American interaction after the American Revolution with emphasis on westward expansion and the Jacksonian Era leading into Indian removal. Furthermore, this essay will attempt to provide insight into aspects of Native American/European interaction that are often ignored such as: gender relations between European men and Native American women, slavery and captivity of native peoples, trade between Native Americans and European colonists, and the effects of religion on Native American tribes.

Native American History Essay

• 7 Works Cited

The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has

Exploring The New World Essay

• 1 Works Cited

Rich source of misunderstanding between Indian and White Anglo-Saxon cultural analysis is the different attitude of most Native Americans to such concepts as Nature, the environment, and social values.

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Motorcycles and Sweetgrass Metaphors and Similes

By drew hayden taylor.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Timothy Sexton

Raccoons play a significant role in the story. They exist quite literally, but there is also a symbolic aspect to their appearances. That symbolism is explicitly expressed through metaphor:

“In this part of the country, revenge was furry and wore a bandit’s mask.”

No Felines!

The say that curiosity killed the cat. In this story, the metaphorical imagery of curiosity is not only free of felines, but actually introduces a dog into the mix:

“Curiosity is a two-edge axe. I had a very curious dog when I was your age. I spent most of my time pulling porcupine quills out of its face, and washing away skunk smells.”

Men and women never seem to view each other in precisely the same way. Mostly, of course, they share similar views. It is the exact metaphors used in expressing perception that makes things interesting:

“To guys like me, women are like a rainbow, you pick the colour that best suits you and wear it proudly.”

That’s Some Kiss

How do you go about creating a metaphor for an all-time kiss? It’s a tough nut to crack since so many books over the centuries have included so many all-time kisses. The author here makes an interestingly unexpected choice:

“Three years’ worth of stored-up kissing and passion were waiting to be accessed and she wanted to drain the reservoir.”

History’s the Reason

The legacy of the history of the push westward by European culture through the untamed frontier has lingering effects. To paraphrase a lyric by Gang of Four, history’s the reason that Native Americans are washed up. A metaphor here turns on the aftereffects of this unfortunate legacy:

“About twice a day, a passenger train would speed through the forested hills as if afraid to stop—rumour had it there were Indians about.”

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Motorcycles and Sweetgrass Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Motorcycles and Sweetgrass is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

I don't recall this quote in the book but page numbers differ depending on your book.

john the stranger summary

Like, for instance, the stranger who recently arrived in town atop an Indian motorcycle. (That is not a politically incorrect description, but the actual brand of the bike.) Even if he hadn’t come into town on a motorcycle he would still be hard...

Where in humour used in the book when talking about sensitive topics?

“Three years’ worth of...

Study Guide for Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Motorcycles and Sweetgrass study guide contains a biography of Drew Hayden Taylor, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Motorcycles and Sweetgrass
• Motorcycles and Sweetgrass Summary
• Character List

Essays for Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Motorcycles and Sweetgrass essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor.

• Examination of how John has Directly and Indirectly Positively Influenced other Characters in the Novel