Advanced Reading, Writing, and Grammar

       The audience of the essay is a society. The writer addresses to people, who is not necessary to be experts in the American history. It can be recognized from the style of writing, her language is informal, but very rich and attractive.

        The purpose of the essay is explained in a presentation. Paula Gunn Allen describes the Indian American women’ world,  she wants to restore the representation of their real life style and their perception of the mission in the society as females. The author discusses the unfair and deeply wrong understanding by white americans of the role of Indian women. As the evidences she recalls her mothers stories, the tribal traditions, the fates of the women that she has met. Her examples vividly display a great gap in women’ definition between reality and “savage” image created by “respectable, loving, civilized white people”.

     The thesis of the the essay is describe the American Indian women’ role in a public life. She has a goal to reveal real woman, her spirit, her background, her hopes and disenchantments, her dreams and fears. She compares her resemblance viewing  from two different perspectives, tribal and social, that’s mostly means today’s United States. “Most Indian women I know are in the same bicultural bind… We resolve the dilemma in various ways… We act in these destructive ways because we suffer from the societal conflicts caused by having to identify with two hopelessly opposed cultural definitions of women.” 

       All evidences are persuasive for me, may be because she speaks very emotional and personal, or may be  because she discribes her own culture, no one else can talk about this issue so truly and convincing. I think that the most persuasive evidence is an example of comparing the woman’ status during her menstruation period. I think that the addressing to the idea about great connections between mother and child, between old and young can be concerned to any culture and group. This evidence seems me weaker that others.      

  I took a pleasure in reading such an interesting text. I love the writer’s jargon. The problem that she raises is still important today, because while there is a misunderstanding of single cultural interpretation, the whole world takes a risk to lose the truth and fair approach to any question.

Asel