By: Brian L. H. Alderson Don’t you think that the movie Avatar is very similar to how the pilgrims treated the native Americans? The movie Avatar is an allegory to how pilgrims treated the native Americans because of what took place and where it happened. When the movie opened up into its exposition, it mentioned the planet Pandora, which was inhabited by these natives called the Na’vi who use bows and arrows which seemed just like how the native Americans were when the pilgrims came to the new world. When the Na’vi spoke , moved, and how they treated nature, they seemed to treat nature with great respect. The native Americans treated nature with utmost respect, because it was their religion and they greatly worshipped the spirits of the world. The Native Americans would save their heritage and tell stories from long ago from wars and nature stories. The Tree of Souls seemed a lot like salvaged stories and knowledge because it contained memories of the past. When the pilgrims came to the new world, some of them came looking for gold. In Avatar, the people came to Pandora looking for unobtainium which was really, really expensive. Parker Selfridge was a lot like the king of England because he just wanted the unobtainium, and he didn’t care who got hurt just as long as he could get hands on that expensive rock. When the killing of the Na’vi people were being mercilessly killed, it seemed to symbolize the trail of tears when we were constantly relocating them from place to place. Whenever the color blue was seen in that movie it seemed to symbolize peace, serenity, and sorrow because the Na’vi were a peaceful people until they got attacked. The seeds of the Sacred tree always appeared when something good was going to happen. The seeds seemed to symbolize a good omen or potential. The movie Avatar is an allegory for when the English came to colonize the New World. Pandora symbolized the New World, The Na’vi symbolized the Native Americans, and unobtainium symbolized the gold the pilgrims were looking for. If you haven’t seen the movie Avatar, I highly recommend watching it because it is a great movie which does symbolize the colonization of the New World.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
This made me a better Indian, after all.” (Dimaline, 190) By “better Indian” he means more culturally connected. Moving onto the second literary device that was mentioned, imagery. The most obvious example of this being what the character named Miigwans calls ‘story’ in which he shares events of tragedies that happened even before the world ended. Miigwans gave his group an image of what life looked like before and after, and he does the same with the reader.…
- 487 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Often times movies created from someone’s imagination can become reality. Within every society there are corporations that try to take advantage or control of certain aspects. The corporations often times abuse the power that is given to them. Tom Radford and Niobe Thompson; directors of Tipping Point: Age of the Oil Sands and James Cameron, the genius behind the movie Avatar, show the struggles many aboriginal people face in their daily lives due to the government’s inability to lead one’s society properly. In these films, Avatar and Tipping Point, one views the selfishness of the government and how their greed interferes with the lack of action.…
- 645 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Paragraph 4: Many Native American tribes had spiritual connections to specific lands, meaning that the could not roam and simultaneously continue their sacred rituals. The Cherokees, for example, had an origin story that described the creation of their specific homeland. They believed that “When the earth was created and the land was very soft, birds were sent down from the sky to find a dry place for the animals to live. When they were unsuccessful, a giant buzzard was sent to continue the search. As he grew tired he flew lower and lower, and his wingtips began to hit the soft new land, pushing down the valleys and raising the hills”(Origin myths 1) This story was specific to their land in the southern Appalachian Mountains. They could…
- 272 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The book mostly speaks of how much false information is widely believed in the world today about early Americans before Columbus and the Europeans settled in the New World. Many scholars in the past have made false assumptions on about the Native Americans because of their own ethnocentric opinions. For example, today most people view the early Americans as being very nature-oriented, but not very intelligent people who live in small, isolated tribes scattered across the country, who also never did anything to change their environment. However, these assumptions are not true.…
- 513 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“Native Americans are generally acknowledged as the New World's first and fore most environmentalist Native American religion stress that people are coequal with nature, descendants of "Grand mother earth." How then, could some of them have depleted wildlife for the fur trade? “ Asks Jeanne Kaye. Most Native American tribes have long had an intimate relationship with their surroundings. Before direct contact with Europeans, most tribes lived in small villages.…
- 962 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
These made up thoughts were not the case at all. The Native Americans just lived differently from the Europeans. Native Americans did not see…
- 1222 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
1. The Native Americans were very practical people. They would use the nature for their source of survival. They used the sky as their calendar and they relied on crops for their food supply. The Natives were warriors and they had cities, towns and villages.…
- 482 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Religion was represented in many different scenes of the film within the various groups. When the Pilgrims first arrived to America they saw the deserted lands of the Native Americans as a spiritual sign that their people should move in and take settlement regardless of the bodily remains of the deceased Indians from the recent epidemic. After the Native Americans and Europeans signed the treaty there was a sudden emergence of sharing and overlay of cultures. As Massasoit became very ill, Edward Winslow came to visit him and his people. The film showed Winslow praying for Massasoit’s recovering even though they believed in a different…
- 919 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
At the beginning of the allegory, the “theory of forms” is also introduced. This theory states that the “existence of a level of reality inhabited by ideal “forms” of all things and concepts”(Plato pg1) indicating that there is a form to any object, Adding as well that all forms will be eternal and unchanging but they tend to inhabit changeable matter in the temporal world. Plato considers the realm of forms to be always eternal and unchanging however; the world we inhabit is a constantly changing, and thus not real because nothing last forever. Similar to the allegory, our perception of this world could also be like the shadows projected by the fire, although they are constantly changing, they all come from a particular object. Therefore,…
- 1325 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
Jonathan Glennie is right that local communities do oppose extractive projects but as a person who has visited a lot of these places, you can see it is a lot more complex than is presented in Avatar. Glennie is very biased towards the indigenous people because he talks about how displaced and how badly the indigenous people culture and environment are treated. He only talks about what the indigenous people believe. Glennie is very affectionate and a caring person towards the indigenous people. In the end of statement made Glennie admits that “we need oil, wood, gold, diamonds, copper”.…
- 1408 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
Before this Documentary, I did not know much about Native Americans. I have a few friends that are Native American decent, but they lived their life a lot like I lived mine. I knew what I saw in the movies, and I knew reservations were not the happiest places to live. I just never thought about the reasons…
- 777 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Native Americans were the first people to have arrived in America, and to have built an establishment in America. Many people have a stereotype on how they lived and still live currently, and many Native Americans don’t consent to that at all. The way many people believe that the Native Americans lived a nomadic type of lifestyle, such as hunting large animals for food, using animal parts to create clothing, and many other actions. This article that the author has wrote is very convincing on how a Native American feels about how people are stereotyping him and his type of people. It gives a perspective from a Native American’s point of view of what they deal with on a daily basis, and throughout their entire life. The main reason that is convincing…
- 867 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The most prevalent theme in the film is globalization. This connection between AVATAR and anthropology can be found from the very beginning. The humans in the movie leave earth and travel to Pandora to mine the planet just as the pilgrims and other settlers left Europe to go to the Americas in search of new homes and other matter. Humans bring to Pandora their traditions and values and to them the natives are different and demure. In our somewhat similar history; globalization led European ideals, and later US ideals, to be imposed on the native cultures with little regard for the local people and their customs. You see this in Avatar with the humans trying to force their will on the Na'vi and how they don't care about the existence of a real Mother Nature, the power of their magical forest, and how what they are doing is going to destroy the Na’vi…
- 616 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Native American beliefs are deeply rooted in their culture. They didn’t have one single religion, but they did have many beliefs. They believed in a mysterious force in nature and in spirits that were higher than human beings and influenced their lives. People depended on them when they searched for food or when people were ill. They believed EVERYTHING is sacred from the largest mountain to the smallest plant and animal. A lesson can be found in all things and experiences and everything has its own purpose. Native Spirituality; is about honor, love, and respect. Not only do they love, honor, and respect our Creator and Mother Earth, but also every living thing. They are in touch with themselves and everything around them. It is about knowing and understanding that they were a part of everything, and everything is a part of them. Native Americans valued many things like animals; buffalo, deer, and small rabbits. Meat could be cooked fresh or smoked, and stored for long journeys or winter months. They also ate vegetables and plants; berries, squash and fruits. They valued God because he created everything. Some tribes believed in one or many gods whom more powerful than others.…
- 318 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
To start with, I consider it relevant to mention that the Native American religions centers on a collection of beliefs, which vary from tribe to tribe. However, almost all tribes practice a modified monotheism , which is the belief in the Great Spirit. They also have an animistic belief in individual spirits residing in animals and forces of nature, but none of these is higher than the Great Spirit (Hirschfelder & Molin, 1992).…
- 2302 Words
- 10 Pages
Powerful Essays