Analysis Of Blue Winds Dancing By Thomas Whitecloud

Riley Childers
Professor Krueger
American Literature
February 17, 2015
Blue Winds Dancing
What is race and how does it make who and how we are in society? Do we classify what we by our complexion, ethnicity, gender or all the above? Race, according to freedictioanry, is ”a group of people as distinct from others because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group.” In the short narrative "Blue Winds Dancing," by Thomas Whitecloud II, race is a major part of the story. Whitecloud asked himself "am I Indian or am I white?" This story relates well to me, as well as many others, battling the mental war that mixed ethnicity individuals face. This story tells of an adolescent's struggle with growing up in America, being half white
Moon and stars and clouds tipped with moonlight. And there is a fall wind blowing in my heart. Ever since this evening, when against a fading sky I saw geese wedge southward. They were going home.” Native American cultures believe in seeing symbols from nature and these geese are telling him that he should go home to see his family. The geese headed southward to find warmth, so he needed to go home to the warmth of his family. It is here where he decides that he will venture home. Everyone has something, or things, that remind them of home. To the narrator, these geese remind him of the natural beauty that the Native American people valued so much. “In the woods one can see tracks following. In the woods there are tracks of deer and snowshoe rabbits, and long streaks where partridges slide to alight. Chipmunks make tiny footprints on the limbs; and one can hear squirrels busy in the hollow trees, snorting acorns. Soft lake waves wash the shores, and sunsets bursts each evening over the lakes, and make them look as if they were afire. That land in which is my home!" The geese, rabbits, deer and chipmunks gave the narrator a feel of home and continued this feeling of wanting to go
No classes where men talk and talk, and then stop now and then to hear their own words come back to them from students… no anxiety about one’s place in the thing they call society.” This piece of the story truly shows just how much he does not like the white society. In this society, everyone is conceived upon themselves and they all live lives where one is made to be just like the rest of the population. According to white society, everyone should be alike, and the narrator strongly disagrees with this. This culture that the narrator is living in is one he differs from greatly. In his culture his family, and their values, are completely different from the one of the white civilization. They are their own people and know that, but they also are very focused on family and loving and caring for one another. The narrator has not felt this love and compassion, only force to be like everyone else; another reason why he needs the warmth, love and compassion of being home with family.
"I am weary of trying to keep up this bluff of being civilized. Being civilized means trying to do everything you don't want to, never doing everything you want to. It means dancing to the strings of custom and tradition; it means living in houses and never knowing or caring who is next door." The narrator does not see any values, or benefits, in the way that white people live. He does not see