Mary Rowlandson She The Only White Woman Summary

Alexie first introduces Mary in the second stanza when he tells about a car accident that killed nine Indians, and that “the only survivor was a white woman...who couldn’t remember her name;” he names this unknown woman in the next stanza by saying, “I remember your name, Mary Rowlandson. I think of you know, how necessary you have become.” She, the only white woman, survives all of the Indians, and in doing so, becomes the symbol of white oppression. She becomes a “necessary” part of explaining the oppression and the history of the Indians. At the end of the same stanza, when he talks about Mary visiting the reservation school, the speech therapist takes an Indian kid from class and “kissed him on the lips, gave him the words which echoed