Nature And Silence Sparknotes

Being born into the Mvskoke Nation must have made it effortless for Joy Harjo to express a theme of her Native American culture through her poems, songs, and other writings. One can get a sense through her Native American writing that she has a deep desire to save the environment and an extreme love for the earth and she urges others to also share that desire and love with her. Native American writing differs from Western writing completely because of reasons such as political systems, views on religion, and inner peace. These differences can be seen in Christopher Manes’ “Nature and Silence” and Paula Gunn Allen’s “The Sacred Hoop.” On one hand, Christopher Manes’ “Nature and Silence” focuses more on the Western culture based literature and Paula Gunn Allen’s “The Sacred
Although these two essays are different they both show ecocriticism, the study of literature and the environment from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. These pieces of literature also made it easier to understand Harjo’s ecopoetry. Ecopoetry is poetry with a strong ecological emphasis or message. Joy Harjos’ poems are filled with symbolism and imagery. Through the study of Manes’ and Allen’s essays, “Nature and Silence” and “The Sacred Hoop” respectively, the Western reader can better understand the symbolism in Harjo’s poems.
“Eagle Poem” can give a reader a sense of the symbolism Harjo is trying to incorporate in her writing. In Western culture there is little to no connection between animals and humans, or even nature and humans, but there is a relationship. We as humans must remember that we are not superior or better than animals and we must share a mutual relationship just like people in native American. We rely on animals just as much or maybe even a little more than animals rely on humans. . This is all in