Heritage: Family and Life Essay Example

– good and bad - concerning her family, as well as her Native American culture. She speaks also of her uncle; he is old and represents their dying culture as he sings old Native American chants to her and tells her stories of their culture. Her grandfather symbolizes the manner in which hardships can be handled as the Native Americans were forced to become integrated into the white person’s way of living.She learned from him that silence and toleration can be just as potent as anger and revenge.

From her grandmother, she learns a quiet understanding; never to criticize others, but to accept others’ differences. The writer uses a lot of imagery to describe her family; often comparing and relating them to a memory or circumstance that she remembers from her life. The descriptive words she chooses come across as emotional; she hasn’t always been confident in her individuality, but eventually comes to the realization that it is her heritage that makes her unique; different from others, but in a positive way.She comes to understand that she is not crazy because she thinks differently than others, but that her experiences in life have differed from others and therefore made her a different person. In the last stanza, the writer seems to take pride in her Native American ancestry; claiming it as her own and proud of the things she has learned. She uses a simile in the line “it was like the brown cloud of grasshoppers /that leveled her fields” (26-27) to describe what the spilled contents of her grandmother’s snuff can looked like on her shirt; it reminded her of the story she had

heard about the plague of locusts ruining her father’s crops.

She then compares the same contents of the snuff can to a metaphor of life in “that sweet black liquid like the food /she chewed up and spit into my father’s mouth” (31-32). This is a good quality poem in that the feelings and emotions of the writer are vividly portrayed. And although the descriptive terms can cause one’s mind to wander off the theme of the poem, it eventually brings you back to focus and ultimately aids in getting the writer’s message across.Literary critic Joseph Perisi states, “She [Linda Hogan] vividly brings to life the realities of the natural world, its seasons, and their effects, observed with precision and understood with uncanny sympathy; time and again, she hits the exact metaphor that conveys the feeling of being truly alive. …” The writer’s ability to see her life and the lives of those around her and portray it in such fascinating application is an encouragement to those who read her work. In studying this poem and its author, I am struck with the feeling of gratitude in realizing that the life I have is a gift.

Understanding that life can be good or bad from our own point of view; depending on how we look at it and what we make of it. Whether we take what we have for granted or whether we appreciate every moment we have, take pride in our accomplishments, love those who love us, and to accept who we are. Our life is our heritage. Works Cited Gellert, Elisabeth, ed. Poetry Criticism Vol.

35. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. p243-279 Literature Criticism Online

Perisi, Joseph. Contemporary Literary Criticism.

Gale Research http://www. enotes. com/poetry-criticism/hogan-linda