"Blue Winds Dancing" By Tom Whitecloud

Zubaida Coll
GEEN 2312

"Blue Winds Dancing" by Tom Whitecloud

The narrator in “Blue Winds Dancing,” by Tom Whitecloud, makes continuos comparison of white culture and Indian culture.The narrator constantly speaks of how out of place he felt in the city and how at home he feels at his arrival in the Indian reservation. In this place even nature has a very different aspect as whatwhite man in the city have, he describes it by quoting "Here where all the trees grow in rows; the palms stand stiffly by the roadsides and in the groves the orange trees line in military rows, andendlessly bear fruit. Beautiful, yes; there is always beauty in order, in rows of growing things! But it is the beauty of captivity. A pine fighting for existence on a windy knoll is much morebeautiful".he goes on to counter the White culture with his own Indian culture saying, "Later, when the first snows fall, one awakens in the morning to find the world white and beautiful and clean." Snow is amajor symbol throughout this story, it represents his culture as pure, clean, and simple, everything the White culture is lacking in their society. You can immediately sense the contempt the narratorhas for the hustle of White society. His main conflict in the story is that he is very unreceptive to White culture, due to stubborn pride, he speaks of how white man see Indians as an inferior race andbecause he is getting his education in the city decides to pass by as unnoticed rather than make the difference and be the one to stand at the top and say "my people are not inferior nor are theyuncivilized" he chooses to not merge the two cultures, and agree with the rest of society that you must be one or the other. I personally do feel that "civilized" cultures have a complete wronginterpretation of what is good and what is not and that denigrating other cultures does not at all benifiate anyone but in the contrary divides and gives our new generation a wrong meaning about life and...