I thought that it was interesting that when asked on the first day of class to think of our stereotypical impressions of the South, none of the ones shared went back so far as to include the time period during which John Smith was writing. Some mentioned historical events such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil War, and current events such as Hurricane Katrina were brought up. Even though we have each presumably taken American history and learned about colonization as well as the events that did get mentioned, I think that the reason none of us thought so far back is because of the media. The media places issues on our minds by frequently discussing or depicting them and certainly current events and even the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement have been much more frequently shown by the media. It is evident that the media at least contributes to stereotypes because we did not come up with any from this early colonial period that is much less visited by the media.
Moreover, John Smith, at least in my mind, is famous for his interactions with Pocahontas, probably in large part due to the Disney movie. However, I thought it was at least as important that he was responsible for the first publication from a British colony in
2 comments:
I agree with this because John Smith did impose his beliefs on the Native Americans. He said that you have to cultivate the land and farm and if you don't your going against God. He also is a lot like Columbus in that he came in and killed a lot of the natives and took over their land.
I think you are absolutely right, Nancy. It is interesting that we are tracing the history of southern lit. back to early Am. lit. I think that is because we have to establish not only a general history, but a sense of some of the themes, such as the love of the land and pride, started when the first English settlers came to America.
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