Essay Questions

How would a psychoanalyst interpret the Indian woman’s assertions in the poem “Indian Woman”?

The key lines, from “Indian Woman” that a psychoanalyst would use include: “ I have no feelings” and “I have no emotions” and “I am scared trust”. According to these,lines the Indian woman has suppressed her feelings as a result of antagonistic encounters such as rape and physical brutality. The inference of the line “I am scared to trust” is that the woman dreads trust. Thus, she cannot have faith in other people as they would let down her based on her experience.

What is the effect of the line “Someone is lying” (Line 53) in “The Indian Woman”?

The fifty-third line breaks up the poem into two. All the lines that come after it are a counterargument against the argument posed the lines that come before the fifty third line. Dividing the poem into two explicates the ideological ambiguity of the speaker and results in the formation of the: dehumanized Indian woman/ humanized Indian woman binary opposition.

What is the similarity between “Artifacts” and “The History Lesson”?

The two poems call attention to the embellishment of historical archives. In Artifacts, the archaeologists inflate the discoveries about the past using undependable artifacts. Furthermore, the overstatement that is alluded to in “Artifacts” intensifies due to the restricted participation of human subjects who know the history “by the hearts.” The History Lesson” establishes that historians who wrote regarding the advancement in Americas inflated written histories by giving a lower profile to the deleterious outcomes of the civilization in the Americas. The two poems go in for the same ideological intent of contending that history books are neither realistic nor trustworthy. Accordingly, the suppositions drawn from the “Artifacts” and “History Lesson” are not representative of the opinions on the Native Indians.