Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Q1: Why does Rowdy tell Arnold, “You killed her” (211)? Is there truth to this statement? (Katherine)
Rowdy says that Mary's death was Junior's fault because it was Junior's courage that caused her to run away. On page 211 Junior states, "She had burned to death because I had decided that I wanted to spend my life with white people." (Alexie 211). Junior made the first moves in transferring to Rearden. He realized that there was no hope on the rez, and Mary decided to pursue hope elsewhere as well. It is partially true that Junior killed his sister because she used his plan of leaving the rez. However, there were many more decisions and events that caused Mary's death, such as her choosing to throw the party. Junior was also not the physical reason in Mary's death, it was the fire that killed her. Junior did have some play in Mary's death, but it was certainly not "all his fault".
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I agree with what you are saying here Katherine. Even though Arnold didn't physically kill his sister, he did change some of the things in her life that lead up to her dying. Arnold left Wellpinit to go find hope at Rearden, and that affected Mary's opinion about the rez. "She (mary) only got married so quickly and left the rez because I had left the rez first." (Alexie 211) She went to Montana, in search of hope just like Arnold did with going to Rearden. So yes, he did kill her in way, but then again it wasn't like he told her to go to Montana, get married and have a party. Just like you said, there were a series of events that lead to Mary dying. Mary's death wasn't Juniors fault physically but he did have a role in how she got to that point.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Katherine. I think you could add the fact that she was under the influence of alcohol.This plays a huge part in her death, more than Junior does. Eugene, his big sister and his grandmother's death all included someone drunk. I do believe that it was a tiny part Juniors fault, but alcohol is also something that is a HUGE part.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of the topics you discussed in your blog post. However, I also think that Junior has another side in that it was not his fault that his sister died. It was all an unfortunate sequence of events. When Junior went to achieve his dreams in search of a better future, Mary realized that she was wasting her life and decided to go out and live her fate. Junior had a positive effect on Mary, but her death was a unusual tragedy. She did die in happiness. The text states, "But she only got married so quickly and left the rez because I had left the rez first. She was only living in Montana in a cheap trailer house because I had gone to school in Reardan,"Alexie 211). Mary's death is clearly not directly at Juniors fault if at all, though he is being hard on himself.
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