A Man Called Horse文学评论.docVIP

A Man Called Horse文学评论 Created on: February 01, 2007 Last Updated: May 08, 2007 A Man Called Horse by Dorothy M. Johnson is a story, which follows the story of a man who was captured by American Indians and had to learn all of the skills of the Indian people to it in and to survive. In a sense the man was re-born. He starts off with nothing like a newborn child and works his way up till he gains the respect of his capturers. The first real sign of there being hope for the man is when he decides that he will not go any lower than a dog, showing that he still had some respect for himself. He decides that he has the same social standing as a horse. The contradiction of the title shocks the reader at first but as they continue through the story it becomes clear, the reason why he became a horse. The theme of the story is respect. Respect for others and most importantly respect for yourself. Without any respect people would find it hard to survive in a community such as the Crow Indians where most of their beliefs and rituals are made out of respect. An example of this would be when a member of a family dies, a mourner would cut off a finger joint out of respect for the dead. Another example of showing the dead respect is when the family leaves riches with the body of Yellow Robe so he could take them to the afterlife. As the reader is shown these examples of respect for the dead, Dorothy Johnson tell us the story of the man called Horse and how he earned his respect from the Crows. At first his main objective was to survive among the horses, he talks to the horses as if they could understand him. Whoa, brother. It goes easier when you dont fight. This is one example of showing that it is worth sacrificing pride to survive and how communication is a key part of survival. We are shown the importance of being able to communicate, as the man only starts to fit in with the tribe once he understands their language. One day several things happened that made the captive th