Identity Theme in There There Literary Analysis Essay Example

Characters in “There There” struggle with finding their identity and people today struggle with it too. “There There” is about different characters who are trying to figure out their true Indian identity. All these perspectives are led up to the characters coming together to honor the past traditions that they lost with the powwow. Just as the characters were starting to find their identity, they were interrupted by a shooting, which sent people screaming and running out of the stadium. This situation makes them come together and put away their differences. According to the characters in there There being an Indian today means connecting with their ancestry and culture while addressing hardships they are facing with their present day indenity.  

Dene Oxendene makes videos to make room for people to talk about what being Indian means to them at the same time trying to find the missing part of himself. “There is real Passion there, and rage, and that’s part of what I’m bringing to the project because I feel that way too” (Orange, 40). He is bringing the hardships that he has faced into the project. Using that he can find out what he is in the process. Dene Oxendene is trying to discover what he thinks being Indian means to him through hearing other people’s stories about what being Indian means to them. 

Orvil Red-Feather learns about being Indian by watching hours of powwow videos on      YouTube because Opal will not l tell them anything because of what she faced during her childhood. “Virtually everything about being Indian he’d learned virtually from watching hours and hours of powwow footage… on YouTube.” (Orange, 121). He had to teach himself by watching hours of video on YouTube because opal prohibited Orvil from engaging with his Indian identity. “it’s important that he dress like an Indian, dance like an Indian, even if it is an act, even if he feels like fraud.” Even though Orvil feels like he does not belong, he cannot give up because he has not found that missing part of his identity. The hardship that Orvil is facing is that Opal does not want Orvil to experience the same trouble she had to deal with when she was younger, and now Orvil feels disconnected from the past and that will stop him from creating a present-day identity as an urban Indian. He tries to teach himself by watching videos about his Indian culture.  

Edwin black knows so many things about his ancestor culture but, cannot relate to his own identity. "The problem with Indigenous art in general is that it's stuck in the past"(Orange, 77). Edwin uses music from the past to learn so much about identity of his ancestry/ culture but struggles to connect to his own identity as an urban Indian because the music is from his ancestors that were taken from their land and put in city, that makes it hard for Edwin to what it means to be Indian to him. Edwin knows a lot about his culture from the past, but his hardship is trying to connect the past, but trying to figure out what it means to be Indian today to him, 

In conclusion, according to the characters that are in “there there” being Indian today means trying to connect with the past culture and bring it alive in the present at the same time dealing with the hardships that come with them. These are some of the characters in “there there” and this is what Indian means to them, there are so many more characters that have different meanings about being Indian, but they all relate back trying to connect with past culture to create present day identity. Their ancestor past identity has been erased because they had to move to the city away from homelands, that is way it is hard for the characters to find their true Indian identity. This information is helpful and relates because the whole book talks about identity of urban Indian and how the characters find their identity as an Indian with history.