Commentary on Laughing Boy Essay

In the novel Laughing Boy, there is interesting dialects between to cultures, that of the Native Americans and the new settlers of America called whites. The story goes on with the battles that these very different cultures face, as Laughing Boy and Slim Girl decide to become married. With the different cultures behind them, they learn to appreciate each other, despite the way they where raised. The story depicts the two cultures and puts them on a one society bases, as these two are married and live together as one. The world going on around them, and the way of life can not stop these two profound people, living on the edge of life.

Slim Girl one of the characters in this book is the wife of laughing Boy, but it was not always this way. When she was a child she was taken away by white minorities to come and live in a European culture. She is put in school and learns the new costumes that this society is based on. As she goes on she must battle these two societies, one that was in the past and the other right now. Her choices are made in her best interest; she only does what is essential in order to live. Searching for a partner, she finally finds Laughing Boy, who is a Navajo Indian. With this new man, she must hide her past, not revealing her true self. Only to come to her end when she is murdered by a jealous white man, that wanted her as his own.

The Navajo Indians believed that in the universe there exists an almighty or spiritual force that is the source of all life. The almighty belief is not pictured as a man in the sky, but is believed to be formless and exist in the universe. They lived as earthly people, using the land as a sacred place, and only using what was necessarily needed in order to survive. The art work that they create is a way to reach there spiritual place, using it as a way of worship. Using these ways, as a way of life, is why the Navajo Indians are so respected today. There way of life encourages the fact that there is a caring group of humans on this earth.

As the white man became sick of European society they came over to the Americas to find a better way of life, finding people there that had already inhabited the land. As time went on Americans became more greedy, pushing the Native Americans out of the way, and not respecting there way of life, or the fact that they where on this continent first. Making it hard for Indians to survive, they Indians fought back, only to be put on reservations, as if they did not own the land in the first place. Killing off the Indians only made a bad name for American settlers, showing that they only care about themselves.

With these two societies going head-to-head it sure makes life hard for those who want a better life and want the peace in the world. Fighting only solves some cases and in this account it solves nothing. The Americans should have realized the fact that the Native Americans where the first people that inhabited North America, instead of hogging all the land. Sharing the land could have saved a great deal of problems among these to very diverse cultures, making the world as we know it know a very different place.