Reference no: EM133557804
Discussion Post
Write 200 words response to the following discussion activity. Use specific references and direct quotes from our readings this week to illustrate and support your view/s.
Since the time of their writing, John Smith's works have evoked wildly divergent responses from readers: Smith has been viewed both as a self-publicizing and inaccurate historian and as the savior of the Virginia colony and friend of the Native Americans. For example, one historian, Karen OrdahlKupperman, has suggested that Smith's writing was most self-consciously literary -- and therefore most historically suspect -- in those passages that recount his interchanges with Powhatan and Pocahontas.
Watch a brief scene from the conclusion of Disney's Pocahontas (1995).
Pocahontas saves John Smith
YouTube Video: "Pocahontas saves John Smith".
After reading Smith's narrative and the materials posted in the Week 2 Modules folder, consider the nature and purpose of Smith's narrative and consider the similarities and differences between the rhetorical strategies of Smith's colonial texts (how he appeals to his audience, how he uses elements of epic, folklore, adventure, and travel writings) and the contemporary film. Reconsider a definition of myth from last week: Myth is "the dramatic representation of culturally important truths in narrative form." How is the myth of Pocahantas culturally important? What "truths" are represented in the myth of Pocahantas? Does it complicate matters if the "truths" represented are not historically accurate? Be sure to selectively quote brief passages from Smith's texts to illustrate and support your views.