The Indian Uprising (a Critique) :: essays research papers

Any authors primary goal in floor writing is to convey an idea or topic to their reading audience. The conventional erudition on this thought is that the clearer this is conveyed, the greater the appeal to the reader. However, some authors feel the need to resist this trend and forge new paths that sometime leaves the nitty-grittys of their stories obscure and hidden from the mean(a) reader. Donald Barthelme has taken this optional approach with his story "The Indian Uprising". There are several reasons that I did not fully enjoy this post-colonial short story. One, its " advert" is vague and this is a challenge to my current reading abilities and two, it rambles along its disjointed timeline to the point that I became easily lost. However, there is something that the story brought to light that I am now more fully aware of than before reading this story. That is my own abilities of intellectual analysis. It is these areas that I wish to elaborate upon.Donald Bar thelmes deliberate twisting of the subtleties in meaning in his story is intriguing. However, as a recent popular movie so elegantly put it, it left me dazed and confused. I couldnt seem to judge out what the point or moral of the story should be. Was this a story of a battle between cowboys and Indians, as it suggests in its title? The story starts score leading you to take this as a real possibility with lines such as "We defended the city as best we could. The arrows of the Comanches came in clouds."(123). Or was it a story of love set in the time of war? "...we issued entrenching tools to those who seemed trustworthy and turned the heavy-weapons companies so that we could not be surprised from that direction. And I sat there acquiring drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love." (124). Although the story bounces between these two main "insinuations", it is never clear to me what or who the story is about and I found this to be an unfulfilling reading. In retrospect my previous readings of literature have been more of the atypical writing style. One that leaves you comfortable and secure and without guesswork "The Indian Uprising" avoids this style at all cost. The authors intent on writing in the style of a collage, although fascinating, is very confusing. I will be the graduation to admit Im not the most avid of readers, but having to read a story two or even three times and still not fully perceiving its meaning made it an even more arduous read.