Mayfield 1
Tara Mayfield
English 408
Dr. Tucker
17 March 2012
Evaluate and Judge
Response to Andrea Musher’s Essay, Showdown at Sorrow Cave: Bat Medicine and the Spirit of Resistance in Mean Spirit
Andrea Musher’s essay, Showdown at Sorrow Cave: Bat Medicine and the Spirit of Resistance in Mean Spirit, focuses on the parallels between the suffering and survival instincts of bats and Native Americans that Linda Hogan constructs throughout her novel Mean Spirit. Musher introduces her essay with an epigraph detailing the fundamental belief that Native Americans share - that all of nature is interrelated and should be respected. She provides quotations from both a fictional character, Horse, in Hogan’s novel and Native American author Paula Gunn Allen (23). By relating Allen’s assertion to Horse’s, Musher gives credibility to fictional assertions in Hogan’s novel. She distinguishes that it is not just a fictional character’s belief, but that of the Native American community.
The introduction also highlights one of the most central themes in Hogan’s novel. This reoccurring theme of opposing values between Western and Native American culture is presented toward the end of the novel. When Horse says his new chapter of the Bible is “very simple. That’s why it took me so long to write it” (Hogan 361), Hogan is mocking the ignorance of Western culture in the 1920s.
Musher begins supporting her thesis by summarizing several examples in the novel that illustrate the “Spirit of Resistance” and the power of the “Bat Medicine” (23) through the characters of Michael Horse, Belle Graycloud, Stace Redhawk, and Father Dunne or “the Hog Priest”. Their presence and determination to save the bats at Sorrow Cave represent their forbearance toward the white law. The examples utilized are lengthy and detailed with few claims to separate the plot summary. By beginning with these examples, Musher dissipates her clear and concise thesis and therefore distracts the reader. Only toward the end of the essay does Musher relate these examples to any kind of claim.
Despite these lengthy descriptions, the latter half of her essay provides several, well-constructed arguments and reminds the reader of her main premise for the essay. Musher illustrates the changes that characters undergo as they either adopt or retreat to Native American cultural traditions. In reference to Father Dunne’s statement about the deepness of “sorrow” (23), Musher pinpoints Hogan’s double meaning of the term, using the cave as a metaphor for the Native Americans’ sorrow in the 1920s. “…His words set up elegiac ripples that ring the full measure of sadness in this novel that is steeped in death from its first pages to its last” (24). She later completes this metaphorical representation by expressing that “Hogan takes us on a journey through Sorrow Cave to teach us that in penetrating the depths of sorrow we come to a place that is both ancient and spiritually potent, which, therefore, provides the way out of sorrow” (34). Despite this beautiful connection that Musher addresses, five pages of plot summation in between dilute the solid statement. Had Musher provided a clear outline for her arguments in the beginning, buffered them with examples, and then re-emphasized those claims, her contentions could be strengthened.
The direct quotations utilized in this text do not necessarily seem to support Musher’s thesis argument, such as Ballard’s statement to Red Hawk which Musher uses on page 31. Although it highlights cultural differences between whites and Native Americans, it is inserted between the Sorrow Cave metaphor which interrupts the flow of the text. These quotations, too, seem unnecessarily long, as if Musher is simply trying to fill space on the page. The direct quotation describing Belle Graycloud and the bats in the cave could have been shortened to simply say that “Belle’s emphatic perspective invests the bats with a dignity and stature exceeding that of most of the vicious, small-minded humans standing around the cave” (26). Her admiration for the sacred bats is obvious with Belle’s determination to save them. Since Musher emphasizes the details of this scene already, the direct quotation does not serve as support and merely fills up space.
Musher uses plot summation to describe scenes in which the Native American cultures and Western cultures differ in their views about nature and animals. Although she makes relative points concerning this theme, these examples sometimes deviate from the thesis of her essay that claims to exclusively address the “Showdown at Sorrow Cave” (23) and how that particular incident illustrates the fundamental differentiation in beliefs. She does a good job of providing examples in how the native peoples in the book show resilience toward the assimilation into the white culture, such as showing how “for Belle the lives of the eagles are as important as the lives of her people” (27). However, these are not always representative of the sorrow cave incident.
Her descriptions of the characters, at times, seem to discredit her assertion that Native Americans are in fact resilient toward assimilating into the white world. When describing Belle Graycloud, Musher says, “She still uses the traditional chants when she plants her corn, but she also uses her crystal radio set to check on what the white government is up to” (24). In order to aid in her claim, the sentence could have been written to say something such as “Despite using her crystal radio clock to keep tabs on the white government, Belle Graycloud retains native traditions such as using chants when planting corn.” Subtle changes in sentence organization could strengthen her argument because rather than simply stating facts from the novel, the latter structure is an opportunity to state a claim. By excluding more persuasive statements, Musher seems to be merely summarizing plots and characters which can be boring for a reader that has previously read Mean Spirit.
A crucial argument could have been made when Musher was discussing the problem of the bats in the cave. She illustrates Belle’s defiance toward the sheriff at sorrow cave when she states,
“The sheriff tries to appeal to Belle’s “‘reason,’” informing her “’We have a rabies problem here, Belle.’” And Belle, who definitely has not lost her wit, replies. “‘It probably comes from your biting people” (279)” (Musher 26).
Here, Musher could have pointed out Hogan’s critique of the difference of respect for the animals by inserting Michael Horse’s first encounter with the bats. After losing Redshirt, Horse stumbles upon a bat which he takes for an addition to his medicine bundle. The bat eventually bites Horse in the hand, and the man is stricken with fear that he will contract rabies. Despite being bitten, Horse does not harm the animal and places him in a hole to mate with a female. After four days, the male dies and Horse has yet to contract the disease. He respects the animals and “He knew he had a calling or something, a gift to offer the world, and that must have been why he was spared” (Hogan 170). Whereas the whites place a one dollar bounty for every bat killed because one girl dies from rabies, Horse represents the Native American belief that the bats, as well as all animals, are brothers and should not be killed. By making such a statement, the author could have supported how respecting the animals is beneficial to the Native Culture. Although Musher constructs a well-written argument to illustrate this difference in cultures through the characters of Belle and Sheriff Gold, Horse’s character could have solidified this argument.
Although there are many interesting assertions made by Andrea Musher in her essay, Showdown at Sorrow Cave: Bat Medicine and the Spirit of Resistance in Mean Spirit, she utilizes an abundance of examples and direct quotations that makes the piece insipid. Reading the entirety of the piece is like re-reading Linda Hogan’s novel itself. Musher does not utilize much outside research in her essay which contributes to the originality of the text but the claims in which Musher asserts do not require much evidence other than that provided by the novel itself. Musher’s opinion about the “standoff” at Sorrow Cave is reminiscent of her piece being that “The action seems to dissipate and it appears we are left with an inconclusive standoff” (24). Her use of first person pronouns such as “I” and “we” can make the reader feel like a typecast such as when she says, “Hogan has led us to question our automatic privileging of human life over other life forms” (24). This also limits the reader audience to those of “mainstream, Judeo-Christian values” (24).
Works Cited
Hogan, Linda. Mean Spirit. New York: Atheneum, 1990. Print.
Musher, Andrea. Showdown at Sorrow Cave: Bat Medicine and the Spirit of Resistance in Mean Spirit. Sail 6.3 (Fall 1994): 23-36. Print.