Compare & Contrast “My People” By: Chief Seattle a

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“My People” By: Chief Seattle and “Salvation” By: Langston Hughes are two different works that have similar under meanings. Chief Seattle’s “My People” tells about the red people (Native Indians) being colonized where as Hughes’s “Salvation” recounts an experience where he “saved”. Three points that both works have in common are Parable, Irony and Tone. Parable is a simple narrative that illustrates a moral or religious lesson. This is shown in “My People” when Chief Seattle states (pg 1187) “Your God loves our people and hates mine”. He is saying that the red people and white people can never live together because the white men are destroying everything. They are destroying the land, culture and anything that represents the red people due to the colonization. In “Salvation” the parable is shown when Hughes recalls a gathering where he was supposed to be “saved”. “Saved” meaning to see a light and Jesus representing God has come into your life and will stay with you from then on. Irony is the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning. In “My People” Chief Seattle explains that the red people believe in there is life in everything. The land, the water, everything had a spirit. When one passed on he/she would be reborn as a spirit through one of these elements. The white men believed the red people were savage yet they were the ones taking everything away from the red people. The white people tried making the red people civilized by teaching them about Jesus. Chief Seattle says (pg 1189) “..for the dead are not altogether powerless.”, this is ironic because the white peoples Jesus is dead but he is not powerless. So the same would apply to the red peoples beliefs. In “Salvation” the irony is Hughes ended up losing his faith when the faithful tried to save him. He was a young boy and expected to physically see a man but he did

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