Momaday and Brown

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Mary Jane Butac Ms. Sandra Carvalho English 1A 8 October 2014 Rhetorical Analysis: Momaday's and Brown's Perspective on Similar Lands Native American writers N. Scott Momaday's and Dee Brown, in their descriptive passages"of similar landscapes, paint two conflicting portraits of a similar landscape. Momaday's purpose is to portray the beauty behind his sacred ancestral home for what it is, while Brown's purpose is to portray a ruined land that is no longer what he loved. Momaday invites his readers to admire his homeland, while Brown drags the readers into an atmosphere that's unpleasant. The two writer's vastly different perspectives of similar landscapes are revealed through their use of contrasting diction and imagery. Momaday and Brown used conflicting diction to create different views on similar landscapes. Momaday uses words and phrases such as "loneliness is an aspect of the land," "all things in the plain are isolate," "to look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion," "imagination comes to life," and "creation was begun." Momaday's use of words show the sacredness of the land. They also signify that the land is of important value to him on a spiritual level. On the other hand, Brown uses words and phrases such as "everything had turned bad," "gone," "replaced by an endless desolation," "roamed restlessly," and "return to their reservations to keep from starving." Brown's use of words depict a picture of a land that destroyed. You can also imply that he is resentful towards the white hunters who caused for the land to be desolate. There appears to be no hope in the land and the words create a sense of bitterness. His forlorn diction allows the reader to envision a land that is dead and no more. Through Momaday's and Brown's use of contrasting diction, two different
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