Post #4

Though we’ve finished reading it, I have yet to give my two cents on A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, so this is as good a time as any I figure. Overall, the story was one of my favorites that we’ve read so far. It was much less tangled than Almanac and a little more complicated than Smoke Dancing. It’s no surprise to me that this book was a national bestseller; it was a quick and enjoyable read. That being said, there were some key themes that jumped out at me from the very beginning, and we touched on them only briefly in class. The largest of these, in my opinion, is identity.

I have really enjoyed all that we have learned this year in regards to identity, and what it really means to be Native American. I couldn’t help but look at these characters in that context. Of all of them, I believe that Ida had the most sense of self. She definitely had her faults (plenty of them at times), but when it came down to it she still had the ability to fall back into being the traditional storyteller that she was. I feel that the others were far too distracted to have a sound understanding of their culture and how to relate to it completely. Some might argue that Christine came close to finding herself, but I really don’t think she ever got there. Just because her search for an identity was the most obvious, doesn’t mean that she was the most successful in finding it. Rayona would also prove a good candidate, simply because she was viewed as being something different. However, I think that she embraced her separation from the other characters and ran with it, rather than really trying to discover who she was. Ida may not have been my favorite character, but I think that she was most successful and knowing who she really was.