Project 2

In the stories “ The Creation” and “ Coyote Cooks his Daughter”  there is a big theme of trust that is portrayed in both stories. I feel that both show a great amount of trust between friendship and family. “The Creation” is about a couple of friends Earthmaker, Coyote, and Meadowlark who go on a journey creating Earth. On this journey they all help each other and trust each other's decisions when it comes to making the planet. Now in “ Coyote Eats his Daughter” it's  about how a daughter is eaten by her own father. Trust is the most important thing between any relationship if you can't trust someone then you don't have any stability of Truth to rely on in which both of these stories uses a great amount of theme and tone to discuss the ways of how trust can be looked upon.

The tone of “The Creation”  is very friendly because you have these friends who go all around trying to create land  and they're doing it together. In the story tone helps set the theme of trust by showing us how each friend make something and the  others have no problem with this. For example when Earth maker “ stretch it out to where the day breaks; he stretched it out to the South; he stretched it out to the place where the sun goes down; he stretched it out to the North country; he stretched it out to the rim of the world; he stretched it out!”(25). Earth maker  stretch out this land and coyote and Meadowlark did nothing but support him and said that it was good. In addition to that when Meadowlark said “ I am a creature who knows nothing. You too wise beings will, yourselves, be making this world, thinking and talking together about it. Then, indeed, seeing whatever is bad, you two will make it good”(26). This part right here shows how etris Earth maker in coyote to make this world a better place. He knows that whatever they do  it won't be bad all things will be good. To me in this story the tone of friendship helps the reader understand the trust they have between each other. When building something not everybody agrees with everybody's decision but with these characters they seem to go along with everything.

The theme of “Coyote Cooks his daughter” I would have to say is “Trust” but also trust in not the way you would expect. Trust is a theme of the story because a daughter trust her parents and would never think that they would hurt her in any kind of way because those are the people who will be down and have the most love for you. So  obviously she would have never have thought her dad would have actually cooked her just because he was hungry. That's why I say this story shows “Trust” but not in the way that you would expect. Which this leaves me to saying that even though you may think the one closest to you are the ones who love you the most those are the ones that will hurt you the most. As for the  tone of “Coyote Cooks His Daughter” it has a Fun-loving tone in which starts in the beginning. However then takes a twist with a dark tone in the end. If we take a step in the beginning of the story there is Coyote and his daughter and the Coyote is super hungry so he decides to go out hunting and he happens to takes his daughter too. So in this part you kinda feel father daughter bonding here. This is the part in which I mean the story starts off as a fun-loving kind of tone. There is also a load of repetition in each stanza. There's a repeated word that I feel puts emphasis on what is taking place in the story. For example it says “his tail when switch-switch-switch gallop-gallop-gallop he went he kept coming along running and his daughter kept coming slowly behind him”(52). In this part here you can hear and see the fun-loving tone between the father and the daughter. It's kind of like his daughter is following in his footsteps and learning from him. But towards the end of the story he knocks his daughter out and cooks her! Lord this made me rethink everything. Her ghost comes back around though and starts to say “Pine tree,stick, pine tree, grass stick jingle-ingle-ingle”(54). When this is presented in the story the tone darkens. Now the daughters ghost is around trying to say what had happened to her to her mother which makes the story turn into a demented tone. No I know you may be asking how does this have anything to do with trust. But let me tell you  a father is a person you look up to and he is the one who supposed to protect you against all harm along with your mother. These are the people you are supposed to have the most trusted before of father to turn around and cook his own daughter the trust has fallen. I mean if a father could do that to his own daughter what do you think he would do to all the other friends and family members that trust him. This is what I mean by there is a theme of trust but not in the way we would imagine it.

In conclusion between these two stories trust is the main theme. Trust is something that is not just given to anybody you have to earn it. However when you think about it trust is everywhere for example when you're driving you trust and hope at the other drivers in front of you, on the side of you, and behind you are not going to hit you. When you go out to eat dinner you trust that when you order your food the waiter is not going to bring that food that has been poisoned. As for these stories  Earth make trusted that coyote will help him make the world a better place a place worth exploring. Coyote's daughter trusted that when she went on this journey with her dad he will protect her but in the end he end up cooking her. Trust is the most important thing and without it we have nothing to fall back on.

Citations:

Cupeno. "Coyote Cooks His Daughter"The literature of California”, edited by Jack Hicks, James

           D Houston, Maxine Hong Kingston, Al Young.University of California press Berkeley and

            Los Angeles California,University of California press LTD London,England,2000

            pp.23-38.

 Maidu. "The Creation"The literature of California”, edited by Jack Hicks,  James D

       Houston, Maxine Hong Kingston, Al Young.University of California press Berkeley and Los

        Angeles California,University of California press LTD London,England,2000 pp.23-38.