Chapter 10
Throughout this chapter, there are many thematic elements that can be identified including the representation of the American Indians, and the portrayal of traditional gender roles, which is significant in how one singular chapter can depict this.
The opening of the chapter highlights the semantic field of all the animals and wildlife that live on the prairie, creating a strong representation of imagery that reflects upon the sacredness and native space of the wilderness. It is interesting to note the description of the animals in accordance to the following occurrence in the chapter. Wilder describes a grey rabbit stating: '...if you were very quiet, you might stand a long time looking at him. His round eyes stared at yours without meaning anything.' After Laura and Mary were watching the animals, Laura goes running to Ma, and her reaction shouts 'Dear me Laura, must you yell like an Indian?' To go from the description of the animals to the topic of Indians, could suggest the attached connotations, since Indian's are often dehumanised in their representation and presence in literature, television and film. This exaggerates the presence and depiction of the Indians, reinforcing the divide between the wilderness versus civilization and how they are conveyed as the 'outsiders'.
Ma also declares in the passage, 'if you girls aren't getting to look like Indian's! Can I never teach you to keep your sun-bonnets on?' This demonstrates the emphasis of distancing themselves from the Indians, in their lifestyle, dress and culture which signifies the isolation of the Indians, even in their own territory. The specific reference to the use of sunbonnets not only highlights the desirability of 'whiteness' in civilization due to the physical practicality of a sunbonnet to protect you from the sun, but also to keep girls looking pale and white which contextually at the time, was considered beauty. The above image from the television adaptation of Little House on the Prairie shows Ma and Laura wearing the sunbonnets. It can be argued that the sunbonnets symbolically represent a feminine restriction which relates to the idea of the feminine, domestic sphere belonging to civilization, as the structure of the bonnet constricted the wearer from their peripheral vision.
Sharon Smulders explains in her analysis how the sunbonnet is 'A metaphor for feminine constraint, the sunbonnet not only serves to marginalize the other by eliminating it from sight, but also prevents the wearer from becoming "other".'* This reinforces the idea of two marginalised groups or 'other' groups (women and the American Indians), combined in the one passage, highlighting the issue and divide, specifically in reference to the binary of civilization versus the wilderness, women belonging to the domestic, civilized sphere and the Indians belonging to the unknown, savage territory. This idea of the two 'othered' groups both present together in the same chapter can also be viewed in the following chapter 11, when the Indians go into the Ingalls' house. It reinforces the idea of how both females and Indian's are subordinate, however the binary of the West versus the East is heavily portrayed in the illustrations throughout the book specifically in chapter 11 which follows through the ideas established in chapter 10.
Overall, the significance of the representation of women and the American Indians in this chapter determines the attitudes of the time, and the implications of westward expansion in terms of how the exaggerated narrative of isolation demonstrates the symbolic subordination of women and the American Indians.
* Smulders, Sharon. "'The Only Good Indian': History, Race, and Representation in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie." Children's Literature Association Quarterly 27.4 (2202): 191-202. bookcandy.typepad.com/files/engl-3820-smulders-annotated.doc
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