Waters, Frank - Christopher Hoy (essay date Autumn 1977)
Christopher Hoy (essay date Autumn 1977)
SOURCE: "The Conflict in the Man Who Killed the Deer," in The South Dakota Review, Vol. 15, No. 3, Autumn, 1977, pp. 51-7.
[In the following essay, Hoy argues that the central conflict in The Man Who Killed the Deer is between the communalism of Pueblo life and the individualism promoted in white society.]
The basic conflict which Martiniano [from The Man Who Killed the Deer] is involved in, and from which all his other difficulties stem, is the clash of his arrogant individuality with the collective will of his people. An Indian is not an individual in the eyes of his brothers but a "piece of the pueblo, the tribe." By definition an Indian must conform to custom, tradition, and pueblo ceremonialism; but Martiniano, infected with an attitude—independence—acquired from the white man, does not respond to the requests of his elders for his time and energy. Instead, he labors under...
[The entire page is 2359 words long]
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