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Little House on the Prairie Through Laura's desire for an Indian papoose the girl seems to realize her desire in stopping an endless hatred towards the Indians and to establish closer peaceful relations between the two nations: the white folks and the Indians. Although the girl is unable to give clear explanation of the driving motives, the episodes from the book Little House on The Prairie can be examined as factors that can give us a logical explanation of the girls behavior. One of such episodes brings us to the very beginning of the childrens book, when Pa decides to leave the native lands and to move to the Indian Territory, as there were too much people in the Big Woods and wild animals were afraid of such a big quantity of people. The hunt became too difficult and Laura's Pa was unable to feed the family. The girl was told the story about exciting lands and exciting people. In order to calm the girl down, Pa promised her that there will be something interesting she should see.
In such a way, the Indian papoose played a role of stimuli. Here Laura's main psychological features are receptivity, suggestibility, and ductility. She treats her Pa as one of the most un disputable authorities. Further, in the episode, when the girl encounters Indians while she plays on the prairie and sees them entering her dwelling, the girl feels fear. She is afraid of strangers and feels animosity. However, when she enters the house in order to protect her Ma from the hostile Indians, to her great surprise, she discovers that the Indians have no intention to hurt anybody.
Laura seems to be in an emotional turmoil, when she consistently draws a parallel between the behavior of Indians and the attitude of the whites toward them. For example, in the episode, when she enters the house, she feels that Indians do not pose the threat and their eyes are sparking. The attribute of sparkling eyes the girl attaches only to the dearest to her. This experience of positive feelings intensifies with the episode when Laura's family meets Soldat du Chene, an Osage chief, who speaks French language.
When the Indian tribes wanted to kill the settlers, Soldat du Chene saved the lives of white people and forced the tribes to leave in peace. Laura indeed appreciated the good attitude of Indians, especially when we compare the awful attitude of the Scotts towards the Indian tribes. Again, the girl feels sincerely and admires the magnanimity of the Indians. It seems that the Indians and the white folks are consistently set off against each other: on the one hand, the Indians amicability, friendliness and absence of threat, whereas on the other hand circumspection, caution, distrustfulness and negative attitude of the whites toward the Indians and unstable governments position concerning the territorial claims. Pas positive attitude and his attempts to protect Indians contrast to Mas feeling of fear, defenselessness and distrust.
The song of Alfarata adds to the girls positive attitude to the Indians and makes her feel compassion to the nation forced to move west because that is what the government makes the Indians do. She treats the whites as byword for iniquity. The episode that influenced Pas decision to leave the territories before somebody will force them doing it is also the aversive stimulus. Laura's psychological background involves primary formation of a personality at the basis of moral evaluation that determines her attitude to other people. As far as the girl consistently notices the discrepancies and contradictions in behavior of the white folks and the Indian tribes, her emotional experiences undergo changes. Her attitude to the Indians is more positive, as far as the girl starts to distinguish her own activity and takes under control the management of her psychological processes.
Laura undergoes regulating of the emotional experience and builds up the ability to solve vital tasks by means of logical reasoning. The girl proposes her own solution to end the conflicts that results in her desire for an Indian papoose. Bibliography Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie. Harper Trophy, 1953.
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Research essay sample on Indian Tribes Positive Attitude
