Tuesday, April 28, 2009
"Lyman's Luck" by Louise Erdrich
Post your response to "Lyman's Luck" in the comments section. (E-mail me with your response if you can't post.) In a paragraph or so, describe what the story is about -- what's its "intention"? I'm not asking you to summarize the story. Tell me what the point is. Also tell me whether you think the story is interesting? Why or why not? Keep the elements of fiction in mind as you respond.
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The story was completely awesome. It talked about how people basically depend on luck to live their lives. it was quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteLyman's Luck
ReplyDeleteI think this story is about immagrants and the transition from Indian life to American life and how different it is, and how we American's are kinda big hypocrites (in the eyes of immagrants). For example: "They sold you booze for furs and then told you not to drink."
I also think the story was completely awesome. I think the intention was to talk about Native American culture and what the whites have done to it, but how they can always come back and hold thier own. It was very well done.
ReplyDeleteThis story is about a man, Lyman, who is thinking of ways to make money. He decides that giving Indians the right to run casinos would make a killing. Personally I didn't find the story very interesting. The whole thing was just rotating around this one idea and how he was going to fulfill it. He never actually fulfills the dream in the piece we read, and nothing really happens except you get a taste of how greedy Lyman is.
ReplyDeleteErr. Pronoun antecedence issues. I meant that Native Americans can always come back and hold their own. Dang, I really need to start proofreading my comments.
ReplyDeleteI think this "story"(?) is an introduction to something bigger. It simply describes a plan for a casino and I'm left with an open question(several,actually). What is up with this casino? With the person opening the casino? Backstory? So, it's more like a beginning, perhaps.
ReplyDeletei would probably have to say that the intention of the story is a kind of revenge. that's what i got, anyway. our narrator does not like the white people that have taken over native american land, that much is obvious. and the way he talks about giving the native americans discounts, and teaching them the "real" ways, i would say he is going to use his hatred to make a decent profit. i don't know if it says whether or not he is native american himself, but it's obvious that he is. personally, i didn't like this story, just because it seemed a little one-dimensional to me. other than the "you took my land and corrupted my people" bit, there's nothing really driving the narrator to do this, and i find that a little hard to believe.
ReplyDeletei thought that the story was mostly about lyman's dislike for white americans and how he has a slight predjudice against them because of what happened in the past. his voice is simple but thoughtful. overall good.
ReplyDeleteIt seems almost contradictory to me. Lyman (at least in my opinion) looks at memories of traditional Indian gambling fondly. But his vision for his casino is not traditional at all. It makes me think that Lyman's top priority is greed, even though he thinks about giving Indians discounts and helping other Indians out.
ReplyDeleteI think this story is sort of about racism. But I also think Lyman a business plan, and the old dusty factory gives me the thought that his business won't last, like the factory. I find it a very interesting story though. [:
ReplyDeleteOlivia says: I really think that the point of this short story was to portray this man's ideas and how they got bigger and bigger has he thought harder about them. He was determined to build and run a casino from what I understand and had lots of "good" ideas and details. I enjoyed the story because I can relate to having big ideas and getting excited about accomplishing things also. It had a great image effect and i was able to think what he was thinking.
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Lyman's Luck is a story about a certain group of people (Native Americans-look how politcally correct I'm being)trying to stay true to their values and traditions in a world that is much more corrupt than they are. In the end, it shows that, though we may think we are all very different and sepperate in the group of people we belong with, we are all very much the same, as shown by Lyman using the same tactics Europeons used to steal from Indians against them.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the intention of the story was to sort of confuse the reader. The writing style is full of fragments and weird sentence structure. The story feels very stream of consciousness, as does Lyman’s character. You mainly get Lyman’s thoughts and details of his dream. There is some past story, but it is pretty vague. There are lots of observations made by Lyman that turn into great details. The political factor of the story could be read as a stereotype. But the stereotype was fairly true, at least for that time period. It makes me feel guilty.
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