Kathleen Norris Dakota :: Kathleen Norris Dakota

  Kathleen Norris Dakota           Kathleen Norris uses small town society to illustrate a much larger phenomenon that occurs in the States The obstruction of truth in the name of progress and patriotism. Norris makes an example of a small Dakota town, the old fami hypocrisys ingrained in local society who act as somewhat of a censorship committee, silently fixing the pasts blunders and bad dreams so not to discourage themselves or the younger generation A good write up is one that isnt demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesnt remind us of the bad times, the cardboard patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you spang just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all. (85)   Norris mentions the progress model and linear narrative used in the telling of recital. People in D akota dont want to hear ab extinct the countless generations before them who alike failed at farming, the once thriving town that are now abandoned completely. They dont want to hear about anybody who failed, or anything bad that happened at all unless things dour out OK in the end. People have a need to hear fixed history to give them a false sense of hope. til now though many of them know its false, theyre willing to accept the fable as truth before facing a painful past.   The larger repercussions of this form of history, is that it misses out on the larger purpose of history. The most important part of history to be told truthfully is the bad part. Imagine our history glazing over Hitler as a crazy guy who acted alone, and forced everybody in Germany to go along with his plan. We need to hear the story that regular people were pulled into his mentality, that random Joes were converted into Jew-hating murderers.   Unfortunately, American history does have a habit of covering up its history for the sake of offering its younger generations a progress model. In a book call Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen shows how the progress model mode of history telling has covered up many important events in American history to the bakshish that children in public education are graduating high school with extremely warped views of history.