MAIN CHARACTER By Jimmy Santiago Baca The West

MAIN CHARACTER By Jimmy Santiago Baca

The West

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How it works � � � The speaker is Jimmy Baca when he was a child Baca emphasizes alcohol abuse multiple times in the poem as a concrete way to show the “main character's” impairment Baca uses the drunken Indian as a concrete detail to show a lager abstract idea such as the exploitation of the Native American people by the settlers that inhabited the west.

� � The Indian getting angry and being thrown out of theatre creates a tension early in the poem that is never really resolved Baca uses visual imagery to describe the “main character’s” breakdown He uses the same visual imagery to describe how alcohol contributed to the “winning of the west The intoxicated Native American becomes a symbolic expression of the exploitation of the native American people and the feelings of contempt for the romantic portrayal of old west mythology

� � � The poem is broken into five parts The first part is about the experience in theatre itself The second part is about the Indian's drunken protest The third part is about the Indians removal from theatre placing him back in the definite location of theatre The the fourth part is when Baca connects the drunkenness of the Indian to how the alcohol given to the Native Americans by the settlers resulted in the breakdown of the Native American culture to complement the loss of their home The fifth and last part of the poem is about how Baca went looking for the drunken man after the movie feeling like the movie was really about how he lost his home and culture to European ways

Jimmy Santiago Baca � � � Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in 1952 in Sante Fe, New Mexico He is of Apache and Mexican decent He was alone for most of his child hood being raised in an orphanage When he was 21 he was arrested for drug possession and served 6 years in prison He wanted to go to school but was still considered to dangerous by the prison guards so he was place in death row isolation so he could receive schooling

� � Baca taught himself to read and write in prison and a fellow inmate convinced him to try and publish his poetry Baca was picked uo by a publisher and his poetic career is a success Baca has published several books and won an American Book award and the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature One of Baca’s novels was turned into the movie “Blood In Blood Out” in 1993