The Grass Dancer Essay | Critical Essay #1

The Grass Dancer Critical Essay #1

Winters is a freelance writer and editor and has written for a wide variety of academic and educational publishers. In the following essay, she discusses themes of cultural conflict and a spiritual world view in The Grass Dancer.

Susan Power wrote in Reinventing the Enemy's Language that she began writing when she was five, and that a large part of her impulse to write came from the fact that, by writing, she could "sort through the conflicting values and belief systems I was taught by being raised with one foot in the Indian world and the other in mainstream society." As the only Native American in her school classes until high school, she was keenly aware of white attitudes toward her and toward Native Americans in general.

Throughout her novel The Grass Dancer, Sioux characters encounter whites and white culture. Power's vivid characterization, dialogue, and storytelling style subtly,...
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