Sunday, October 17, 2010

What happened to Pocahontas?


I thought the Pocahontas statue in the Jamestown Settlement was interesting because the way in which her arms were positioned suggests she was open and accepting to the new ideals and way of life the English proposed when they first arrived. One could also argue that the statue is positioned in a way that she is searching or looking for something. Either way, I still have no idea what to think about Pocahontas because we have to view her through the perceptions of others. And even then these perceptions could be biased by stereotypes or lack of information. Pocahontas’s image has become skewed to how people want her to look. For example the portrait done by Mary Woodbury in 1730, one could argue that she idealized Pocahontas as a Caucasian instead of a Native American. Then there is the Pocahontas that most of us are familiar with, the Disney version.

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