Elements of Naturalism and Realism in Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories Anonymous College

American Indian Stories written by Zitkala-Sa in 1921 is a collection of biographical and autobiographical stories from Native Americans living in the Sioux reservation. In this work, the author describes her (and also other people's) personal stories of growing up. The narrators of these tales differ in age – this way we get the personal experience of transition of Indian Americans from early life to adulthood. The central focuses of the collection are the Native Americans' struggles and problems they had with the stronger force of the white society in America. The stories are written through the eyes of a girl. She describes how she learned about the customs of her culture and also portrays how she perceived the white society's treatment of her people. The collection of stories is written in styles that mostly portray characteristics of naturalism; however, due to different styles and perspectives of the circumstances described in the tales, an ambiguity of styles arises – some parts of the work tend to belong more to realism than to naturalism.

In the first section and the longest section of this essay, I discuss what characteristics of American Indian Stories fit into the literary era of naturalism. In the second part, I...