Post for the week of the 2nd

One of the major incidences in this portion of Smoke Dancing was Fiction's “coming out” (so to speak) at the feast, at which she exposed the abuses inflicted upon her by her father. Moreover, she had prepared the dress with the purple beaded and embroidered roses signifying her physical wounds specifically for this occasion. I enjoyed this section of the book for a variety of reasons, but for this post I would like to focus on a single factor: Fiction's hand-sewn dress.

The main reason why this section stood out for me was because of the dress. Though I personally am not a particularly fashionable individual, I really appreciate the power and various social implications that clothing can connote. This is amplified by the fact that Fiction's dress was a traditional garment in an era when many cultural traditions (not just American Indians, but traditions for distinct cultural groups across the world) tend to be waning--traditional modes of dress not withstanding. This idea of tradition is increased even more by the fact that the rose pattern was one of Ruby's (a tribal elder) patterns. What I found tremendously interesting, however, was how Fiction blended these ancient cultural traditions with a modern twist: she incorporated the metallic spike studs from a modern leather jacket into her dress as the thorns of the roses. This simple action created an interesting dichotomy between the old and the new, the beautiful and the intimidating, and the feminine and the masculine. Because of the intense and dramatic impact that this dress made on her audience, Fiction was able to tell her equally intense and dramatic story without being silenced.