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Dance With Wolves

In the film “Dances with Wolves”, language was both a bridge and a barrier in different situations.   From the beginning when Dunbar attempts suicide and is instead considered a hero and his life is saved there was an indication of a communication lapse.   In this situation, it was more of the lack of communication through spoken language (even though they all spoke that same language).   The real problems of language take surface when Dunbar is sent to post when it is desolate and there are no people with whom to communicate.   With no people to communicate with, Dunbar used the power of written language in his journal which was basically his way of influencing his way of perception to stay and maintain the post despite the odds that are against him.   In the scene where is his peasant guide was killed by the Indians simply because he was a white man shows that the influences on the perception of the Indians was to stereotype the man as a threat and a danger to them simply because he was white.   Due to their assumptions about whites they figured that he was a soldier who would bring more soldiers to trespass on their lives.   More problems arise between Dunbar and the Indians who see him at the Fort.   There is tension that is again based on the fact that one man is an American and the others are Indians.   The way that this tension is broken is when the white man saves the life of a white woman who lives with the Indians and has been raised as an Indian.   At first she has reservations towards him because she believes as she was taught; that he will tell other white people that she is there and that they will try to take her away from her life.   When the Indian leader, medicine man, forces her to try to remember her native tongue of English so that the tribe can communicate with Dunbar, she reluctantly recalls her life as a small child and begins to speak English again.   The connection created by the common language spoken between the two native white people begins a...