Dances With Wolves Reflection #1

Recently, we have been studying Dances With Wolves. This film takes place in 1863 and shows the relationship between native people and an American soldier during the Civil War.  Despite the fact that the film is a Hollywood representation of the situation, there is a great amount of accuracy.  The main focus of the film is the growing relationship between the Sioux tribe and Lieutenant John Dunbar.  As John Dunbar adventures across the frontier, he encounters many different challenges as well as triumphs.  Dances With Wolves explores these from the view of John Dunbar.

Among the Sioux and John Dunbar lies a huge language barrier.  At first, the Sioux are terrified of the white soldier.  However, they come to realized that John Dunbar has no intent to hurt anyone and decide to attempt to communicate with him.  Despite the inability of communication, both the Sioux and John Dunbar put in a tremendous amount of effort to communicate with one another.  With things such as actions, John Dunbar is able to communicate the word "buffalo" to the Sioux.  Later, he is able to let them know of a herd of buffalo near by.  

Throughout this movie, I have found it amazing that despite the humongous language barrier, they are still able to communicate with one another.  The Sioux tribe even picked up on a wave in which John Dunbar had showed them.  Also, I really enjoyed the part of Dances With Wolves where John Dunbar offers the Sioux food and coffee, as well as when the Sioux give John Dunbar a gift.  Another one of my favorite parts so far has been when John Dunbar approaches the Sioux  to tell them about a herd of buffalo.  The relationship that has been developing throughout the film has been very wonderful to watch.