Dancer Essay

The focus of the short story “Dancer” by Vickie Sears is the positive progression of the main character, Clarissa, a foster child who gains a sense of her cultural identity as a Native. In the beginning of the story, she is introduced as a child with next to nothing and is portrayed to have psychopathic traits. Towards the end of the story, there are positive changes in her character. The main factor that led to Clarissa’s progression was her developing a strong interest in the powwow that led her to gain a sense of being a part of a family, knowledge about the community, and a better understanding of her history and culture.

In the beginning of the story, Clarissa is introduced as an unstable character: a foster child having gone through home-to-home in a matter of months, and experiencing loneliness, fright, anger and reoccurring nightmares. However, her character begins to change almost immediately after she attends her first powwow, a Native ceremony involving dancing and feasting. Molly Graybull, a renowned native dancer who is well in to her seventies but maintains her skills, catches Clarissa’s attention. She becomes fixated and intrigued by Molly’s dancing. After that event, Clarissa seemed to become more curious about native dance and culture. Normally, Clarissa is a quiet and a introverted child so when she asked the foster parent a question, “When’s there gonna be another dance?” (p.20) it is a surprise to the reader that she has spoken out and expressed interested in the dance. After the powwow, Clarissa’s behavior begins to change in positive way. This is shown when the foster parent states, “the angry part of her slowed down so’s she wasn’t hitting the animals or chopping on herself with sticks like she was doing when she first come” (20). As Clarissa continues to be more educated and involved in the native community through the powwow, she begins to change positively because she’s discovered her cultural identity.

Clarissa would not