Part 1 of Essay
Winter in the Blood, a Native American novel written by James Welch, takes place on a cattle ranch in Montana, around 1970. On the surface, this is a story of a Blackfoot Indian sleepwalking through his life, tormented by visions, in search of a connection to his heritage. Welch’s language is, at once, blunt and po ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... burnt grass to the shady side of the long-and-mud cabin . . . . The roof had fallen in and the mud between the logs had fallen out in chunks, leaving a bare gray skeleton, home only to mice and insects. Tumbleweeds, stark as bone, rocked in a hot wind against the west wall (1).” Welch opens the story with this line to show a relationship between the narrator’s feelings of worthlessness and the worthlessness of his environment. In addition, the author melodically begins the novel in a somber ....