Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Period 7
In the poem, I Am Not Your Princess, Chrystos uses poetic devices such as diction and
symbols to convey her struggle with common stereotypes and her attempt to be viewed as an
individual.
Chrystos uses specific word choice throughout the entirety of this poem which allows her
to express her anger and annoyance towards stereotypes. One particular example of this is when
she says If you tell me one more time that Im wise Ill throw up on you. It can be inferred that
the common stereotype that she is mentioning is the stereotype that all Native Americans are
wise because of the way she phrases the sentence. By saying Ill throw up on you it reveals
that she is disgusted. Shes disgusted that she is being viewed as a generalized person and not an
individual. People throw up on others when they are disgusted and shes at the point where if she
Another poetic device that was present aside from diction was the use of a symbol.
Chrystos repeats her recipe of fry bread which had a deeper meaning than a basic food recipe.
She repeats, 1 cup of flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder in the poem and makes it
seem like she is just revealing a basic bread recipe. However, the point that she was trying to get
across is that, This is only my recipe, there are many others In this scenario, Chrystos is
using a symbol to defy stereotypes. By saying, this is only my recipe reveals that everybody
has their own way of making fry bread, some parts may be similar, but they are essentially not
the exact same. This can be compared to stereotypes. Everybody is different, there are many
other (recipes)... and you cannot just judge somebody by their race because in the end, were all
This poem by Chrystos has a deep personal meaning to her but also to society. It can be
seen through her diction that stereotypes are bothersome and anger people. Furthermore, her
recipe symbol reveals that you shouldnt use stereotypes to view others because everyone is
essentially different. Stereotypes are not just prevalent for Native Americans but every single
group or race has their own set of stereotypes. This means that nearly everybody has been a
victim of stereotypes sometime in their life. As a result, Chrystos wants to defy these stereotypes
and prevent this in the future and wants society to view everybody as individuals and not