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I never watched Pocahontas when I was little, so I decided to watch the Disney cartoon film,to use it as a source for comparison. To be honest, the relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith in the movie is too fantasized and romanticized for me. 

In John Smith’s work, his narrative on his adventures of encountering the natives, and the difficulties he overcome, can help us understand the struggle and hardship for explorers and settlers. But as we read on to more works by the explorers and settlers, I have grown more sense to the question that what would happen if the natives were not disturbed? 

Between the reading, the film and society today, there are some issues keep emerging in my head. In John Smith’s work, his view of America is merely a narration of the story of his side; in other words, we cannot know the Powhatans’ viewpoint. All we can get is the other short reading of “Powhatan Oratory” on page 39, that they are not happy about the explorers taking away what they have. Back on Smith’s work, he talks about hardship, but only the hardship of the colonists. What really hit me is the dark side of the things that we are not shown. Maybe it is because the colonists, the American today, are the ones who have language system and who run the country today, so we are reading the story they told. But what about the natives? 

Pocahontas the movie and John Smith

In the movie, Pocahontas is portrayed to be quite open-minded and even attracted to John Smith, but is that even close to reality? Even if John Smith’s writing is reliable, we still couldn’t possibly understand Pocahontas’s mind since she did not write down her story. What I’m trying to say is that, the one who writes stories usually write for their own purpose, and they might not respect or try to understand the minor opinion. In the movie,  the heroin is still not telling her story by herself, but by the filmmakers.