Ramona

Helen Hunt Jackson 's novel Ramona was written to call attention to the terrible difficulty of the Mission Indians in Southern California Their struggles are mirrored in the fate of the heroine . The character Ramona , faced ignorance all her life by Senora Moreno and needed a breakthrough to find her true self . At the end of the novel , Ramona does what her heart desired her to do and runs away from home to marry an Indian man , Alessandro . Her decision comes after she decided to live with the Indians because she was not

told that she was a `half breed until she had lived for many years with whites . One might say that this is a story of the California state with its myth of untapped promise , as well as the more mundane evocations of historical events

In fact , Helen Hunt Jackson herself insisted that in her novel all the described events were true . For example , a Californian Cahuilla Indian was shot exactly the way as fictional Alessandro would be a couple of years before Jackson began working on her novel , and the name of the killed Indian`s wife was Ramona . After the novel was published , the voice of the murderer of the Cahuilla Indian was even recorded on Edison phonograph . What is amazing , though , is that Jackson later said that she didn`t know that the names of wives of that Indian and the hero of her novel coincided . Probably , this coincidence might be construed as the evidence that California is truly a land of American dreams where myths and reality are intermingled . Indeed , being the nation 's largest state California has experienced a great mixing of different ethnicities and cultures which led to many internal contradictions and coexistence of different world views . Perhaps , it was the reason why California turned into the land of opportunity so attractive for individuals of different walks of life , and especially for immigrants

Eventually , the novel ends with the words that she has given birth to another Ramona ' the daughter of Alessandro the Indian (Jackson br

. 362 . After many years of struggle trying to find her identity Ramona gives birth to a girl who most probably will have no such struggles because she will not be hidden from her own identity However , the first of Ramona 's many struggles highlights the prejudice and intolerance waged against these Native American people . For better or worse , the overwhelming division between whites and natives in terms of culture , had strengthened Ramona and others to challenge this divide of racism in to fulfill a better future

The way Helen Hunt Jackson ends the novel is full of symbolism . Even though in the end Alessandro perishes and Ramona marries Felipe , Ramona never shows her continuing attachment for Alessandro who is still her true love . In this way the author highlights the difficulties that Native Americans experienced at that time and at the same time also depicts the power of love with which a woman can overcome any obstacle...