Ramona

By Helen Hunt Jackson, Michael Dorris and Valerie Sherer Mathes

One of the greatest ethical novels of the nineteenth century, Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona is a tale of true love tested.

Set in Old California, this powerful narrative richly depicts the life of the fading Spanish order, the oppression of tribal American communities and inevitably, the brutal intrusion of white settlers. Ramona, an illegitimate orphan, grows up as the ward of the overbearing Senora Moreno. But her desire for Alessandro, a Native American, makes her an outcast and fugitive...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Jul 1, 2002
• ISBN: 9781101154038

Helen Hunt Jackson

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was an American poet and activist. Born Helen Maria Fiske in Amherst, Massachusetts, she was raised in a unitarian family alongside a sister, Anne. By seventeen years of age, she had lost both of her parents and was taken in by an uncle. Educated at Ipswich Female Seminar and the Abbott Institute, she was a classmate and friend of Emily Dickinson. At 22, she married Captain Edward Bissell Hunt, with whom she had two sons. Following the deaths of her children and husband, Hunt Jackson dedicated herself to poetry and moved to Newport in 1866. “Coronation” appeared in The Atlantic in 1869, launching Hunt Jackson’s career and helping her find publication in The Century, The Nation, and Independent. Following several years in Europe, she visited California and developed a fascination with the American West. After contracting tuberculosis, she stayed at Seven Falls, a treatment center in Colorado Springs, where she met her second husband William Sharpless Jackson. Praised early on for her elegiac verses by such figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hunt Jackson turned her attention to the plight of Native Americans in 1879 following a lecture in Boston by Ponca chief Standing Bear. She began to lobby government officials by mail and in person, launching and publishing her own investigations of systemic abuse in the New York Independent, Century Magazine, and the Daily Tribune. In 1881, she published A Century of Dishonor, a history of seven tribes who faced oppression, displacement, and genocide under American expansion. She sent her book to every member of Congress and continued to work as an activist and writer until her death from stomach cancer. Ramona (1884), a political novel, was described upon publication in the North American Review as “unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman.”

Reviews for Ramona

[susankrzywicki · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Painfully sad how we treat other human beings. The story is brutally realistic in its depiction of the inhumanities we inflict. The writing is beautiful and lyrical while being descriptive and detailed. I am glad I read it, finally, but also sad to have some of those images lodged in my brain.

[pltgsage · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Extraordinary!

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have wanted to read this book for a long time, simply because it had so much influence on how Americans saw California.The descriptions of the climate, geogarphy, and people of Southern California do make the place and people very distinctive. Jackson's take on how Americans treated California Indians, Mexicans, and Catholics was very progressive at the time. Now it feels painfully dated. Another character that feels dated (and forced) is the character of Aunt Ri, from Tennessee, with her dialect and open mind, is used to show how even an American from the South might have an open mind if given the chance. At the time, it was considered equivalent to Uncle Tom's Cabin (which I have not read). Some have claimed it influenced the creation of the Dawes Act (1887) which addressed Indian land rights in the US. Jackson was, per the source cited Wikipedia article (Women's History: Biographies 1997) upset that readers were more interested in the romantic Californio vision than the plight of California Indians. Despite the issues readers today have with this book, it did very much influence American perceptions of California, and created additional interest in California right as the railroads were coming in to the state. It did influence American thoughts on Californios, and California and other North American Indians. It has never been out of print.

[benedict8-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The white author was trying to do for the American Indian what Uncle Tom did for Black folk in the South.

The story is an important read that the effort fell short of the Uncle Tom success.

[thelostentwife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes I wonder if there's a point to reviewing older novels. I mean - there's obviously a point to reading them, and Ramona presents a good case for that. But after reading a book like this it's hard to imagine that others haven't read it, or something like it... until I remember that until this past semester, I'd never even heard of Ramona.For those of you who, like me, had never thought to pick this book up let me just say that it will frustrate, awe, and inspire you. The story is one that speaks of epic, sweeping love and loss, but it's buried in pages upon pages of description which, back in the day before the internet, television, and radio, would have passed for entertainment but today just feels as if it's one more thing to push through in order to get to the meat of the story.Thankfully, I read this book for a classroom setting - so three days were set aside for us to get to the meat and actually talk about the themes and ideas in Ramona.Here's what I came away from this talks with:Even in a story, such as Ramona, when the author is seeking to shed light on the issues of the time (specifically the tensions between whites, Mexicans, and Native Americans), in order for Ramona to be related to she is given "white" characteristics - i.e. blue eyes from her Scottish Father.Sweeping stereotypes are made not only about the whites (and honestly, as far as stereotypes go, they were pretty harsh but necessary ones) but also about Mexicans. Even the Native Americans in this book did not escape judgement from Helen Hunt Jackson. Jackson has no problem spending 70 pages talking about the little things - making a bed on a porch, tension-filled relationship between Ramona and her adoptive family, and so on.. but she spends less than a paragraph on a vital turning part of the story. In fact, the action and result of this turning part happened so quickly I thought I'd imagined it happening and had to go back to re-read it.I understand from our discussions the importance of a book like Ramona and I believe that it's important that it continues to be read and talked about - but more than anything, I wonder how that will be possible with the changing of our culture. We talk in 140 character tweets - so how can we expect young adults today to be patient enough to read pages upon pages of description? It saddens me to think that this story is one of many that will end up lost as a result - so if you decide to read just one "classic" American story this year, think about choosing this one.

[thebooknerd · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I was assigned to read this for my American Lit class. The class is structured around the topic of the Wild West, and Westerns apparently developed as a response to something called domestic fiction. What is domestic fiction, you might ask. Well, imagine a bunch of self-righteous middle class women seeking to reform society through tales of disadvantaged young heroines who triumph over adversity through virtue, piety, and kindness. Are you nauseous yet? Now add some saccharine-sweet sentimentality, intended to manipulate your interpretation of the book through an abundance of emotion, and you have domestic fiction. Ready to heave now? Because you're sure to be heaving after trudging your way through Ramona, hopefully my last foray into domestic fiction. I understand now, more than ever, why Virginia Woolf felt it necessary to kill off the Angel in the House. What's the story about? Do you really care? Run away, far away. Go read something violent.

[clueless_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As as teenager I read this book and GWTW over and over again. I found it quite appealing to the teenage lovesick fool in me.