The story of Dakota Commonplace follows Alice Hundley, her husband, Rob, and son, Bobby, into a world totally new and foreign to them. Alice finds herself isolated in a South Dakota farmhouse miles from the nearest neighbor, removed from her own past and from the concerns which occupy her few acquaintances. Her new experiences violate many of her preconceptions about how to be wife and mother, how to find her place in a community, how to learn, and what she can, with any certainty, know. / Rob, a social worker, has been hired by a Sioux Tribal Council to create an educational program for Indian young people. His initial enthusiasm and sense of possibility quickly diminish in the teeth of white resistance and what he perceives as Indian resignation and indifference. Alice, although hating her isolation and sense of uselessness, gradually become acclimated. She seeks the elusive history of the place and finds it in the conflicting experience of their landlord, Anker Thordahl, the descendent of Scandinavian settlers, and Dakota Indians Dorothy Renville and Jerry Flute and their families. / Over the period of four months, Alice and Rob move in different directions, complicating the strains that loneliness and too much interdependence have placed on their marriage. Rob, unable to admit to his own sense of failure, considers leaving at the very moment Alice is growing toward a deeply felt sense of place and an attachment to the people. Out of her isolation, Alice is brought to a greater personal strength that allows her to reject both inaction and superficial solutions. She takes her first steps toward individual and significant action. / Running parallel to the narrative set in 1969 is the journal or working notes kept by Alice Hundley who, in 1992, studies and reflects upon the area, its people and history. The journal's narrative compliments the progress of the 1969 narrative. The title, Dakota Commonplace, represents the use of fragments of material in Alice's journal or commonplace book and the experiences we all hold in common. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: A, page: 3237. / Major Professor: Sheila Taylor. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76997 |
| Contributors | Turkle, Ann., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 281 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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