Crazy Brave: Joy Harjo as a Person

Logan Mohr

Joy Harjo as a Person in Crazy Brave

Joy's person is consistent throughout the entire story.

      After reading Crazy Brave and discussing Joy Harjo's person as the book progresses, I have developed a few opinions on what I personally think of her. The first thing that comes to my mind after discussing her is that she is a very strong woman. She was able to endure through an abusive childhood, a couple abusive marriages, and not to mention that whole time she was looked down upon by society for being an Indian. No matter how bad things got, she always kept focused on her goals and the things she wanted to accomplish in life. One is able to tell who she cares about in the story basically because she will mention their name such as her siblings, her mother, and a couple of her friends. Another thing about her is that she never talked bad about anyone no matter what they did to her. The only exception to this is her stepfather to whom she told her mom that he was a very bad person. Her stepfather was terrible to her whether it was abusing, trying to kick her out, or even once she was out he still tried to control her life while she was at school. Otherwise she never said anything about her father or her abusive husbands and she easily could have bad mouthed all of them. This says a lot about her character, she is very forgiving and easily moves on to bigger and better things such as pursuing her dreams. I would say her greatest strength is that she never lets people get to her, she takes everything that has ever happened to her and turned it around as a learning experience. Like I said earlier, she is just an overall very strong person to be able to go through everything she has endured. I would say that she is a very trustworthy person as well, she does not have a reason to lie and always faced the things that were dealt to her. She also knew what she wanted, and she would always pursue until she could reach it. There are a couple things from the story that after discussing I found confusing. Some of the stories she tells like the water monster one, she never fully goes on to say what it represents. Also at other times she tells the story but she never explains as to why or what happened afterwords. Going back to my point, Joy's person in this book is fully represented as a very strong person and has her priorities set straight. Her character I believe proves that one can accomplish many things as long as you do not let people get to you.