Odyssey of the North
...edding out of “the largeness of his heart”. Later, the white man brought many gifts to Naass and told him he was going to take Unga with him. He tried to kill the white man with a spear but he could not, and the white man took Unga kicking and screaming away. Naass said he “marveled at the strangeness of women”. He could not understand how Unga could love him, be brutally taken away, then fall in love the man who took her away. The entire time she was gone, Naass did not once think about going with another women. In his mind there was only one option: to find Unga and take her back to Akatan. He thought the only problem would be to find Unga, the situation where she would not want to come with him never entered his mind. Not only did she not want to go back with him, she was not even happy to see him or appreciate all the time and sacrifice Naass had to go through to finally find her. Even on the brink of death she deceived Naass. He told her of all his troubles and Naass said “As I spoke I saw the promise grow in her eyes, full and large like the break of dawn. And I read pity there, the tenderness of women, the love, the heart and soul of Unga.” Little did Naass know that a moment later she would open her arms to him so that he would come to her then she would stab him and yell “Dog!” Naass said that he marveled at the strangeness of women, and then when he started to talk to Unga, he saw what he knew to be true about women. He saw tenderness and love and for a moment he started to understand women as he knew them to be again. But when she stabbed him, I’m sure he went back to marveling at the strangeness of women again. She not only stabbed him twice, she also laughed and then returned to the side of the dying white man. This must have been very puzzling to Naass. At first she rejected him, and then she seemed to have pity and love for him and then “hate flamed in her eye” as she stabbed him. This passage is significant because it shows us that people can change drastically. When Unga and Naass were together Unga was probably not capable of such things as deceiving and stabbing. It also shows how much influence pe...