Plot Summary Of Dances With Wolves

Plot Summary Of Dances With Wolves

Dances With Wolves opens with a fairly gruesome scene.   Two surgeons,
covered in blood, are cutting off a man’s boot.   The poor guy listens
to them as they talk about amputating his foot.   His pain, both physical
and emotional, is very plain as he bites down on a small branch and
forces his boot back onto his foot.   The Civil War was hard.   Yet we
watch as one soldier apparently risk his life to enable his army to
surprise his enemies.   The not quite hidden sorrow is that lieutenant
Dunbar truly expects to die, and is saved only by luck or the grace of
God.   The ensuing battle brings victory and a renewed pride to the very
evident hopelessness that has permeated everyone.   The General calls for
his surgeon and the lieutenant will get to keep all his appendages right
with him.
He is rewarded with a frontier post by his own request.   John Dunbar
wanted to see the frontier before it disappears.   In this we know John
to have the heart of a dreamer.   Even as his superiors seem to be
politicians and cowards.   In a wartime that is not understand by most
and a war that is run by those who would never place themselves in
battle, we know that John Dunbar is a what we all imagine ourselves to
be.   His traveling companion Timmons, on the other hand, is a classic in
comic relief and an utter moron.
John finds his fort Cedric to be run down and left to rot.   However,
being the resourceful man he his, he decides to stay and rebuild.   He
takes his post seriously.   In doing so he earns the respect of
hygienically deficient blowhard, and somehow this is pleasing as John is
left to his own devices.   In his thoughts before sleep he states that he
is happy with his circumstances.  
In rebuilding he finds the wreckage of those who perished before he
arrived.   This is the only evidence we need to know that it was Indians
who killed them.   John salvages what he can and burns the rest.   This is
when we see the Indians. Interestingly enough, we only see four...