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A Postcolonial Interpretation of Love Medicine

Author: DongJie
Tutor: WangWen
School: Shaanxi Normal University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Louise Erdrich Love Medicine postcolonial study hybridity strategies of resistance
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 148
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Abstract


Louise Erdrich is one of the most famous and productive writers of contemporary American Indian literature. Her first novel, Love Medicine, won her immediate praise from authors and critics such as N. Scott Momaday and Gerald Vizenor, and the book was awarded the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. In this novel, Erdrich explores 60 years in the lives of a small group of Chippewa living on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Erdrich draws from Ojibwa myths, story-telling technique, culture and western culture to explore themes such as tricksters (in the Native American tradition), connection to land, searching for identity and self-knowledge, and the Indians’ survival in the modern multicultural society.In this thesis, which is an attempt to analyze the novel from a postcolonial perspective, the postcolonial issues reflected in the novel and Louise Erdrich’s strategies of resistance are emphasized. Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity is applied to the analysis of the recuperation of North American history and the open and unending process of the Indians’reconstruction of identity. As for the Indians struggling between two cultures and traditions, the lost of identity is inevitable, yet it is possible for them to find a way to reconstruct their lost identity. Through the search of many characters identity, Erdrich explores a new pattern of identity reconstruction and expresses her concern with the situation of contemporary Indians.The first chapter of the thesis is an introduction. It introduces the life experience and literary career of Louise Erdrich, especially her first important novel Love Medicine.Chapter Two is a literature review and the significance of this study.Chapter Three is theoretical rationale of this study. The chapter first introduces an overview of postcolonial theory, including its history, major views, representative theorists and its application in the field of literary study. The chapter also explores the postcoloniality of American Indian literature and legitimizes postcolonial theory in the study of Native literature.Chapter Four focuses on the postcolonial issues reflected in Love Medicine, including the conflicts between Indians and the white colonizers, between Christianity and Indian religion, racial discrimination and the Indian’s mental problems caused by the Second World War and Vietnam War.Chapter Five is devoted to the two major strategies of resistance to white colonization. In order to recuperate Indian history and tradition, Erdrich first integrates what happened in the past naturally in her artistic storytelling and reconstruct an alternative history of North America. She experiments with narrative strategies and combines modern forms with Indian heritage, successfully retains her own heritage and at the same time finds a place for the marginalized Indians and their cultural legacy in the textual middle ground. Secondly, Erdrich breaks the stereotypical Indian images in white literature and social studies by employing the Trickster’s strategy, subverts the colonial discourse and helps the Indians reconstruct their cultural and historical identity, thus affirms their presence in American society. Erdrich embraces the concept of hybridity in her handling of the issue of identity construction, and finds an in-between space for the Indians to reconstruct their lost identity in the modern society.Chapter Six is the conclusion of the thesis. It discloses that as a mix-blood writer who is closely connected to her Ojibwe heritage and has a sense of mission, Erdrich’s work expresses deep concern with the preservation of Indian heritage and the living conditions of contemporary Indian people. It’s impossible to return to a pure Indian tradition in the multicultural society, or break up with their traditional culture. They should reconstruct Indian history and cultural identity and at the same time preserve their traditional culture.

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