Native American Literature: Themes, Authors, and Analysis

Native American Literature

The Notion of the Indian

Indian / Native American - Stereotypes - Homogenizing / great diversity (over 500 tribes) - Othering - A non-presence, a void to be occupied.

The American Indian Movement

«Red Power» Influenced by the black civil rights movement - Pan-Indian identity - Occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969) «Trail of Broken Treaties» - march on Washington, 1972 - Native American Demands the 20-point proposal

Native American Literature

Originally oral cultures: myths and rituals, songs, poems, narrative tales, legends, parables. Oral works translated into English by ethnologists. First novels: John Rollin Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1857); Wynema, by Sophia Alice Callahan (1891).

Literary Recognition and Renaissance

Scott Momaday’s Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for House Made of Dawn. ‘Native American Renaissance’ (1970’s and 1980s): James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich. Positive impact of the Civil Rights movement. Interest in the Native view of America. Second generation in the 1990s: Sherman Alexie. Redressing of the misrepresentations of Native Americans found in American literature since colonial times.

Analysis of "Lullaby"

Challenging stereotypes of Native Americans: complexity of Aya’s inner life. Historical injustice, assimilation. Lyricism. Elements from Navajo culture: The oral tradition (songs); The elders as carriers of tradition; Circularity; Animacy; Spider woman: creator figure, wisdom, benevolence, respect, fear; Connection identity + place and nature and Healing power of culture and traditions.

Sherman Alexie: "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona"

The Bluest Eye and the Melting Pot

America has been described by various terms such as melting pot, but what these terms are trying to convey is that America is a country of great diversity. The literature of this country reflects its population in its diversity of genres, themes, language, and voices. One of these voices is Toni Morrison, an author who knows and appreciates the power of language and uses it. She uses The "vitality of language", that could be the soul of the American novel, or at the very least, the soul of Morrison's novels, such as The Bluest Eye. In the novel, Morrison uses her ability with language to take her readers into the black community in Lorraine, Ohio, and into the various levels of that society.

Morrison's Powerful Language

Morrison's powerful language lends depth and detail to every scene. She shows the pain and bewilderment of Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola over the blue-eyed blond ideal of beauty that is even perpetuated by their parents when they are given dolls that fit this mold. She brings to life the upper class "colored people" who were "neat and quiet" and who looked down on "niggers" who were "dirty and loud". She takes the reader into the mind of a helpless little black girl who looks into the mirror "trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, . . . that made her ignored or despised", who tragically withdraws into her own reality where she sees herself with the ideal blue eyes, but is concerned that someone else may have "the bluest eyes in the whole world’’. Toni Morrison uses language to draw "imagined and possible lives" and lives that should be unimaginable, but exist. Her contribution to the American novel is the power of her language and the images that the language instills in the hearts and minds of her readers.