Archetypal Theme of Ambivalent Identity in Le Anne Howe’s Moccasins Don’t Have High Heels and The Red Wars

The current study examines archetypal patterns and themes underlying contemporary Native American initiation fiction. Moccasins Don’t Have High Heels and The Red Wars, both written by Le Anne Howe, are informed by the conventions of initiation fiction. The portrayal of characters with uncertain identities and feelings of alienation and solitude is a recurring theme in both works which are approached from the viewpoint of archetypal criticism. The research claims, questions and aims are stated in the introduction, which also offers an overview of Native American literature, initiation fiction, and archetypal criticism. An archetypal reading of Howe’s stories is presented in the Discussion. Research findings and analysis outcomes are stated in the Conclusion.

Defining Energy in Nineteenth-Century Native American Literature

Native American authors in the first half of the nineteenth century—the dawn of the Anthropocene in some accounts—were witness to the rapid expansion of settler-colonialism powered by new ideologies of energy and fueled by fossil capitalism. These authors, though, resisted extractive metaphors for energy and fuel, offering more organic and intimate visions of energy instead. Using energy humanities theories developed by Warren Cariou (Métis) and Bob Johnson, among others, this article will analyze Mary Jemison’s (Seneca) autobiography; Jane Johnston Schoolcraft’s (Ojibwe) poem, “On the Doric Rock, Lake Superior”; and John Rollin Ridge’s (Cherokee) novel, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta. These works show how Native American authors defined energy as cyclical and intimate in contrast to the growing settler society’s vision of linear, unending extraction. This article argues that nineteenth-century Native American Anglophone literatures expand the scope of the energy humanities by describing energy intimacy while also extending the histories of Indigenous resistance to settler energy imaginaries. Nineteenth-century Native American literatures can make important contributions to the scope of the energy humanities and need to be integrated into the field to grasp the full scale of current environmental crises.

Reservations Chronicle: The Interplay of Real and Imaginary Places in Louise Erdrich's Tracks

Spatiality occupies pivotal status in the thematic orientation of Native American literature. Native American male writers in general and female writers, in particular consider the issues of space and place with reference to issues of identity, separation and conflict with Euro-Americans. The present paper aims to study the portrayal of real and imaginary places in Louise Erdrich's Tracks. The study maintains that Erdrich infuses energy into the places portrayed in the novel. Hence, places do not remain static or flat rather; they assume dynamic characteristics that not only trigger action but also become a character in the development of the plot. The present study concludes that textual and imagined places should not be taken as mere portrayals of topographic structures; rather, they explain the socio-cultural paradigm of a given social order.

Politico-cultural appropriation of Native American in American Indian poetry and drama: Unflinchingly documents the halfway existence

During the Twentieth century Native American literature evolved from anonymity into prominence by assuming a commitment to reflect the particular challenges that faced Native American people during last two centuries. Native American Literature illuminates about Native American lives, culture and how Indian values have changed from traditional tribal to mainstream ones that threatened tribal existence. The paper seeks to substantiate that this literature documents the horrible impact of brutal federal government on Indian’s lives through policies and programs designed to subject them to degrading and confining existence both on physical and mental levels. The paper also seeks to prove that the Indians in order to adapt themselves to the mainstream Euro-American ways lost their old ones along the way but could not adopt mainstream American lifestyle. At the turn of the Twenty First century, because of the coercive strategies for assimilation, American Indians residing on reservations could not become a part of mainstream America but the way back to traditionalism was also farther away and irreversible. The paper also strives to substantiate that Native American literature documents and provokes Indians to assert their tribal identity by retaining many of the tribal ways and values.

Demarcation and Preservation of Indigenous Knowledge and Culture. A Deconstructive Study of Mad Bear

Literary studies have historically focused on Native American literature as a reflection of the cultural and cultural history that underpins anthropological research. However, recent studies in Indigenous studies call for the themes and perspectives that see Indigenous past and present writers working on the idea of a state of dissolution that will work to regain ancestral memory and recognition with hegemonic trends of Euro Americans among other things. This paper attempts to clear the obscurity that Indians and Euro Americans are happily merged now having their hybridized identities and culture. BOYD wrote a cohesive, or national, life narrative that works on the concept of storytelling and ancestral memory that revives the historical narrative surrounding the tribal-centric mission and contributes to the re-interpretation of the monarchy and colonial practices by Euro Americans.

Coyote in Geiogamah's Coon Cons Coyote and Two-Rivers' Coyote Sits in Judgment

The trickster is a character that inhabits the myth, folklore, and oral literature of many cultures and civilizations, and it takes many shapes. The coyote is one of the trickster figures in Native American cultures. It is found in oral Native American literatures, and then found its way into Native American literature by modern Native American writers. This paper attempts to shed light on the trickster, Coyote, in Native American drama, an area, in the researcher's opinion, which has received much less attention in comparison to poetry and novel. The paper focuses on two plays, Hanay Geiogamah's Coon Cons Coyote and E. Donald Two-Rivers' Coyote Sits in Judgment.