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UMI A Bell & Howell Infonnation Company 300 Noith Zed) Road, Ann Aibor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 OTHER NARRATIVES: REPRESENTATIONS OF HISTORY IN FOUR POSTCOLONIAL NATIVE AMERICAN NOVELS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mubarak Rashed AL-Khaldi, M.A. * * * * The Ohio State University 1998 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor James Phelan, Adviser Professor Marlene Longenecker Professor Georgina Dodge Adviser Department of English UMI Number; 9911157 UMI Microform 9911157 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Mubarak Rashed AL-Khaldi 1998 ABSTRACT Ever since its emergence as a mode of critical and cultural analysis, postcolonial theory has been generally marked, as many have indicated, by its avoidance of American culture. This avoidance has been justified by reference to the United States's early independence from England compared with other British colonies, or to its development into an imperialist power, or both. This line of reasoning, however, ignores the fact that the founding of the United States has been made possible through the subjugation and dispossession of the original inhabitants of North America. Given Native Americans' condition of internal colonization in the United States, Native American novels, as a major tributary to Native American literature, are worthy of consideration in postcolonial culture studies. This study proposes to demonstrate the postcolonialism of the Native American novel by analyzing representations of history in four novels: Denton R. Bedford's Tsali (1972), James Welch's Fools Crow (1986), Louise Erdrich's Tracks (1988), and Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit (1990). 11 Chapter 1 reviews the definitions of postcolonialism formulated by some of the prominent postcolonial theorists and critics. It synthesizes a working definition for the purpose of this study, and explains the analytic approach adopted in this study. Chapter 2 analyzes Bedford's writing of the story of the Cherokee hero, Tsali. Chapter 3 deals with the historical and cultural recovery in Welch's Fools Crow. Chapter 4 analyzes the depiction of the collapse of the Chippewa society in Erdrich's Tracks. Chapter 5 examines the portrayal of the effects of the U.S. policy on the Osages in Hogan's Mean Spirit. Chapter 6 sums up the points raised in each of the four novels, and concludes that Native American literature must not be overlooked in postcolonial studies. I l l To my parents, my wife Huda, and my children. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my appreciation and sincere gratitude to my adviser. Professor James Phelan, for the encouragement, guidance, and direction he provided throughout the process and stages involved in the writing of this dissertation; without his help the completion of this study would not have been possible. I am grateful to Professor Marlene Longenecker for her enlightening comments and her careful consideration and readings of these chapters. I would like to thank Professor Georgina Dodge for her valuable input and the council and encouragement she provided. Finally, I would also like to thank my parents and my wife Huda for their loving support and encouragement. This dissertation is their accomplishment as much as mine. VITA February 02, 1957........... Bom — Jubail, Saudi Arabia 1 9 8 1 ........................ B.A., Riyadh University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 1988 ........................ M.A., Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English The Novel and Narrative Theory, James Phelan Twentieth Century Literature, Debra Moddelmog Contemporary Critical Theory, George Heurtley VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page A b s t r a c t .................................................. ii D edication................................................ iv Acknowledgments............................................ v V i t a ...................................................... vi Chapters ; 1. Introduction........................................... 1 2. The Commingling of Memory and Maize in Denton R. Bedford's Tsali....................................... 32 3. The Retrieval of the Native Voice and Vision in James Welch's Fools Crow.............................. 70 4. Louise Erdrich's Tracks ; To Everything, They Are Stories Untold....................................... 119 5. Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit; "We Have to Continue. Step On.. .Sister."................................... 157 6. Conclusion........................................... 193 Works Cited............................................... 197 V l l CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Postcolonial theory or Postcolonialism has recently made its appearance on the cultural scene as a discourse focused on the literatures of the societies that were colonized by European imperial powers. In The Empire Writes Back (1989), Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin explain that they are using the term "postcolonial" to refer to "all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day" ( 2 ) . They point out further that their book is about the colonial world during and after European colonialism and the effects it still has on contemporary literature ( 2 ). The list of countries whose literatures these authors study includes India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries, and Sri Lanka. The focus on these national literatures has been determined, they indicate, by their emergence out of the experience of colonization, their affirming themselves by giving prominence to "the tension with the imperial power, and their opposition to the imperial assumptions"(2). Elsewhere, they state that the friction and confrontation between the colonized and colonizers represent the origin of postcolonial literatures (The Post-Colonial Studies Reader 1). The insistence on European imperial domination as a determinant of a literature's, or a culture's, postcoloniality is also reiterated by Helen Tiffin in her introduction to Post The Last Post; Theorizing Post- Colonialism and Post-Modernism (1990). Tiffin describes postcolonialism as being composed of two archives: (1) all of the literatures originating in the societies that were subject to European imperial centers; (2) the set of discursive practices which are recognized and marked by their resistance to colonialism and the ideologies informing and supporting it, and to all of its neo-imperialist forms and manifestations (viii). The notion of resistance to colonialism and its contemporary modes and practices is also at the core of Elleke Boehmer's conceptualization of postcoloniality. Boehmer defines postcoloniality as the "condition in which colonized peoples seek to take their place, forcibly or otherwise, as historical subjects" (3). Boehmer suggests that instead of narrowly defining postcolonial literature as the writing that came in the wake of empire, we ought to see it as the writing that resists and opposes the imperialist perspectives and which does form an integral part of the process of decolonization ( 3 ) . Postcolonial literature, Boehmer explains, contributes to the project of "symbolic overhaul"(3) which decolonization requires by undermining "thematically and formally the discourse which supported colonization— the myth of power, the race classification, the imagery of subordination" (3). Like the other postcolonial theorists reviewed above, Boehmer holds the "post" of the term in abeyance and stresses that independence from colonial rule is not necessarily the only defining feature of postcoloniality. On this point, she is in agreement with Stephen Slemon who believes that the term "postcolonial" is "most useful...when it locates a specifically anti-or post-colonial discursive purchase in culture" (3). For Slemon, as it is for the others, the hallmark of postcolonial literatures is the oppositional attitude they take toward colonization and its latest neo­