INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscnpt has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may t>e from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bteedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that ttie author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these wiH be noted. Also, If unauttiorized copyright material had to t>e removed, a note wiH indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" t>lack arxJ white photographic prints are availat>le for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zéeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA UMI800-521-0600 UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE NATIVE AMERICAN POSTMODERN-MIMETIC NOVEL A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Robert Tudor Norman, Oklahoma 2000 UMI Number 9962946 UMI UMI Microform9962946 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 © Copyright by ROBERT TUDOR 2000 All Rights Reserved THE NATIVE AMERICAN POSTMODERN-MIMETIC NOVEL A Dissertation APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BY For my mother. IV Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................... 1 Chapter One: The Realist Aesthetic ..............................................................14 Chapter Two: Hybrids, Genres, and M odes ...............................................30 Chapter Three: Magical Realism and the Postmodem-Mimetic 73 Chapter Four: ICstorical and Bcperiential PostmodemKm .................... 84 Chapter Five: House Made of Dawn and The Ancient Child ............. 104 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 164 Works Cited ........................... 171 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines a new literary phenomenon-the Native American Postmodem-Mimetic novel. This genre is heralded by N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn, and it is exemplified by his subsequent novel. The Ancient Child. It consists of the real-world difficulties of Native Americans overlaid with postmodern literary techniques to create a unique dialogical narrative. VI Introduction In a recent interview Hartwig Isemhagen asked M. Scott Momaday, "what is the role of the literary critic?" Motnaday responded: "I think that clearly the function of the critic is to enable us better to understand literature. A good critic, I think, will show us things in literature that we might not see for ourselves" (58). Momaday even asserts, "Sometimes the least reliable witness to a work of art is the creator himself" (58). However, without a thorough understanding of the philosophy of literature, a critic cannot adequately perform that function. For example, I once dismissed Toni Morrison s novel Beloved as merely a ghost story and N. Scott Momaday's novel The Ancient Child as just a playful faux Dime Novel featuring Billy the Kid. However, after steeping myself in philosophy of literature, I recognize that both novels are much, much more. They began to manifest themselves to me as literary masterpieces. In my first reading, I did not recognize the chapter in The Ancient Child in which Billy the Kid pays obeisance to Sitting Bear as actually a personification of Euro-America s western frontier Weltanschauung interacting with the Kiowa Weltanschauung. Furthermore, I failed to recognize the complex metaphorical nature of Beloved in Beloved. Consequently, I devote a considerable amount of the first portion of my dissertation to profiling the literary theories that inform my reading of literature. My brief survey is by no means exhaustive, but it does provide a foundation for challenging and rewarding interpretations of the novels that I choose to examine. If through the application of various theories more than one 1 reading manifests itself, one must remember that one of the hallmarks of serious literature is the ambiguity that allows a depth and richness of reading on multiple levels. Lately, theory has received an unwarranted poor reputation because it has been abused by critics who forget that their job is to make complex texts accessible to the common reader. Theory's purpose is not to exclude readers through specialized jargon that only the initiated can understand. Of course, literary journals have contributed to the problem by publishing and thereby encouraging critics to write articles which are so abstruse and full of jargon as to be valueless. Academia has encouraged the continuing isolation of the work of critics from common people through its long-time embrace of elitist forms of Modernism and through promoting turf wars between different critical schools of thought, which often result in disabling communication even between scholars. Often forgotten is the task of trying to make literature accessible and meaningful to readers. Thus, the work of the critic to "enable us to better understand literature" suffers. This phenomenon has been particularly injurious to Native American literature, which has become a specialized field fiercely protected by its specialists. Moreover, Native American literature is subject to a few prescribed interpretive templates. These procrustean templates prevent Native American literature from being read as literature written by fully human, fully modem men and women. In reference to Abel, for instance, Momaday says, "He is recognizably Indian. And, for my purposes, at least, this means nothing so much as that he is recognizably human" (King 152). Unfortunately, Indian and "recognizably human" are not widely recognized as the same thing. Momaday's novels are read as literature written by an Indian containing Indians. For instance, would a critic ask Kafka if the protagonist in Metamorphosis really turns into a bug? Or, if Kafka believes people are able to turn themselves into insects? If someone did ask Kafka such questions, he or she would be laughed at or glared at with a silent expression of: Are you nuts? However, most critics of Native American literature assert that Set, in The Ancient Child, really does turn into a bear. Likewise, Momaday has been asked, in all seriousness, if he believes people can literally turn into animals. How can intelligent critics ask Momaday that question? Momaday, who grew up in modem America, and is totally aware of contemporary literary trends. The only explanation seems to be that they think of him and his literature as Indian, Indian, not Native American. Indian, as Chanady defines it in her book on Magical Realism, is a synonym for "primitive" and "superstitious." Of course, most North American critics are too politically savvy to use those terms, but the idea is still there. Granted, Momaday and other Native American authors have taken advantage of the situation to extend their literary metaphors into the real world, in ways similar to Borges's fictional Uqbar inserting itself into the real world or the fictional medieval text The Three Impostors, a "nonexistent blasphemous treatise against Moses, Christ, and Mohammed" that a clever forger actually produced in the eighteenth century (Barth, Friday Book 70). Nevertheless, such awareness does not negate the damage caused by treating Native American literature as Indian literature. For example, most critics have accepted Momaday's standard response to the question: Do you believe people can turn into bears? And, Have you ever turned into a bear? Which is: "I am a bear. I do have this capacity to become a bear. The bear sometimes takes me over and I am transformed. I never know precisely when it is going to happen" (Woodard, Ancestral 15). However, Charles Woodard, who has a long-standing acquaintance with Momaday, asked a follow-up question to which Momaday's answer demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, that he is speaking of the bear metaphorically: [It is] a power that rises up in you and becomes dominant The feeling is unmistakable. And you deal with it in various ways. You become very spiritual. You feel a greater kinship with the animal world and with the wilderness. You feel strong when you are most in touch with this bear. You become very intense in your work. And in your life. You accelerate your activity-writing, painting, whatever. You tend to be reckless, careless, self­ destructive. You drink too much. You drive too fast. You pick on guys bigger than you are. All kinds of things. You become a magnificent lover, storyteller-it's just a great burst of vitality. (16) Obviously, he is not talking about turning into an actual bear. He does not, for instance,