Award Date
1-1-1992
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
First Committee Member
Darlene H. Unrue
Number of Pages
190
Abstract
Louise Erdrich is a mixed blood Turtle Mountain Chippewa, educated in the dominant culture. Her volumes of poetry, Jacklight and Baptism of Desire, express a personal and narrative voice that reflects her tribal, European, Catholic, and educational heritage. Her well received novels, co-authored with her husband, Michael Dorris, are poetic in their language. Love Medicine and Tracks abound in myth, irony, humor, and contemporary Chippewa issues. The Beet Queen and The Crown of Columbus, incorporate Euroamerican settings and characters while disclosing Native American characteristics of oral rhetoric and tribal community. The trickster archetype in Erdrich's works incorporates survival humor, moral indicators, and cultural mediation. The conflation of narrative voices, cultural pluralism, indistinguishable genres, and interdisciplinary criticism interweave a complexity that celebrates diversity in a "toleration of paradox" and harmonizes the human community.
Keywords
American; Complicated; Culture; Erdrich; Erdrich, Louise; Erdrich, Louise; Louise; Mediating; Native; Native Americans; Native Americans; Web; Works
Controlled Subject
American literature; Literature, Modern
File Format
File Size
2611.2 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Permissions
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have the full text removed from Digital Scholarship@UNLV, please submit a request to digitalscholarship@unlv.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.
Repository Citation
Hafen, P. Jane, "The complicated web: Mediating cultures in the works of Louise Erdrich" (1992). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 2966.
http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/dvs8-s4hr
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
COinS