| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 90 === This thesis intends to bring forth my critical concern with Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, a Native American novel that deals with Westernized reservation life. Through an ecofeminist study, I read this novel as Erdrich’s attempt to construct a competing narrative while Western anthropocentric and androcentric beliefs exclude nature and women from the civilized realm. Through reconnecting with the ancient Chippewa tradition in Love Medicine, Erdrich not only re-posits nature and women in the center of human lives but also revives the Chippewa people from hierarchal and patriarchal confinements.
In the first chapter, I elucidate existing the negative stereotypes of Native Americans in white Western culture and present Erdrich’s innovative style as a must for making known the Chippewa plight at the present time. In Chapter Two, I bring forth ecofeminist studies, which unveil the formation of anthropocentrism and androcentrism and show how nature and women are linked and enslaved in American society.
In Chapter Three, I aim to show how the tribal concept of nature suffices for developing civilized and well-mannered persons in Love Medicine. Through the guidance of Manitou, the supernatural entity, a Native who connects with nature is free to traverse the alive/dead, human/nonhuman and personal/communal worlds. By contrast, I contend that a person who fails to develop intimacy with nature has no identity at all and must lead an impoverished life.
In Chapter Four, I highlight Erdrich’s use of powerful and unconventional women characters, such as Fleur and Lulu, to challenge patriarchal domination. Through their body, women not only pass on the spiritual legacies they transform from Manitou, but also empower weak and suffering tribal members. In this sense, Native women rectify the Western stereotypes and endorse women’s civilization. In the final chapter, I reiterate Erdrich’s successful strategy for constructing a competing narrative of nature and women based on the Chippewa perspective.
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