Playing the Trickster: A Study of Louise Erdrich’s The Antelope Wife

• Main Authors: Yi-chin Shih, 施懿芹
• Other Authors: Rachel Hung
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/64475493345671229589

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 外國語文學系 === 93 === The thesis aims to analyze Louise Erdrich’s The Antelope Wife from the perspective of the trickster. It affirms that the trickster is the characteristic of Native American literature, which is different from others, and the trickster is also a universal experience, which means people are familiar with the trickster. This thesis discusses the trickster study in The Antelope Wife from three approaches. Chapter Two deals with the introduction to the trickster studies and it is illustrated by the two typical trickster figures in The Antelope Wife—Grandmothers Zosie and Mary. Moreover, Gerald Vizenor emphasizes that the trickster is not merely a character but a “trickster discourse,” which plays the language game. Jeanne Rosier Smith affirms that the traits of the trickster parallel the growth of ethnic literature, and the trickster turns to be “trickster aesthetic.” Chapter Three is a mythic reading of The Antelope Wife and it attempts to discuss the meaning of retelling the old story as a modern myth. Besides, traditional Chippewa trickster Nanabozho is identified as the hare, and the “hare” connects the important images of “twins” in the novel and the idea of “daashkikaa” which means cracking apart. Chapter Four discusses the trickster from a Jungian interpretation. The trickster is an archetypal image and it serves the function of liminality in order to gain a psychological aggregation. Characters in The Antelope Wife all search for the trickster archetype and this searching is a kind of trickster training. Finally, by creating marvelous trickster figures, trickster novels and trickster myths, Erdrich herself turns out to be a trickster, too.