“Trickster Hermeneutics” in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks

• Main Authors: Lai-Yi Chen, 陳蕾伊
• Other Authors: Chen-hsing Tsai
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/57794448949779863836

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系碩士班 === 96 === Louise Erdrich’s Tracks records the conditions of evil under colonialism (the Whites vs. Native Americans) through two alternating narrators: Nanapush and Pauline. In this thesis, I try to trace the meanings of trickster offered by such critics as Paul Radin, William J. Hynes, William G. Doty, Rinda West, and Gerald Vizenor so that a structural analysis of evil can be analyzed, especially the conditions that create environmental, social, and cultural disruptions. In Chapter One, I deal with the trickster figure Nanapush whose purpose is to maintain the family unit and tribal solidarity. In addition, I also point out that Nanapush displays several trickster traits in Tracks: he is comic and his discourse is double-voiced, capable of “violence, deceptions, and cruelties.” In Chapter Two, Pauline will be treated in depth because it is she who is the prime mover of the destruction of the Chippewan culture and of the loss of land. In Chapter Three, I focus my study on Fleur. As a symbol of female sexuality and mystique throughout Erdrich’s Chippewa saga, Fleur draws the great practitioner of old Chippewa ways, Eli Kashpaw, to court her, and rumor has it that she has had sexual relations with the water spirit Misshepeshu and that she retains some form of magical and sexual power from the spirits. In this chapter, Fleur’s rape, her magical powers, shape-shifting, and her defending for the land will be discussed.