INTRODUCTION
Karen Louise Erdrich, born in Minnesota in 1954 as the eldest of seven children, was raised Catholic in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her parents taught at the Wahpeton Indian Boarding School. Her fiction reflects facets of her mixed heritage: she is German-American by her father, as well as French and Ojibwa (also known as Chippewa or Anishinaabe) by her mother. Louise Erdrich left North Dakota in 1972 and entered Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she met Michael Dorris, a mixed-blood Modoc Indian writer who founded the Native American Studies department at the college. Collaboratively, they published "Route Two" (1990) and "The Crown of Columbus" (1991). Erdrich and Dorris married in 1981, but were in the midst of divorce proceedings when he committed suicide in 1997. ”I knew that Michael was suicidal from the second year of our marriage,” Erdrich said in an interview. The award-winning writer is considered to be one of the most significant Native American novelists from the “second wave” of what is called the Native American Renaissance (see chapter 1.2). She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe.
“No one knew yet how many were lost, people kept no track.” (Tracks, p. 15)
"Tracks" (1988)
Erdrich’s novel Tracks, which is to be explored in the present argument, is the third part of an initially planned tetralogy, including "Love Medicine" (1984), "The Beet Queen" (1986), and "The Bingo Palace" (1994). Louise Erdrich created a novel cycle, exploring the lives of various generations of Chippewa family who live on a fictional reservation in North Dakota in the twentieth century, a time when Indian tribes were struggling to retain their remaining land. Chronologically speaking, it is the family’s earliest period—from 1912 to 1924—that is related in Tracks.
In most of her works, Erdrich uses several characters to narrate alternating chapters, presenting a story that unfolds from multiple perspectives. "Tracks" is told retrospectively by two homodiegetic narrators: Pauline Puyat, a mixed-blood who denies her Indian “half” in order to be accepted into the convent and changes her name to Sister Leopolda, and Nanapush, an older Native American who tells his story to a named addressee, his granddaughter Lulu: “You were born on the day we shot the last bear, drunk, on the reservation.” ("Tracks", p. 58) "Tracks" is constructed as mutually referential focalization, ...
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
1 NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
1.1 Telling histories: The oral tradition
1.2 The importance of the Native American Renaissance
2 LITERARY MAGICAL REALISM
2.1 Origin and history of the term
2.2 Towards a definition: Characteristics of magic realist literature
3 MAGICAL ELEMENTS IN LOUISE ERDRICH’S TRACKS
3.1 Two narrators = two versions of reality? It all depends on the perception of “truth” and “reality”
3.2 Enlisting the reader: Conflicting cultural views and untrustworthy narrators
CONCLUSION: Interpreting the magical in Tracks
Research Objectives and Themes
This academic work explores how Louise Erdrich utilizes the narrative mode of magical realism within her novel Tracks to mediate between conflicting Native American cultural traditions and Western literary structures. The study focuses on how the novel challenges colonial representations of history and identity through polyphonic, unreliable narration and the integration of indigenous mythologies.
- Analysis of the Native American Renaissance and the role of oral tradition.
- Theoretical examination of magical realism as a tool for post-colonial literary expression.
- Investigation of the multiperspectival narrative structure in Tracks.
- Exploration of how the novel subverts Western concepts of "truth" and "reality."
- Study of the construction of hybrid identities through the lens of magical elements.
Excerpt from the Book
3.1 Two narrators = two versions of reality? It all depends on the perception of “truth” and “reality”
Louise Erdrich uses two contradictory first-person narrators to relate their version of the same story over 12 years: Pauline Puyat, a mixed-blood member of the community, who is torn between a commitment to the past and her desire to become a Christian martyr, and Nanapush, a tribal elder, who relates his version of the story to Lulu: “Granddaughter, you are the child of the invisible, the ones who disappeared when, along with the bitter punishments of early winter, a new sickness swept down.” (Tracks, p. 2) Both narrators play key roles in the story.
Tracks is divided into nine chapters, whereas Nanapush starts with his version in “Chapter One: Winter 1912” and continues in the Chapters Three, Five, Seven, and Nine (Fall 1919-Spring 1924). Pauline throws light on her perspective of reality in the Chapters Two, Four, Six, and Eight. Her decline into an excessive religious asceticism, which is described with the stream of consciousness technique, is a central part of the plot. Pauline’s point of view is often portrayed by her thought processes, loose interior monologues, and her actions.
The stories of Nanapush and Paulie overlap and complement one another, but they do not truly contradict each other. Instead, they narrate their respective perception of “reality” and “truth” in alternating chapters, whereas both versions are to be seen on an equal footing. As Pauline and Nanapush also differ in gender, generation, religion, and community standing, the relationship between them is antagonistic. Moreover, Erdrich’s main cultural influences are represented through her different storytellers: She is an enrolled member of the Chippewa nation, but received a Christian education, so Erdrich experienced a religious transformation herself. In Tracks, she plays with the linear (“Western”) and circular (“Indigenous”) time structures of her opposing narrators.
Summary of Chapters
INTRODUCTION: Provides background on Louise Erdrich’s heritage and introduces the foundational context of the Native American Renaissance and the novel Tracks.
1 NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE: Examines the definition of Indian identity and the importance of oral traditions as the historical and cultural basis for modern Native American literature.
2 LITERARY MAGICAL REALISM: Defines magical realism as a literary mode, tracing its historical origins and distinguishing it from general fantastical literature.
3 MAGICAL ELEMENTS IN LOUISE ERDRICH’S TRACKS: Applies the theoretical framework of magical realism to analyze how Erdrich uses contradictory narrators to challenge fixed perceptions of truth.
CONCLUSION: Interpreting the magical in Tracks: Synthesizes the findings, arguing that Erdrich’s use of magical realism serves as a means to reconstruct and defend marginal historical truths against dominant narratives.
Key Words
Louise Erdrich, Tracks, Magical Realism, Native American Literature, Native American Renaissance, Oral Tradition, Hybridity, Multiperspectival Narrative, Post-colonialism, Trickster, Pauline Puyat, Nanapush, Cultural Identity, Marguerite, Myth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research paper?
The paper explores the intersection of Native American cultural traditions and the literary mode of magical realism in Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks.
What are the main thematic fields discussed?
The central themes include the reconstruction of Native American identity, the tension between oral and written traditions, and the use of magical elements to subvert colonial historical narratives.
What is the central research question?
The study investigates how Erdrich uses magical realism to negotiate between conflicting cultural worldviews and how the narrative structure invites the reader to actively reconstruct "truth."
Which scientific method is applied?
The author uses a literary analysis method, incorporating post-colonial theory and narratology to examine the text's formal strategies and ideological underpinnings.
What content is covered in the main section of the paper?
The main section covers the historical development of Native American literature, theoretical definitions of magical realism, and a specific case study of the narrative perspectives in Tracks.
What keywords characterize the work?
Key terms include hybridity, magical realism, polyphonic narration, Native American Renaissance, and identity construction.
How does the novel handle the concept of truth?
The novel presents "truth" as a subjective construct by employing two unreliable, alternating narrators who offer conflicting accounts of historical events.
In what way does the paper describe the roles of Nanapush and Pauline?
Nanapush is framed as the traditionalist trickster figure, while Pauline is depicted as a conflicted character whose religious obsession and unreliability contribute to the fragmented narrative perspective.
- Quote paper
- Jeanette Gonsior (Author), 2009, Exploring Native American Culture through Conflicting Cultural Views: "Magical Realism" in Louise Erdrich’s "Tracks", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/125661
