Beschreibung
The two fields of contemporary Native American literature and culture
exist in the tension between two literary traditions: the Native oral and
literary tradition and the modern Western mainstream literary influence.
In her North Dakota quartet Love Medicine (1984), The
Beet Queen (1986), Tracks (1988), The Bingo Palace
(1994), Native American mixedblood author, Louise Erdrich (b. 1954)
exemplifies where and how these traditions meet and interact. A postmodern
reading of the quartet shows that Native American authors and literary
critics alike need not be afraid to tread into postmodernism, since an
interpretation from this perspective opens up the possibility of freeing
Native American literature from the limiting label of “ethnic or minority
literature” and of establishing it as a vital part of American
literature.
This postmodern interpretation of Louise Erdrich’s quartet offers a
discussion of the theoretical issues involved in the context of ethnic
writing and its relation to postmodernism, as well as an analysis of her
intricate narrative strategies, in particular, her use of multiple
perspectives and of intertextual techniques. The main part of the
interpretation consists of a reading of postmodern concepts such as
magical realism, carnivalesque humor, the relationship between reader and
text, gender roles and sexual identities, history and textuality, the
trickster figure, and games and chance as can be found in Louise Erdrich’s
North Dakota quartet.
