Magical Realism Revisited in Erdrich's Tracks: An Interactional Thick Inscription
This study revisits Louise Erdrich's practice of 'magic realism' to explain how the realistic presentation of unreal elements in Erdrich's writings differs from the western expression of magic realism. With the interactional thick inscription of Erdrich's magic realism, this study argues that the unreal events in Tracks are not based on Erdrich's imagination but the spiritual facts of her inheritance. Her description of naturalcum-supernatural elements cohesively achieves a synthesis of the Chippewa Anishinaabe magic-realistic world and, simultaneously, derives the social and cultural hierarchy of the Native American world. She appropriates the western concept of 'magic realism' to enlighten her oral tradition in 20th-century non-native societies. This appropriation explores the individuality of Native American traditional ways of being that have been considered cultural nonsense in modern academia. This interactional thick inscription of delimited text systematically inscribes the pre-Columbian context of 20th century Chippewa Anishinaabe, the Canadian border, and defines Erdrich's quest for her native identity.
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Anishinaabe, Culture, Erdrich, Magic Realism, Myth, Oral Tradition
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(1) Qasim Shafiq
PhD Candidate, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
(2) Sardar Ahmad Farooq
Lecturer in English, Department of English, Government Postgraduate College Mansehra, KP, Pakistan.
(3) Asim Aqeel
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Linguistics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.
Longing for Belonging in Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
part from its predecessors Tracks and Four Souls, Louise Erdrich's Last Report on the Miracle sat Little No Horse does not narrate the struggle and suffering of natives to preserve native lands,traditions, and culture, but the auto/biographical notes of the leading characters of the novel, their longing and belonging for/to the particular places or people. Both non-Native and native narratives of the novel critically engage this claim that Erdrich approaches indigenous values from many perspectives: the liminal, native, or western.This study claims that the contemporary tribal view of the indigenous culture cannot be restricted to pure Native American voice but is also determined by Euro-American voice because the contemporary Native American culture is the interaction of Native and non-Native elements.
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Belonging, Erdrich, Euro- American Voice, Native American Culture, Oral Tradition.
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(1) Nafees Pervez
PhD Scholar, Department of English, Government College University, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.
(2) Sidra Khalil
Lecture in English, Department of English, Institute of Southern Punjab, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan
(3) Muhammad Asaf Amir
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Institute of Southern Punjab, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan.
Native American Woman's Phenomenological Experience of Space and Place in Erdrich's Tracks
This study discusses Native American woman's experience of existential outsideness, which is caused by the Euro-American legislative act as represented by Louise Erdrich in her novel Tracks. This research analyzes the role of the Dawes Act of 1887 in triggering the experience of existential outsideness among the Native Americans in general and Native American women in particular. Through Edward Casey Ralph's phenomenological perspective on the notion of spatiality, the study reinterprets the representation of space and place in Louise Erdrich's Tracks. The study offers a spatial reading of a Native American woman's life to explicate how she confronts the issues related to the confiscation of her ancestral lands that trigger her experience of existential outsideness to her land. The study concludes that Euro-American policies of acculturation and assimilation thwarted spatioexistential experiences of Native American women.
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Dawes Act of 1887, Louise Erdrich, Native American Woman, Space and Place, Spatiality
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(1) Fasih ur Rehman
Lecturer, Department of English, Khushal Khan Khattak University, Karak, KP, Pakistan.
(2) Sahar Javaid
Lecturer, Department of English, Government College University, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.
(3) Quratulain Mumtaz
Lecturer, Department of English, Riphah International University, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.