Improvement Of Female Status In Louise Erdrich's Works

Contemporary American Indian female writer Louise Erdrich is popularly regarded as the"spokesman"of the younger generation. Her"North Dakota cycle of novels"which are based on Chippewa's complicated life and their sufferings in the contemporary American society, honestly and vividly describe the American Indians'survival plight under the white colonial culture. With the purpose to show Indian women's pains and struggles between their traditional culture's decline and colonist culture's erosion. This thesis probes into Erdrich's trilogy, Love Medicine, The Beet Queen and Tracks to analyze author's attempt to raise women's status through bond of female power and usage of oral tradition and female narration to improve female's position as it was in the traditional Indian culture.First, Indian women enjoyed respected and worshipped positions in the traditional culture. Then, after the invasion and assimilation of the white chauvinism, Indian women's images are distorted and deficient in the white and the Indian writers'works respectively.The first chapter is mainly about portrays of Indian women in Erdrich's works. Encountering the cultural clash and identity issues, women characters have more struggle spirits and survival wisdom than men in the books. Women inherit the traditional"grandmother"image and act as the magnet of their home to maintain the integrity and the harmony of the family. Meanwhile, they are the firmer guardians of the traditional Indian culture.The second chapter focuses on how Erdrich combines female powers to improve their positions. In these three novels, the women are all full of personalities. They help each other in crises and support each other to fight against the white cultural pressures. In this way women's status are enhanced. Additionally, the writer designs elaborately to add some feminine traits onto a highly appreciated male character, which also represents women's enhanced positions.The third chapter briefly discusses the unique female narration in the novels. The author highlights the traditional Indian culture through restoring oral tradition and also mixes postmodern elements into female narration, such as fragmentation and multiple voices which display women's nonlinear thinking modes and"gossip"life style.In conclusion, all those attempts in Erdrich's works are successful. Bond of female powers not only raises their status but also contributes to the inheriting and developing of traditional Indian culture.