From Bewilderment To Maturity:the Nameless Narrator's Homecoming Journev In Winter In The Blood And The Construction Of His Cultural Identity

American Indian literature,also known as indigenous American literature,is an indispensable branch of American literature,reflecting the traditions and reality of American Indian nation.However,the studies related to American Indian literature starts comparatively late in China and has not gained enough attention,James Welch(1940-2003)is one of the four most prominent American Indian literary masters who has made great contribution to speaking for the marginalized American Indians.His first novel,Winter in the Blood(1974),is regarded as a crucial fiction during the Native American Renaissance Movement.In this novel,the nameless narrator has been suffering physical and psychological trauma after the deaths of his biological father and brother who are his only beloved ones in the world.As a result of his failure to connect himself with his living family members and his ignorance of the ancestral history,the traumatic protagonist wanders between the reservation and white people's town without a sense of belonging and has hence lost his cultural identity.This thesis is an attempt to analyze the nameless narrator's trauma and the ways for him to construct his cultural identity.By means of text analysis and some postcolonial theories(including cultural colonization,colonialist ideology,hybridity and The Third Space),this thesis concludes that the nameless narrator's trauma reflects the spiritual crisis of American Indians and his homecoming journey to construct his cultural identity symbolizes Welch's concern about the reestablishment of contemporary American Indian culture.With the ongoing conflicts between Native American culture and the dominant white culture,it has become almost impossible for American Indians to return to their quintessential cultural root.Amid the irresistible influence of globalization and American multiculturalism,the practical way to revitalize American Indian culture is to become inclusive and establish a new hybridized culture based on the inheritance of Indian cultural traditions.