The Way We Lived, The Land We Valued

As an energetic and prolific Native American writer, Louise Erdrich has successfully been one of the most eminent voices in the multiethnic literature realm for the distinctive oral narrative technique and Native landscape in her works. Although Tracks is the third one of her "North Dakota saga" that depicts the Chippewa Indians'life, it traces back to the origin of the cultural conflicts between the Natives and the Whites. The novel borrows the storyteller Nanapush's voice, reminding us of the spiritual trauma that Native Americans have experienced after The Dawes General Allotment Act was enacted in 1887, such as land loss, environmental devastation and culture deprivation. But along with the bourgeoning of ecocriticism, Indians'view of land as well as their ecological wisdom are more and more concerned by ecocritical researchers. Therefore, this paper tries to explore the interconnection between landscape and Native identity, analyzing Indian women's strong, independent image and their intimacy with nature. By comparing the Indian holistic view and dualism in the western tradition, it means to dig out the deep roots of the environmental crisis and cultural conflicts in Tracks and finally points out the enlightenment we can get from Native American literature for future ecological research.This thesis is arranged into six parts. The first chapter simply presents an overall view about the development of Native American literature and the Native topics and inspirations embodied in Louise Erdrich's works. And a general introduction to the novel Tracks is mentioned for a better understating of this thesis.Chapter Two based on the research of previous studies on Tracks and ecocriticism, emphasizes the necessity of concerning about the Native American life wisdom, and explores the novel's value in ecocriticism as an environmental literature.Chapter Three is devoted to discuss the interrelationship between landscape and identity under the theory of "ecological self," a concept created by the forefather of deep ecology, Arne Naess. Through analyzing the interconnection between the reappearance of cultural and physical landscape in Nanapush's storytelling and the restoration of Native identity, it asserts that Indians'deep emotion on the land is the embodiment of a deep and wide "ecological self." On the contrary, in Pauline's narration this kind of connection is absent. Without the bind of family and land, she only establishes her self on the minimal religious identification, and consequently she is indifferent to people all around and becomes psychologically distorted.Chapter Four concentrates on the reading of female characters based on ecofeminist critical theory which mainly studies the relationship between women and nature. By depicting the female protagonist, Fleur, as the metaphorical Mother Earth in Native myth who obviously is a nature identified, independent and powerful image, Erdrich's heroine destabilizes the human/nature, man/woman dichotomy in western culture. In contrast to Fleur, Pauline's eagerness to be assimilated by white culture compels her to resist identification with nature. In the process of converting to Catholicism, she becomes unconsciously the victim of the western dualistic world. Unable to hybridize two different cultures, Pauline's spiritual world turns unharmonious and gradually becomes the "wild woman" in the western society.Chapter Five goes to analyze the reason of Native American survival crisis caused by the white encroachment, for deep ecology scholars advocate detecting the deep social roots to solve the problem of environment crisis. The writer argues that the deep roots of the problems in the novel are buried in the social ideological conflicts, such as human-and-nature relation, land ethics, religious conflicts and racial discrimination. All these conflicts lead to the inharmonious condition between human and nature and produce survival and environmental crises. Therefore, the writer argues that to establish a sustainable ecological world, we must relieve both racial and environmental oppression.As a conclusion, in the modern society, environmental problems are still emerging. Therefore people need to keep searching for ecological wisdom to maintain a balanced ecosystem. In this respect, Native Americans provide us a wonderful enlightenment with their holistic view and intimacy with nature. Thus, reading Native literary works, we can reflect more deeply on the environmental issues and learn to view the world with green vision.