An Archetypal Analysis Of Louise Erdrich’s Tracks

Louise Erdrich, as a prominent and prolific author, is one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance. The novel Tracks, being one of her most important writings, depicts the trouble the Native Americans encountered under the circumstance of the white’s incursion, geographically and culturally. It has attracted broad attention among critics in the United States since it was published in1988. So far, some critics abroad and at home have made some comments on its native culture, theme and image. And others have studied it from such perspectives as postmodernism, post-colonialism, eco-criticism, to name jut a few. However, few scholars elucidate it from the theory of Archetypal Criticism. Therefore, the thesis aims to do an archetypal reading of Erdrich’s Tracks on the basis of the theory of Archetypal Criticism initiated by Northrop Frye.After a general introduction to Louise Erdrich, her novel Tracks, the critical responses that the novel has received, and Frye’s theory of archetype and mythoi, the thesis emphasizes on the archetypal features of the novel from two aspects. In the chapter of archetypal characters, the thesis explores the corresponding relationship between characters in the novel and archetypes in the Holly Bible as well as in the ancient Native American myths, with the purpose of revealing the relation between the characters and the theme of the novel. And in the chapter of mythoi, this thesis analyzes the whole story of the novel based on the four archetypal mythoi of comedy, romance, tragedy, and satire and irony. The novel Tracks moves from comedy to romance, from romance to tragedy, then ends up with satire and irony, which makes readers to think through and introspect the survival pattern of the contemporary Native Americans.Based on the above analysis, the thesis draws the conclusion that by reviewing the archetypal characters and the archetypal mythoi in the novel, Erdrich reminds her readers that the collision between the mainstream culture and minority cultures will inevitably lead minorities to confuse and lose themselves in their cultural identity, and that the one who is obstinate inwardly in one’s own tribal culture is hard to find one’s right place to live, whereas the one who eliminates one’s past to the tribe and turns one’s face to the white is doomed to being lost oneself. As for the contemporary Native Americans, they should rejoice the cultural differences and hybridity in honor of inheriting and developing their own tribal culture.