| Louise Erdrich is the author of many national best sellers and winner of numerous prestigious prizes like O’Henry Awards and National Book Critics Circle Award. Prolific as she is, Erdrich has written fourteen novels as well as many collections of poetry and essays, contributing a great deal to American Literature. Among all the works, the reservation novels call the most attention due to her tremendous insight into the subtle relations between native and mainstream cultures. Moreover, Erdrich herself is of mixed native and European descent, which justifies her unique voice in relating the interrelated tribal affairs in the novels.In her novels, the awareness of self is vulnerable to change due to the various outward boundaries such as race, religion and gender. This paper proposes to investigate the possible ways to finish subject construction under different cultural backgrounds. Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre and Agnes Dewitt from Love Medicine and The Last Report on the Miracles at little No Horse, who are of Indigenous heritage, mixed blood and white descent, are closely studied in this thesis so as to dig into the feasible approaches to realize their self in face of different cultures. It reveals that myth, religion and art are extremely instrumental in their construction process, endowing them a unified self and the awareness of moral obligations.Of native blood, Lulu Lamartine loses her sense of selfhood due to the abandonment of her lover, the estrangement from her family members, and the threatening western encroachment on the reservation. Her self-searching journey begins in the island which is clouded with mythic color. The myth heals and empowers, propelling her to regain a correct understanding of the relation between western and native culture. She realizes that devotion to the community is also a must, returns back to the reservation, and spends the rest of her life fulfilling domestic duties and contributing to the communal good.Marie Lazarre’s hybrid identity contributes to her fragmented self—both Indian and white are integrated. Under the backdrop of two religions, she is confused about who she is. Then Marie embarks on her journey to a convent in an attempt to reject the Indian part in her self. The convent disillusions her dream to be a saint, whereas offers her a chance to examine her self and build connections with God. As a consequence, she finds a balance between Christianity and Ojibwa spirituality, realizing that the latter is indispensable from her self. At last, she maintains positive relations with other men in the reservation and establishes an image as an earth-mother.Agnes’s confusion about her self embodies the mixture of race, religion and gender. Thus her self-realization requires a higher form of redemption—art. Formerly known as Sister Cecilia, Agnes then became Father Damien in later years. Agnes turns to Chopin and piano-playing in each transfiguration process. The musical transcendence empowers as she later breaks the boundaries of religion and gender, exercises her independent being by embracing the virtues of both male and female, Christianity and Ojibwa spirituality.From the study it can be inferred that individuals are vulnerable to the suffering from loss of self, yet the self is essentially flexible and capable of evolution over a life span, and self-realizing refers to the engagement with the world in full absorption. Louise Erdrich successfully conveys her embracing attitude towards the variance in culture, gender and religion. |
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