On The Theme Of Return In Thomas King’s The Back Of The Turtle

Thomas King is a celebrated Native Canadian writer whose novel The Back of the Turtle is highly praised as a contemporary environmental apocalypse,which lays bare the abuse of Native culture under the influence of western industrialization,the alienation of contemporary Indians and their loss of ethnic authenticity in a plural Canadian society.This thesis probes into the historical and cultural conflicts between Indians and the whites to find out the cause that leads to the cultural rift and the alienation of First Nations. By analyzing the hybridity of Indian Creation stories, the conflicts between western industrialization and environmental injustice as well as Native people’s self-pursuit of a sense of belonging based on the geographical experience with the land,this thesis aims to reveal the theme of return in The Back of the Turtle.King describes in the novel a panorama of a homecoming journey and the reconstruction of Indian traditions. The story opens with an ecological calamity, which aims at subverting the established value judgment entrenched in western canons. King reconstructs Native culture by destroying the stereotyped Aboriginal institutions. What’s more, he reveals the identity predicament and the marginalization of First Nations,hoping that Indians may get rid of identity enigma and Native culture may also cross the ethnographic border that separates Indians from the mainstream culture to realize the restoration and re-creation of First Nations in a modern North America.