Relocating A Home For Native Americans: A Postcolonial Reading Of Love Medicine

Louise Erdrich,one of the most prominent writers in the United States and the representative of Native American Renaissance,devotes herself to writing the story of Native Americans in English.Love Medicine,issued in 1984,has brought her great reputation.This novel demonstrates the sufferings of four Chippewa families living in North Dakota under the colonial system and the struggles between Native Americans and European settlers.European colonial expansion inevitably leads to the dispossession and forced displacement of Native Americans.They wander between Native American culture and the white culture.They do not know which culture they should belong to,thus having a sense of homelessness.Based on Homi K.Bhabha’s theory of“the third space” and “hybridity”,this thesis interprets Erdrich’s endeavors in helping Native Americans get rid of the rootless state and balance the two cultures.Then it points out,and endorses,that Erdrich’s strategy of getting out of this dilemma is,in essence,to construct a harmonious new home,“the third space” for the Native Americans.This thesis consists of five chapters.The introduction consists of a brief survey of the author Erdrich,her novel Love Medicine,the theoretical basis,as well as the literature review.Also,this chapter includes a statement of the originality and structure of the thesis.The second chapter demonstrates the displacement of Native Americans in Love Medicine from three perspectives: land,culture and race.The third chapter discusses the Native American characters’ efforts to relocate a Native American home for themselves in the novel.Different people have different attitudes towards cultural invasion.Some choose to integrate into the white society while others learn to come to terms with being in-betweens.The fourth chapter examines Erdrich’s literary strategies to reconstruct a “new home” for Native Americans.It highlights the fact that she aims to establish a unique Native American literary tradition by applying double narrative languages and hybrid narrative modes.In the last chapter,it is concluded that in America,as well as in the globalizedcontemporary world,it is impossible for Native Americans to pursue pure culture.Only by identifying with the fact of cultural fusion and accepting their hybrid identities can the young generations of Native Americans survive in the multicultural society.