Gazing:An Effective Strategy For Disciplining And Punishing Irene In Erdrich’s Shadow Tag

Native American writer Louise Erdrich is known for her depictions of Native American life,winning National Book Awards several times and other different kinds of awards because of her rich works,and her novel Shadow Tag is composed by two diaries and vividly describes a story about the broken marriage and family,focalizing on the complex problems of love and marriage.This thesis will use the relevant gaze theory to interpret Erdrich’s Shadow Tag from the perspective of Feminism and Post-colonialism.The thesis demonstrates heroine Irene is tightly manipulated by male gaze-the product of patriarchy,being trapped in man’s desire and the power of mechanism,becoming the observed person and the negative object,losing her identity;which reflects male gaze at Irene function as disciplinary power.Thesis also analyzes how Irene is oppressed by racial gaze because her mixed-blood Indian husband uses her images to be recognized by the White world.In Indian culture,controlling one person’s shadow equals to control his or her soul.Irene’s images imply her shadow(soul)is like a tag which is objectified and controlled.These reflect the discipline of gaze on Irene.Though Irene wittily uses the policy of counter-gaze to revolt-the male gaze and racial gaze from her husband Gil and white men wittily,trying to break the "phallus center" and regain female identity,at last she fails in seeking herself;in the end,she follows her husband to suicide.During the process of counter-gaze,she loses family and life,which is the result of the punishment of gaze.Therefore gaze plays the role of both disciplining and punishing Irene.This thesis is composed of three parts.The introduction comes first.It gives a general introduction to Louise Erdrich,and the research findings at home and abroad of Shadow Tag is also included.Part Two consists of three chapters.Chapter One is the theoretical bases of the thesis.At first a study of the definition of the gaze and counter-gaze,and then it focuses on the representative theory of the gaze study—Mulvey’s gaze theory,Sartre,Lacan and Foucault’s gaze theory and so on.Chapter Two and Chapter Three respectively analyzes male gaze and racial gaze at Irene in Shadow Tag.On the one hand,husband Gil and other men’s gaze at Irene through images of Irene is a product of the patriarchy and their gaze at Irene is sexual and fetishistic.On the other hand,under racial gaze Irene as the subaltern is voiceless and disciplined by the colonizers.Chapter Four mainly explores Irene’s counter-gaze and her struggle under her counter-gaze.These four chapters are closely correlated,and detailedly analyze Irene’s gaze and counter-gaze under patriarchy and post-colonialism.This thesis concludes that analyzing Shadow Tag from the perspective of gaze reveals that gazing is an effective strategy for men and colonizers in disciplining women and holding their dominant position to control their objects.