A Study Of Construction Of Masculinities In Louise Erdrich’s The Round House

Louise Erdrich(1954–),one of the most productive and creative writers in America,is one of the representatives of Native American Renaissance.Since her first famous poetry Jacklight and debut novel Love Medicine came out in 1984,Erdrich has written a total of sixteen novels,seven children’s books,three collections of poems,two memoirs,and one short story collection.Published in 2012,her fourteenth novel The Round House has been well-received and won the U.S.National Book Award.The Round House tells a story that the Native American men who are oppressed and persecuted by the whites gradually awaken and construct their unique Native American masculinities,and seek justice for Native American women who are persecuted by the whites.Based on R.W.Connell’s theory of masculinities,this thesis explores the special contribution and significance of Native American men in seeking their judicial rights and racial equality and returning to their traditional Indian culture by analyzing the process of subversion,construction and practice of three Native American men’s masculinities.Faced with the oppression and insults of mainstream culture,the awakened Native American men subvert their previous masculinities and constructed new types of Indian masculinities.In the process of practicing their newly-constructed masculinities,they heal the trauma and revive Indian traditional culture.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One briefly introduces Erdrich and her work The Round House,reviews the research status of the work at home and abroad,illustrates Connell’s theory of masculinities,and proposes the thesis statement.The second,third and fourth chapters are the main body of this thesis.Chapter Two,taking an Indian Judge Bazil as the research object,analyzes the process of subverting complicit masculinity and constructing self-contained masculinity.It is concluded that tribal judges can achieve Indian judicial rights only by returning to tribal legal traditions.Chapter Three focuses on an Indian boy Joe who subverts the subordinated masculinity and constructs the self-healing masculinity through reviving tribal culture.Chapter Four discusses the masculinities of an Indian boy Cappy.He constructs theself-liberated masculinity after subverting his marginalized masculinity.As a result,he not merely liberates himself but also realizes racial equality for the tribe.Chapter Five is the conclusion,indicating the practical significance of this thesis,and providing feasible measures for Native American men to find their identity,return to Indian traditional culture and get out of survival dilemma.Native American men,oppressed and neglected by the white society and Indian matriarchal culture,suffer from a serious crisis of masculinity.Through the in-depth study of the masculinities in The Round House,this thesis proposes that Native American men should return to the tribal culture and construct their Indian masculinity in the face of judicial restrictions and injustice from the white culture,so as to claim Indian judicial rights and equality and realize the transformation of the tribe from a dead end to a thoroughfare.