Traumatization And Reconstruction:trauma Among Native Americans In Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman

Louise Erdrich is one of the most prestigious contemporary Native American female writers in the United States.Her novel The Night Watchman won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2021 soon after its publication.The novel is set against the historical background of the termination policy of the U.S.Congress in the 1950 s and combines fact and fiction to tell the story of the efforts made by the Chippewa tribe on the Indian reservation to defend their land and home.The thesis paper attempts to explore the representation of trauma in The Night Watchman.Textual analysis is used to examine the lives of numerous,interconnected characters within the novel.Then the perspective of trauma study,particularly the concept of “cultural trauma” by Jeffrey C.Alexander,is adopted to explain the intent of the plot.It reveals three aspects in which Erdrich depicts traumatic experiences of three elder males(Thomas,Rodrick,and Paranteau)and two younger females(Patrice and Vera)of the Chippewa tribe: education in boarding schools,alcoholism,and sexual violence.Resistance to trauma is actualized by reconstructing ethnic traditions including retaining plain speaking for the purpose of deconstructing the rhetoric in the Termination Bill,frequent use of Chippewa language,connection to the land and reverence for spirits.The analysis proves that cultural trauma,though insidious,can be perceived and narrated,and is indelible.In this case,Erdrich elucidates the struggles of generations of Native people to retain their cultural identity by bringing traumas of racism and sexual violence into collective memory through the act of literary remembrance.