現代北アメリカ先住民文学における言語,場所,イメージ
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概要
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This paper discusses three cultural issues concerning the languages, places, and images that are found in contemporary Native North American literature since the late 1960s. First, it examines the issue of language in light of the historical deprivation of native languages and the absence of native voices in contemporary North American society. The discussion focuses on native characters who do not or cannot speak, who embody the silenced condition of native peoples. Native literature highly values oral tradition and storytelling practices, and the literature under discussion in this paper depicts native authors' attempts to describe native silence and voices through these devices. The discussion then moves to the issue of place in native literature in terms of the usual fixation of natives to the wild American landscape, historical uprootedness, and coerced removal onto reservations. By depicting cultural and physical movement, native literature challenges stereotypes and suggests the mobility and cross-cultural fluidity of native people and their cultures. The ambivalent role of reservations as both places of historical torment and communal homes is also noted. Finally, the discussion deals with the issue of image, examining native authors' manipulation of stereotyped Indian images which are still dominant throughout the world. By presenting actual and various phases of native lives, native authors subvert the stereotyped images of natives, revealing the images to be not only inaccurate, but also inventions by a dominant culture.
- 2004-06-30