Research Guide to American Literature

2. A classic theme in American literature is the intersection of individual identity
   with the needs and identity of the community. In many examples this inter-
   section becomes a conflict, with a protagonist asserting his or her individual
   identity and desires by pushing against those of the community. Students will
   find that this theme often takes a different shape in writing by American
   Indians, such as almost any of Momaday’s works, Silko’s Ceremony (1977),
   Louise Erdrich’s Tracks (1988) or The Plague of Doves (2008), Greg Sarris’s
   Grand Avenue (1994), Jay Hogan’s Solar Storms (1995), or Joy Harjo’s poems
   “The Deer Dancer” and “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor
   Window.” Students might consider any of those texts with these questions in
   mind: to what extent is the community privileged over the individual? When,
   where, and why is the individual as individual asserted and valued? How are
   individual and community needs balanced? A similar theme, focusing on indi-
   vidual needs in conflict with family rather than community pressures, could be
   explored in Michael Dorris’s A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987) or Erdrich’s
   Tales of Burning Love (1996) or Love Medicine. For secondary sources, both of
   the books by Kenneth Lincoln, as well as those by Louis Owens, James Rup-
   pert, and Jace Weaver, would provide helpful analysis to support this topic.
   Part 4 of The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United
   States since 1945 (2006) looks at self and community in Native American
   autobiographies.


3. In “‘The Grace That Remains’: American Indian Women’s Literature” (Book
   Forum: An International Transdisciplinary Quarterly, 5, no. 3 [1981]: 376–382)
   Paula Gunn Allen notes that “A sense of familiarity with what is strange, a
   willingness to face, to articulate what is beyond belief, to make it seem fright-
   ening and natural at the same time lies in much of the writing of American
   Indian women.” The same could also be said of much writing by American
   Indian men: dreams, myths, and magic play an important role in many Native
   American texts. Students might choose one or two works in which these fea-
   tures are prominent and consider the extent to which they may or may not be
   considered magical realism: the mingling of the marvelous and inexplicable with
   the mundane. Magical realism immerses readers in the experience of what it is
   like to live in the world with magic as part of one’s reality, and a part that is not
   necessarily frightening or disruptive. Strong candidates for such analysis include
   any of Erdrich’s novels; The Grass Dancer (1994), by Susan Power (Sioux);
   Silko’s Ceremony or short stories or poems in her collection Storyteller, including
   “Lullaby” and “Yellow Woman”; Sarris’s nonfictional Mabel McKay: Weaving the
   Dream; Welch’s Fools Crow; and Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain. Stuart
   Cochran discusses supernatural and spiritual elements in poetry by Simon J.
   Ortiz (for instance, “From Sand Creek”) and in Silko’s Ceremony. Those wishing
   to focus on poetry could investigate Harjo’s “The Deer Dancer” or The Woman
   Who Fell from the Sky, or works by Luci Tapahonso or Linda Hogan. In these
   texts, does the presence of magic or the inexplicable grow out of cultural beliefs?
   Does it arise, as does much Latin American magical realism, from the clash of
   preindustrial with industrialized cultures? Beyond the issue of the literary mode
   of magical realism, students may wish to explore the role of dreams, magic, and

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