110 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
the supernatural in these texts. In addition to Cochran, useful secondary sources
include Ruppert’s Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction (1995),
which discusses the roles of tangible and intangible realms in American Indian
writing, and Allen’s The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian
Traditions (1986).
- The concept of hybridity is important in Native American literature on sev-
eral levels. The exigencies of history have made insistence on full-blood status
next to impossible; yet, people of mixed blood nevertheless find themselves
stigmatized, often by both white and native cultures. Many of the major
novels of the Native American Renaissance have explored what it means for
one’s personal and communal identity to be of mixed blood; characters who
deal with this issue include Tayo in Silko’s Ceremony, the title character of
Welch’s The Death of Jim Loney, John Smith in Alexie’s Indian Killer, and
Pauline in Erdrich’s Tracks. Another form of hybridity involves growing up
on a reservation in the midst of the United States. These issues are explored
in Dorris’s A Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary
of a Part-Time Indian. Students might examine any of these works and ask:
What conflicts arise because of mixed heritage or mixed cultures? What
does mixed status or hybridity mean for the character’s personal identity,
and what does it mean for communal identity? In what ways is it depicted
as a strength, and in what ways as a weakness? In the examples involving
living in two overlapping cultures, what role does U.S. popular culture play
in the formation of identity? How are characters expected to demonstrate
allegiance to the different cultures in which they partake, and what conflicts
arise from these expectations? Lincoln’s Native American Renaissance and the
works by Nagel, Ruppert, and James H. Cox can provide useful insights for
exploring aspects of hybridity and mixed-blood status.
- Students could compare a traditional story with a contemporary one through
any of several elements that have historically been important to Native Ameri-
can storytelling: the relationship to oral traditions, the use of tricksters, and
the role of humor. Allen’s Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and
Contemporary Writing by Native American Women (1989) offers juxtapositions
of traditional with contemporary stories; John L. Purdy and Ruppert’s Nothing
but the Truth: An Anthology of Native American Literature (2001) might also be
consulted. Silko’s frequently anthologized “Yellow Woman” could be compared
to the Pueblo legends about Yellow Woman. Lincoln’s Indi’n Humor: Bicultural
Play in Native America (1993) would be useful for topics exploring tricksters
or humor. The interviews in Laura Coltelli’s Winged Words: American Indian
Writers Speak (1990) address oral traditions and humor. Susan Berry Brill de
Ramírez also deals with the oral tradition.
- Students interested in literary history might wish to compare the Native
American Renaissance to other American literary “renaissances,” such as the
American Renaissance of the 1850s, in which Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman
Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman came to prominence; the
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, highlighted by such figures as Langston
Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston; or the Southern Renaissance of the mid
