Date of Award

9-2002

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Supervisor

S. Bowerbank

Language

English

Abstract

Reclamation of Indian Historical Icons and Indian Identity studies how aboriginal artists-playwrights, filmmakers, and authors-use their art to take back appropriated Indian historical icons from their place in the colonizers' imperialist history, and to create representations of Indians that counteract the stereotypical ones created by the colonizers. Sherman Alexie and Monique Mojica work in a number of different genres, and their methods of text production are different, but both make extensive use of popular culture to expose the falseness of the colonizers' representations of Native Americans. Monique Mojica's plays act to reclaim Pocahontas, Sacajawea, and other female icons from imperialist history. She dismantles the "good Indian", exposing the way this stereotype was constructed and what role it serves in imperialist ideology. The film Smoke Signals (1998), directed by Chris Eyre and written by Sherman Alexie, dismantles the stereotypes created by the dominant culture through the visual media. Sherman Alexie's most recent short story collection works to create contemporary representations of Native Americans and explores the problems of identity. In examining how these texts deconstruct the colonizers' representations of Indians, the mechanisms of knowledge construction are exposed. This type of awareness is especially important for a citizen in the "Information Age".

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