Indians, Environment, and Identity on the Borders of American Literature: From Faulkner and Morrison to Walker and Silko (American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century)

207 Pages·2008·1.26 MB·English

by  Lindsey Claire Smith

American Literature Readings
in the 21st Century
Series Editor: Linda Wagner-Martin
American Literature Readings in the 21st Century publishes works by
contemporary critics that help shape critical opinion regarding literature of
the nineteenth and twentieth century in the United States.
Published by Palgrave Macmillan:
Freak Shows in Modern American Imagination: Constructing the
Damaged Body from Willa Cather to Truman Capote
By Thomas Fahy
Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics
By Steven Salaita
Women & Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to
Morrison
By Kelly Lynch Reames
American Political Poetry in the 21st Century
By Michael Dowdy
Science and Technology in the Age of Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and
James: Thinking and Writing Electricity
By Sam Halliday
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Racial Angles and the Business of Literary Greatness
By Michael Nowlin
Sex, Race, and Family in Contemporary American Short Stories
By Melissa Bostrom
Democracy in Contemporary U.S. Women’s Poetry
By Nicky Marsh
James Merrill and W.H. Auden: Homosexuality and Poetic Influence
By Piotr K. Gwiazda
Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism
Edited by Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez
The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow
and Don DeLillo
By Stephanie S. Halldorson
Race and Identity in Hemingway’s Fiction
By Amy L. Strong
Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism
By Jennifer Haytock
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The Anti-Hero in the American Novel: From Joseph Heller to Kurt
Vonnegut
By David Simmons
Indians, Environment, and Identity on the Borders of American
Literature: From Faulkner and Morrison to Walker and Silko
By Lindsey Claire Smith
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Indians, Environment,
and Identity on the Borders
of American Literature
From Faulkner and Morrison to
Walker and Silko
Lindsey Claire Smith
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INDIANS, ENVIRONMENT, AND IDENTITY ON THE BORDERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Copyright © Lindsey Claire Smith, 2008.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN-13: 978–0–230–60541–1
ISBN-10: 0–230–60541–9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Lindsey Claire.
Indians, environment, and identity on the borders of American
literature : from Faulkner and Morrison to Walker and Silko /
Lindsey Claire Smith.
p. cm.—(American literature readings in the twenty-fi rst century)
ISBN 0–230–60541–9 (alk. paper)
1. American literature—History and criticism. 2. Indians in literature.
3. Intercultural communication in literature. 4. Ecology in literature.
5. Nature in literature. 6. Identity (Psychology) in literature. 7. Group
identity in literature. I. Title.
PS173.I6S53 2008
810.99352997—dc22 2007047881
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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For Jerre Brokaw (Delaware)
1929–1999
Dear friend and inspiration
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Cross-Cultural Hybridity in James Fenimore
Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans 7
2 Legacy of “Doom” on the Crossroads of
William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha 39
3 Indigenous “Rememory”: Cultural Hybridity
and the Nature of Resistance in the
Novels of Toni Morrison 75
4 Alice Walker’s Eco-“Warriors” 109
5 The Earth Remains: Place and Prophecy
in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead 145
Notes 179
Works Cited 183
Index 193
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to my parents, Dwight and Charlene Smith, and
my brother, Benjamin Corbett Smith. I would also like to thank my
mentors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gretchen
Bataille, Trudier Harris, Linda Wagner-Martin, Valerie Lambert, and
Maria DeGuzman. In addition, I am especially indebted to Sandra
Hoeflich, associate dean of the Graduate School at University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Penny Aldrich, supporter of the
Sequoyah Fellowship for American Indian Students/Studies, who
made sure that I was supported financially during the time that I was
composing this manuscript. Thanks also to my new colleagues at
Oklahoma State University for their encouragement. Finally, thanks
to my great-grandmother, Eva Clayton, who taught at the Wynnewood
School in Indian Territory. Can’t wait to meet you someday.
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