Résumé:
ABSTRACT
This study addresses the relationship between literature and the Native
American identity in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller (1981) and her attempt to
re-appropriate native identity and history. The selected book blends original
short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard
growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical
passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional
and Western literary genres, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation,
power, and identity; she communicates Native American notions regarding time,
nature, and spirituality; and explores how stories and storytelling shape people
and communities. Storyteller illustrates how one can frame collective cultural
identity in contemporary literary forms, as well as illuminates the importance of
myth, oral tradition, and ritual in Silko’s own work. In this multidisciplinary
endeavor, we are interested in exhibiting the evils of the white world and the
syndromes of hybridity that plagued and troubled the Natives’ life.