FREEDOM IN GENDER CATEGORIES IN TRACKS BY LOUISE ERDRICH ...

• Main Author: Oksana, Shostak
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Native Americans; gender representation; Indians; Indian literature; sacredness; Indian; anishina*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7818394; https://zenodo.org/record/7818394

The article explores the problem of gender representation in the novel Tracks by Louise Erdrich. The topic is revealed through the gendering of the Anishinaabe people. The research focuses on the correlation of inner and outer gender roles in the text of the novel. The idea of some gender boundary id marked by various relations in the everyday activities of a man and a woman. The wrter marks those gender roles even at the level of the language as some erotic boundary between body and language. In the history of the two characters, Nanapush and Pauline, one can observe overcoming gender boundaries at both material and spiritual levels. Mother’s space that is metaphorically called upon by Nanapush, is simultaneously absent and present, that is a healing space, a revival of Lulu, for whom the novel Tracks was written. The words spoken by him and the sounds he articulated preserve some hidden gender aspect. Nanapush generalizes the Anishinaabe gender but not recreates it as a model. That interpretation envisages ...