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Informationen zum Autor Patrice Hollrah Klappentext From warrior women to female deities who control the cycle of life, female characters in Native American literature exhibit a social and spiritual empowerment that is quite different from the average Pocahontas we are used to seeing in mainstream literature. This work argues that a tribal construct of gender relations, where the relationship between male and female roles is complementary rather than hierarchical, accounts for the existence of these empowered female characters in Native American literature. Focusing on the work of four of the twentieth century's most famous Native American authors, Zitkala-Sa, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie, Hollrah suggests that it is important to evaluate Native American literary female characters in a cultural paradigm that is less Euro-American and more compatible to the complementarity of Native American culture. Zusammenfassung Focusing on the work of four of the 20th century's Native American authors, this work argues that a tribal construct of gender relations, where the relationship between male and female roles is complementary rather than hierarchical, accounts for the existence of empowered female characters in Native American literature. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. Introduction: Writing is Different from Tribe to Tribe: Cultural and Historical Contexts 2. The Old Lady Trill, the Victory Yell: Why Feminist Theory Does Not Apply to Native American Literature 3. We Must Be Masters of Our Circumstances: Rhetorical Sovereignty in the Life and Works of Zitkala-Sa 4. The Men in the Bar Feared Her: The Power of Ayah in Leslie Marmon Silko's Lullaby 5. Women Are Strong, Strong, Terribly Strong: Female Intellectual Sovereignty in the Works of Louise Erdrich 6. 'I'm Talking Like a [. . .] Twenty-First-Century Woman': Contemporary Female Warriors in the Works of Sherman Alexie 7. Conclusion: Indian Women Were and Are Powerful: Intellectual Sovereignty, and the Strength of Female Warriors...
