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4 - “Her Laugh an Ace”: Narrative Tricksterism in Louise Erdrich's Tetralogy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Caroline Rosenthal
Caroline Rosenthal
Affiliation:
University of Constance, Germany
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Summary

Introduction: Narrative Tricksterism

There are times when I control who I'll be, and times when other people decide. I'm not all anything, but I'm a little bit of a lot. My roots spread in every direction, and if I water one set of them more often than others, it's because they need it more. […] “Caught between two worlds,” is the way it's often put in clichéd prose, but I'd put it differently. We are the catch.

Louise Erdrich/Michael Dorris, The Crown of Columbus

Like the two Canadian writers discussed in the previous chapters, Erdrich disrupts stereotypical representations of women and creates other potential life stories. However, Erdrich's approach as well as her narrative technique distinctly differ from the other texts. As a writer of mixed ancestry, part Chippewa and part German-American, Louise Erdrich writes from a vantage point in-between two cultures. In interviews, she has emphasized that both her German as well as her Native backgrounds have influenced her writing and kindled her need for storytelling. For Erdrich, storytelling is a tool for coming to terms with her mixed ethnic background: “One of the characteristics of being a mixed-blood is searching. You look back and say ‘Who am I from?’ You must question. You must make certain choices. You're able to. And it's a blessing and it's a curse. All of our searches involve trying to discover where we are from” (Bruchac 1987, 101).

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Narrative Deconstructions of Gender in Works by Audrey Thomas, Daphne Marlatt, and Louise Erdrich , pp. 107 - 153
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2003

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