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How are storytelling and/or Mythology used within ‘Tracks’
"Tracks draws on a variety of oral storytelling strategies, including the self conscious accommodation of cultural ‘outsiders’ in the audience, and thus converts the reader into ‘listener’" . The main themes within the novel ‘Tracks’ draw great emphasis on the use of stories and mythology. As Joni Adamson says again, "Tracks is a transformational text which cavorts in the margins and flirts with danger because it plays with different parts of traditional myths, pulls stories this way and that, and threatens to alter the shape of the oral tradition by bringing it into a new pattern" .
Within this essay I will examine these different uses of myths and storytelling within Louise Erdrich’s ‘Tracks’, and their roles within the novel. Such as, the importance of oral Native American culture and folklores, Erdrich’s own voice placed in the text with the use of Nanapush’s narrative, Indian myths concerning spirits, and other forms that mythology and storytelling within the novel.
Folklores and storytelling play a very important role in Native American culture. ... Storytelling to the Native American culture is seen as "" ceremonial literature serving to redirect private emotion and integrate the energy generated by emotions within a cosmic framework" . ... Within Louise Erdrich’s ‘Tracks’ both aspects of this explanations can be applied. ... On reading ‘Tracks’ one must be prepared for conflicts within the mind regarding truth and imagination. ... Erdrich brings into the novel her own tribe’s, the Chippewas of North Dakota, mythology of the afterlife. ... In ‘Tracks’ Louise Erdrich experiments with these different variations of storytelling by unfolding the plot with the use of dual perspectives, perhaps due to her view on herself as a "citizen of two nations…and her literary art has roots in both Euro American and Native American Traditions". ... Whereas Nanapush is also used for Erdrich’s own experimentation with "the dramatic monologue, where readers understand that more than one character is present although only one voice is heard". ...
Erdrich placed a great value in storytelling, perhaps because of her Chippewa background, and perhaps also her reason for placing the responsibility of accurate storytelling within Nanapush.
Approximate Word count = 1665
Approximate Pages = 6.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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