WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
okay, i'm done now :P so I thought i'd be nice and post my last essay ever along with some pics... I know that Spokane writer/director/poet/awesome guy Sherman Alexie is kinda a big deal so maybe he'll happen upon my essay by accident and who knows what could happen! *thinks about it* hmm.. maybe he'll post a comment! or maybe he'll sue me for putting words in his mouth... Naw it'll be fine!! Anyway, I'm going to post it just as I submitted it to my prof.. Ι warn you now, there are some typographical errors, a 3 in the middle of a word somewhere and a few repeat words or missing words but hey, if you even read it through that far then message me to send you an edited copy cuz you'd deserve it!! So don't judge me and just enjoy.. ;)
Womanhood,
Women and Female Gender Identity in Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians
In the short
story “The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above” from one of his more recent works,
Ten Little Indians, specific
attention is paid to the representation and presentation of the modern Native
woman, female-ness, womanhood and understanding of feminine gender identity. Estelle is presented to Alexie’s readers
through her son’s descriptions and documenting, and she allows us [the Canadian
university student] an understanding of who the “new” Native woman is in modern
[non-rez] society. The young Native
college student Corliss from “Search Engine”
also provides examples for another type of portrayal of “new Native
womanhood” which Alexie is presenting to his readers in comparison and in contrast
to Estelle and to Sherman Alexie’s different understandings of “woman”. To support my argument I will be discussing the
following terms: womanhood, gender-identity, racial and gender stereotyping,
the “gaze” and the “other”/ “exotic” which I will define using the following
three cultural studies texts: Edgar and Sedgwick’s Cultural Theory The Key Concepts, O’Brien and Szeman’s Popular Culture A User’s Guide and
Sturken and Cartwright’s Practices of
Looking: an introduction to visual culture.
This essay will both consider and answer the following questions: How
does Alexie present the women who are both traditional and modern and how does
he define these two understandings of woman in his works? Furthermore, in understanding that Alexie
gives his readers the “life and times” of Estelle through a male gaze and
voice, it is important to consider whether or not he is continuing to fuel the
patriarchal system and history of colonialism that has and continues to place Native
women on the margins. Also, taking into
consideration that the Spokane tribe, of which Alexie is a part, holds a
Matriarchal social system, how might a female reader interpret the constant
portrayal of women through “men’s eyes” or through the masculine perspective?
Also, what is the effect of providing women and men as binary opposites, for
Alexie; how might this be viewed as problematic for the reader? This essay seeks therefore, to discuss Native
women and female gender identity in Sherman Alexie’s works.
Estelle Walks Above is described to
the reader through her son and in relation to their connection as mother and
son. In the first 2 pages of this short
story, the son recounts that Estelle “was super smart […] born smart on the
Spokane Indian Reservation and studied her way into the University of
Washington during a time when she was pretty much the only Indian on campus”
(Alexie 126). He establishes that his
mother was “heroic” and self-sufficient; “she did it all by herself, with one
hand holding a textbook and the other hand holding a squealing baby to her
breast” (126). In these few sentences,
Alexie has provided an understanding of who the woman Estelle is both in
society and the home, and in the eyes of her son. Slowly, Sherman Alexie works to create an
identity for Estelle through her Son’s perspective which gives his readers an
understanding of the Native woman off of the reservation. It is important therefore to discuss the work
that Alexie is doing to provide us with an understanding of Native women, their
identity and issues surrounding Western gender norms. As such, it is relevant to discuss the
following definition of “gender” in Cultural
Theory Key Concepts:
“the concept of ‘gender’ is placed
in opposition to the concept of ‘sex’ [female/male] and […] may be taken therefore to refer to learned patterns of
behaviour and action, as opposed to
that which is biologically determined.
[Therefore] the precise ways in which women
express their femininity and men express their masculinity varies from culture
to culture. Thus, qualities that are
stereotypically attributed to women and men in contemporary
Western culture (such as greater emotional expression in women; greater tendencies to violence and aggression in
men) are seen as gender.” (Edgar and Sedgwick 139)
Through
this working definition, the reader will be able to understand that Alexie is
pushing for construction of femininity or female gender norms in Estelle to be
beyond or counter to traditional norms which include: passivity, a connection
to nature, sensibility and subjective positions of power (Edgar and Sedgwick
103). Rather, through the son, Alexie
gives us Estelle’s counter-normative gender identity wherein he refers to her
as “fierce and protective, open and permissive” (130). Through this idea of womanhood or assertive
female identity, Alexie is showing his readers that even the most historically
and colonially marginalized subject- the Native woman- can embody a sense of
self and power which places her [perhaps] above white and Native identity
altogether but places her “above”.
Along with Estelle, Alexie gives his
readers the story “Search Engine” in which he presents the character Corliss
and through her a sense of another type of womanhood- the Native female college
student. Through her, Alexie is able to
another Native woman succeed against the baggage she is forced to carry as
smart, Native, and a women. In Estelle’s
short story, the son cites that “it’s tough to be a smart girl anywhere but
it’s way tough on the rez” and like Estelle, Corliss too must face this issue
which unfortunately leads of her off of the reservation (Alexie 126). In the
short story, Corliss describes herself as “a poor kid, and a middle-class
Indian, […] destined for a minimum-wage life […] but she wanted a maximum life,
an original aboriginal life, so she had fought her way out of her underfunded
public high school into an underfunded public college” (Alexie 5). Through her, the university student reader finds
that Alexie is promoting strength, intelligence and self propelled work skills
in 21st century womanhood for young Native women in the US and
allowing a more positive perspective of women for themselves and the
future. At the same time however, Alexie
reminds his readers of the challenging colonial- therefore racial and
stereotypical- history that Native women are still subjected to with the young
man in the coffee shop. His perspective
of Corliss is displayed purposefully and works to circulate the idea of
“exoticism” and “sexualized other” that is involved with the territory of the
historical colonial subjectivity of Native women in regards to white/ European
men.
To continue in this direction, it is
important to consider [briefly] the definitions of the following terms:
“colonialism”, “the gaze”, “exoticism” and “other”. The term “Colonialism” as Edgar
and Sedgwick provide, comes to exclusively signify “the forcible invasion,
occupation and administration of non-Western cultures and nations by European
and North American forces” (50).
Furthermore, O’Brien and Szeman cite that “Colonialism was not just an
economic and political undertaking in which European nations compete3d for
dominance through the exploitation and settlement of overseas colonies [but]
was also a cultural project, in which these nations sought to extend […] the
concept of civilization” (239). As a
result, the “colonial vision of universality” failed its intended purpose due
to the increasing popularity of “live performances by colonials […] poetry
readings by Aboriginal Canadian Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) [and] sideshow
displays of nude or partially clothed African women [ie.] Saarti Bartman
(nicknamed “Hottentot Venus”), [functioning] to some extent as performances of
stereotypical otherness, the colonials offering audiences ‘primitive’ (savage
and/or innocent) reflections of their ‘civilized’ European selves (O’Brien and
Szeman 239). In relation, colonial
discourse in its production of knowledge and ways of talking about “the other”
has secured the identity of the imperial “self” (O’Brien and Szeman 240). Therefore, there is a differentiation of
non-western cultures and peoples from Western and/or European people which then
renders them as “other”. This
understanding led Western culture into an obsession with “otherness”, creating
an eroticisation of that which is deemed “other”, labelling it as “exotic”. Sturken and Cartwright provide an
understanding of this obsession with “the other” by looking at Laura Mulvey’s
concept of “the gaze”; “the act of looking is commonly thought as awarding more
power to the person who is looking than to the person who is the object of the
look [thus] representing codes of dominance and subjugation, difference and
otherness” (100). Laura Mulvey explains
that “the activity of looking, it its contradictory narcissistic and
voyeuristic aspects, is coded male, while woman, connoting ‘to-be-looked-at-ness,’ is consigned to the role of object of the
gaze” (O’Brien and Szeman 91). Through
the understanding of these concepts, we can see the importance of “Search
Engine” character Corliss as a model for a type of “new Native womanhood”. Alexie gives his reader Corliss as she is
seen by the white male “gaze” or viewpoint which works to address her in
racialized sexualized language thus objectifying her: “he
studied her. She was very short, a few inches under five feet, maybe thirty
pounds overweight,
and plain-featured. But her skin was clear and dark brown (like good coffee!), and her long black hair hung down
past her waist. And she wore red cowboy boots,
and her breasts were large, and she knew about Auden, and she was confident enough to approach strangers, so
maybe her beauty was eccentric, even exotic. And exoticism was hard to find in Pullman, Washington”. (4)
Although
he attributes Corliss as the younger more assertive and self-sufficient [though
identity crisis-ed] Native woman, Ten
Little Indians has characters embracing their stereotypes to gain power
from fulfilling social and cultural expectations. Corliss embraces her Native identity, using
her “otherness” or “exotic identity” as a means to both shield and reveal
herself in the light of society. She is
therefore placed both in comparison and contrast to Estelle in Alexie’s hunt
for defining or redefining “Native womanhood”.
Alexie provides the important
understanding of “new Native womanhood” through Estelle Walks Above when the
character decides to become a “progressive and whole woman” (131). Though her son admits to supporting her
decision, he reflects that it would have been less challenging for him as “a
reflexive and cracked teenage boy […] if Estelle had pursued her wholeness by
herself” (131). This mother and son are
made, by Alexie, to become best friends but that places their relationship as
uncommon in Western society. Their
ability to have open discussions about sex and sexuality only works to promote
what I feel Alexie is aiming for, the concept of a “progressive and whole”
womanhood; “the whole woman embraces and celebrates her sexuality” (132). While this is a positive image for Alexie to
send to both his female and male readers, it is necessary to understand that
life, in relation to sexuality has been problematic for Native women since
Colonization. In her book entitled Conquest: Sexual Violence and American
Indian Genocide, author Andrea Smith provides the direct reality that Native
women in the US face daily in regards to a dysfunctional Western patriarchal
social system. Judith K. Witherow, in
her review of Smith’s book provides that the book highlights “truths which are
related to the subject of “conquest”, to the process of deconstructive peoples,
and deconstructing Native women to be of less stature and value then others” (Witherow
47). Furthermore, Witherow cites that “as
a Native woman, you can always count on someone ‘little ladying’ you, or
treating you like a novelty [therefore] there is no way to build a real
movement for justice and peace, whether between people, or between peoples and
the land, without challenging the violence of historical and contemporary
colonialism” (47). Andrea Smith writes
about “sexual violence as a tool for genocide, boarding school abuse, rape of
the land, the colonization of Native women’s reproductive health, medical
experimentation, spiritual appropriation as sexual violence, and anti-colonial responses
to gender violence which will fill in the gaps omitted in other works”
(Witherow 49). Judith Witherow therefore
presents the argument that, through Smith, all has not be forgotten or altered
as of yet for Native women and sexuality, and so perhaps it is incorrect to
simply read Estelle and think that Alexie is showing readers a current state or
type of women who is positively enabled and not hindered in her sexuality or
status as a woman within society.
In “The Life and Times of Estelle
Walks Above”, an important moment occurs for both Alexie and the reader when
the son describes his mother physically and then admits that his mother’s
importance or relevance to society is attributed to living in the city. Therein, he maintains that women on the
reservation are unable to do what his mother has done in transforming herself
into a “progressive and whole woman” (Alexie 131-133). It can be viewed that Alexie is therefore
providing a critic of life both on and off the “rez” and the space for women to
change themselves in both societies. The
son tells the readers that “if we lived on the reservation, we’d be only two
more Indians […] but we lived in the city, so naturally, we had a lot of white
friends” and this allows his mother to spend time with white women who “as
women, they’d been ‘saved’ by other women, and now they were preaching and
witnessing: ‘Hear me road, I am woman!’”(Alexie 133-134). Here, Alexie reminds his readers of the
importance of solidarity between women that goes beyond racial markers but maintains
the traits of cultural stereotyping and “othering” that occurs there as
well. Estelle changes her real last name
from Miller to Walks Above because, as her son states, “my mother’s whole white
friends loved how Indian we were, and my mother became more Indian in their
presence” (Alexie 135). Through Estelle,
Alexie provides an understanding of how life is or could be for a Native woman
in the city versus “on the rez, [where] she was that smart and strange girl who
was always preparing to leave, and was loved by many and respected by most, but
[who] became a wise woman in the presence of her white friends” (136). Estelle’s relationship with her “white
disciples” becomes problematized by the pain and memory of the colonised history,
the violence and abuse of her people and ethnocentric eroticisation of Native
people by modern way white people (Alexie 136).
The son recounts that “despite my mother’s sarcasm and racism, most of
her friends are liberal white women! And most of my friends are liberal white
men! My mother I are the hostages of colonial contradictions” (140). Alexie reminds his readers that the Native
womanhood of Estelle, much like that of Corliss, places her in a strangely
dislocated space in literature, society and culture; she has no choice but to
transcend the stereotype by accepting or embracing it, and must carry her
painful history as cumbersome baggage on her back while holding the hands of
the future but Walk[ing] Above the Native and the Western identity, culture and
life.
Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians allows him the space
in which to work through the challenges of Native womanhood and female
identity. He allows the following depictions
of Native womanhood: the younger generation’s college Native woman, struggling
with identity and cultural/social conflicts in Corliss along with Agnus from The Business of Fancy Dancing and Marie
Polatkin in Indian Killer. Through them Alexie is working to develop his
own feelings in relation to the “modern educated Native woman”, while
comparatively and in contrast to the type of womanhood that he gives within
Estelle Walks Above. While he is aware
of the double marginality of Native women in society, he works to give them a
voice as much as possible through “romantic” “dreamer”, hopefully figures of
the mother, the college student and the
traditional grandmother, moving away from the “romantic victim” but rather
showing how one should handle one’s self in [a] community (whichever that may
be). As previously discussed in relation
to Corliss, the female characters throughout Ten Little Indians embrace their stereotypes and gain power from
fulfilling the expectations placed on them culturally. As a result however, Alexie pushes the reader
back towards exoticism and remembers the woman as the [or an] object for
exoticisation and colonisation with the women depicted as mothers, poor,
marginalized, as housewives and as sexual beings, healers and teachers. Sherman Alexie works to break the stereotypes
and have his female characters be like anyone and everyone else, and to fit
them into the general category, away from the sole category of “Indian”.
Works
Cited
Alexie,
Sherman. Ten Little Indians. New
York, NY: Grove Press. 2003. Print.
Edgar,
Andrew and Peter Sedgwick. Cultural
Theory The Key Concepts. New York, NY:
Routledge. 2008. Print.
O’Brien,
Susie and Imre Szeman. Popular Culture A
User’s Guide. Toronto, ON: Nelson. 2010
Print.
Sturken, Marita and Lisa
Cartwright. Practices of Looking an
introduction to Visual Culture.
NewYork US: Oxford UP. 2003. Print.
Witherow, Judith K. Review:
“Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide” by
Andrea Smith. Off Our Backs. 35.11/12 (2005) : 46-49. JSTOR. Web. 7 April 2012.
Thanks again Sherman Alexie... you're the greatest! <3
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