The Native American dream in Sherman Alexie's short story “One Good Man”

• María Laura Arce Álvarez ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

     Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

     Madrid, España

     
• Localización: Cultura, lenguaje y representación = Culture, language and representation: revista de estudios culturales de la Universitat Jaume I = cultural studies journal of Universitat Jaume I, ISSN 1697-7750, Nº. 25, 2021, págs. 33-45
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.6035/clr.2021.25.2
• Títulos paralelos:
  • El Sueño Nativo Americano en el Cuento “One Good Man” de Sherman Alexie
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la idea de la identidad de los indios norteamericanos y el sueño nativo americano en el relato “One Good Man” del escritor Sherman Alexie. En esta historia, Alexie introduce la idea de la identidad indio norteamericana, pero construida por los blancos norteamericanos, e intenta a través de sus personajes redefinir este concepto deconstruyendo los distintos estereotipos creados por la sociedad norteamericana blanca. Para ello, también introduce la idea del sueño americano al que llama “el sueño nativo americano” con el fin de expresar la desigualdad social y la existencia desesperanzadora de la comunidad nativo americana, todo ello inmerso en un discurso irónico y cómico. En este sentido, Alexie propone una nueva definición de la identidad indio norteamericana volviendo a la cultura, la tradición y al espacio de la reserva. En su ficción, crea un espacio de contestación y resistencia dando lugar a una nueva voz para la identidad nativo americana.

  • English

    The purpose of this article is to discuss the idea of an Indian identity and the Native American Dream in Sherman Alexie’s short story “One Good Man.” In this story, Alexie introduces the idea of the Indian constructed by the White Americans and attempts through his characters to redefine that concept by deconstructing all the different stereotypes created by the White American society. In order to do this, he also introduces the idea of the American Dream that he calls the “Native American Dream” to express the social inequality and hopeless existence of the Indian community always immersed in an ironic and comic discourse. In this sense, Alexie proposes a new definition of the Indian identity looking back to culture, tradition and the space of the reservation. He creates in his fiction a space of contestation and resistance opening a new voice for the Native American identity.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Alexie, S. 1995. Reservation Blues. New York: Warner Books.
  • Alexie, S. 2000. The Toughest Indian in the World. New York: Grove Press.
  • Andersen, C. 2015. “Urban Landscapes of North America”. In Warrior (ed.), The World of Indigenous North America. New York: Taylor & Francis,...
  • Bataille, G. 2001. Native American Representations: First Encounters, Distorted Images, and Literary Appropiations. Lincoln: University of...
  • Belcher, W. 2007. “Conjuring the Colonizer: Alternative Readings of Magic Realism in Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues”. American Indian...
  • Bhabha, H. 1998. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.
  • Bloom, H. 2009. The American Dream. New York: Chelsea House.
  • Bruyneel, K. 2007. Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of U.SIndigenous Relations. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Churchill, W. 1997. A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present. San Francisco: City Light Books.
  • Cox, J. & Heath Justice, D. (eds.). 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Cullen, J. 2003. The American Dream. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Deloria, P. 1998. Playing Indian. New Heaven: Yale University Press.
  • Downes, M. 2009. “Love Medicine and the American Dream”. In H. Bloom (ed.), The American Dream. New York: Chelsea House.
  • Evans, Stephen F. 2010. “Sex/Gender Variability, Indianness and Intimacy in Sherman Alexie’s The Toughest Indian in the World”. In J. Berglund...
  • Goeman, M. 2014. “Disrupting a Settler-Colonial Grammar of Place: The Visual Memoir of Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie”. In A. Simpson & A. Smith...
  • Grassian, D. 2005. Understanding Sherman Alexie. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
  • McClinton-Temple, J. & Velie. A. (eds.). 2007. Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature. New York: Facts On File.
  • MacLeitch, G. 2006. Native Americans. A New Introduction to American Studies. In H. Temperley & C. Bigsby (eds.). Harlow: Pearson Longman.
  • Simpson A. & Smith A. (eds.). 2014. Theorizing Native Studies. Durham: Duke University Press, 98–122.
  • Temperley, Howard & Christopher Bigsby (eds).2006. A New Introduction to American Studies. Harlow: Pearson Longman.
  • Teuton Kicummah, S. 2014. “The Indigenous Novel”. In J. Cox & D. Heath Justice (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature....
  • Owens Louis. 2001. “As if an Indian Were Really an Indian: Native American Voices and Postcolonial Theory”. In G. Bataille (ed.), Native American...
  • Vizenor, G. 1995. Native American Literature. California: Longman.
  • Warrior, R. 2015. The World of Indigenous North America. New York: Taylor and Francis.