Re-aproppriation of Native American Identity and History in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This study addresses the relationship between literature and the Native American identity in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller (1981) and her attempt to re-appropriate native identity and history. The selected book blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional and Western literary genres, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation, power, and identity; she communicates Native American notions regarding time, nature, and spirituality; and explores how stories and storytelling shape people and communities. Storyteller illustrates how one can frame collective cultural identity in contemporary literary forms, as well as illuminates the importance of myth, oral tradition, and ritual in Silko’s own work. In this multidisciplinary endeavor, we are interested in exhibiting the evils of the white world and the syndromes of hybridity that plagued and troubled the Natives’ life.