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      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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      • HARVEST
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      Iskwekwak--Kah' Ki Yaw Ni Wahkomakanak : neither Indian princesses nor squaw drudges

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      Date
      1992-09-01
      Author
      Acoose, Janice
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      This thesis works towards deconstructing stereotypical images of Indigenous women that frequent the pages of popular literature. It calls attention to the ideological foundation of Euro-Canadian literature, which is informed by a White-christian-patriarchy. That literature, as an institution of the Euro-Canadian nation, propagates images of Indigenous women as Indian princesses, squaw drudges, suffering helpless victims, tawny temptresses, and loose squaws. Consequently, Euro-Canadian literature imprisons us in images that foster both racist and sexist stereotypes and that encourage violence against us. Margaret Laurence's short story "The Loons" and William Patrick Kinsella's "Linda Star" provide illuminating examples of some of those images. While these writers do not represent all non-Indigenous people who write about Indigenous women, both of these writers are extremely popular Canadian writers whose stories are often read in elementary schools, high schools, and universities. At the centre of this thesis is Maria Campbell's semi-autobiographical Halfbreed. Campbell's Halfbreed significantly challenges Euro-Canadian literature's White-christian-patriarchal ideology by contextualizing the narrative in an Indigenous-gynocratic ideology. Her book destabilized White-Euro-Canadian liberals' complacency when, as an indigenous woman, Campbell named Euro-Canadians oppressors and identified Euro-Canadian power structures that illegally, unjustly, and intolerably imposed on her people's way of life. This thesis concludes that Campbell's Halfbreed encouraged many Indigenous people to appropriate the White-Euro-Canadian colonizer's English language to write ourselves out of oppression by re-claiming our self--which is ideologically rooted in autochthonous and gynocratic cultures.
      Degree
      Master of Arts (M.A.)
      Department
      English
      Program
      English
      Supervisor
      Gingell, Susan
      Copyright Date
      September 1992
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-11072006-113931
      Subject
      indigenous women
      native peoples in popular literature
      stereotypes
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      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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