The Plague Of Doves Summary

Abstract: This study examines the interplay between history, memory and trauma in Native American literature, which thematizes Colonization. Louise Erdrich is among the descendants who write novels that highlight familial and generational issues of memory and trauma. The manner in which Erdrich present the effects of memory and trauma mirrors the way psychologist Judith Herman working in the field of memory and therapy describe transgenerational trauma. This paper highlights the descendants of colonialization draw attention to the potential of trauma to be transmitted to future generation and influence contemporary society. More importantly, Erdrich does not write novels to remind Native Americans of their historical legacy, but rather point to the continuing presence of the past in American society. Louise Erdrich critically examine the consequences of trauma and thematize the family’s influential role in identity formation in her novels Tracks(1988) and The Plague of Doves(2008) .The paper presents the pattern of idea of how transgenerational trauma haunts the characters and leads them on to the way of isolation. The novels reveal …show more content…
In fact, the history of colonization and the racial oppressive conditions cannot be separated from the identity of those oppressed. Erdrich does not just write about the survival of the Chippewa community, but also their process of survival from the past as one of the major themes in her novels. Other themes relate to one of the necessity or the yearning to belong to their own kinfolk, and the desire to return to their own roots, the struggle for their survival, their political dispossession, their personal deprivation etc. Erdrich’s novels provide a medium for the deprived to re-vision and to re-present familiar Native American