셔만 알렉시(Sherman Alexie)의 『탈주』(Flight): 아메리카 인디언주의에 대한 재해석

Abstract

This thesis deals with Sherman Alexie's Flight from the perspective of reconstructing the conception of American Indianness. "Call me Zits" thus begins the novel, ending with "call me Michael." Why does an Indian protagonist identify himself as Zits at the beginning, and re-identify himself as Michael at the end? The transformation from Zits into Michael implies more than the change of name. Superficially, by Zits the protagonist means that he has lived with low self-esteem as an Indian orphan, while by Michael he means that he is eager to live a life of an ordinary American. A deeper reading, however, reveals that the protagonist makes as many experiments as possible in order to situate himself on most appropriate cultural agenda. That attempt ranges from Little Bighorn battlefield in 1876 to a foster home in 2007 including other historical episodes like FBI-IRON (Indian activists) conflict in Red River in 1975, a jet clash terror by a Muslim in modern era, and Ghost Dance in the 1870s. After such a diverse adventure by crossing cultural borders freely, the protagonist Zitz (named after the acnes on his body) is satisfied to find his new identity of Michael. The Michael in the novel, however, differs from a lot of Michaels in American society. The Michael Alexie tries to impose on Zits is a culturally amalgamated archetype composed of American individualism and modernized American Indianness.