FREEDOM IN GENDER CATEGORIES IN TRACKS BY LOUISE ERDRICH

The article explores the problem of gender representation in the novel Tracks by Louise Erdrich. The topic is revealed through the gendering of the Anishinaabe people. The research focuses on the correlation of inner and outer gender roles in the text of the novel. The idea of some gender boundary id marked by various relations in the everyday activities of a man and a woman. The wrter marks those gender roles even at the level of the language as some erotic boundary between body and language.

In the history of the two characters, Nanapush and Pauline, one can observe overcoming gender boundaries at both material and spiritual levels.  Mother’s space that is metaphorically called upon by Nanapush, is simultaneously absent and present, that is a healing space, a revival of Lulu, for whom the novel Tracks was written. The words spoken by him and the sounds he articulated preserve some hidden gender aspect. Nanapush generalizes the Anishinaabe gender but not recreates it as a model. That interpretation envisages presupposed knowledge and mastering expressing it. Nanapush’s narrative includes a process of revising gender self-representation that at the same time opposes mainstream representation while Pauline presents the ‘white’ point of view on gender roles of the Native Americans.  

In the text by Erdrich, the ability to overcome gender boundaries exists alongside with the acception of the fact that in order to preserve the Anishinaabe culture certain gender roles may be needed. The bicultural experience that the Tracks characters have to accumulate is used by the writer as the concept of the gender boundary between the two worlds. In the text by Erdrich, gender oppositions dissolve and differences are more clearly revealed through using metaphors.