THE CLASH BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: PAST, TRADITION, MYTHS VS. PRESENT, MODERNITY, HOPES
THE CLASH BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: PAST, TRADITION, MYTHS VS. PRESENT, MODERNITY, HOPES

Summary/Abstract: The present paper highlights the clash between two different worlds and cultures presented by Louise Erdrich in ‘The Antilope Wife’. Rooted in the Native American myth, the novel is set in contemporary Minneapolis. The plot shifts between the Civil War time and the late 1990s as well as between tradition and modernity or between myths and reality. ‘The Antilope Wife’ is an amazing family saga, an excellent portrait of three generations of a Native American family, and at the same time, a mysterious and breathtaking network of traditions, myths, loss and longing. This particular split between communities, languages and identities is best illustrated by the Ojibwa word ‘daashkikaa’, that is ‘splitting apart’, which turns into a traditional concept of paramount importance in the novel. Thus, the double world split into two, torn between past and present, is very well represented by Erdrich’s characters. The two protagonists, Rozin and Richard, seem to have bridged the gap between two worlds: that of Native American traditions and beliefs versus the seemingly ordered and more logical world of Minneapolis. Nevertheless, a strange event breaks the fragile balance between the two poles, and forces them to confront, and eventually accept their past as an inextricable part of themselves. In the process, the characters are hurt and wounded, suffer painful losses or even lose their lives. ‘The Antilope Wife’ can be perceived as a myth of the rebirth of the Native American culture and the revitalization of the Ojibwa cultural group.

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