SHERMAN ALEXIE – TRICKSTER OF URBAN WILDERNESS

Abstract

This paper reads Sherman Alexie’s short stories included in the collection The Toughest Indian in the World (2000) as exemplary material of contemporary Native American trickster narrative. These narratives are regarded as trickster narratives not only for the fact that they contain frequent native trickster as one of their protagonists, but also because of their hybrid nature that embodies both traditional oral and postmodern narrative manoeuvres. Trickster, as a ubiquitous figure that introduces chaos and changes, is perceived as a creative force that transforms the world and survives thanks to his/her cunningness and an instinct to adjust to the changing times. In a postmodernist text, trickster is a powerful semiotic sign because, reflecting always the other side of life, tricksters most clearly accentuate the idea of the arbitrariness of culture. Blending genres, mastering exchange and blurring borders, trickster narrative succeeds in speaking to both the old and the new audience. Thus it helps deconstructing the dominant power structure, as well as an unending transformation of culture.