On American Indian Spiritual State in Glancy’s Plays

○ Xu Guoting

(Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, 221116)



On American Indian Spiritual State in Glancy’s Plays

○ Xu Guoting

(JiangsuNormalUniversity,Xuzhou,Jiangsu, 221116)

As a representative figure of American Indian theatre, Diane Glancy’s works are innovative and valuable. She focuses on revealing various conflicts in American Indian tribes, exposing many problems torturing contemporary American Indians, leaving the audience to face contemporary American Indians’ plight.

Diane Glancy,WarCries:PlaysbyDianeGlancy, spiritual state

I. Introduction

Diane Glancy (1941-) is not only a poet, novelist, literary theorist, but also a prolific playwright. In 1997, Glancy published her first collection of plays:WarCries:PlaysbyDianeGlancy. As a representative figure of American Indian theatre, her works are innovative and valuable. Through her innovative writing, Glancy leaves the audience to face contemporary American Indians’ plight and to consider ways to get rid of this predicament. The mixed-blood American Indians are soaked in white culture and are cut off from American Indian traditional culture. Sweet Potato inWeebjob, Eli inStickHorse, Segwohi inSegwohiand Jess inTheBestFancyDancerthePushmatahaPowWow’sEverSeenall suffer from the two cultures’ conflicts: they live in two different cultures and don’t know what to do. They are portrayals of mixed-blood contemporary American Indians.

Ⅱ. Alcoholism: a way to escape from the bitter life

Alcohol is introduced to American Indians with the invasion of the white culture. Some American Indians are bitter and powerless in the dominant white society, so they choose to drink

alcohol. Eli inStickHorseis a representative of American Indian alcoholics; although he is dying due to alcoholism, he still drinks because if he is awake or has the sense, he feels bitter. For mixed-blood American Indians, alcohol is the physical aggression and the poison of the spirit, causing them to fall into a bottomless abyss. Glancy shows the danger of alcohol directly to the audience. At the beginning, Glancy plans to let Eli be recovered (142). But later she changes her decision because “one of the actors, a Dakota, who played Jake in ‘Stick Horse’ when it was presented by the Borderlands Theater in Tucson, said Eli had gone too far” (142). So, at last, Eli was rolled away by the spirit-dancers.

Ⅲ. Self-cheating: a way to escape from the changed

reality

In addition to alcoholism, American Indians also struggle in the changed reality. Although the world has changed, the older American Indians refuse to face it, choosing to live in their old ways. Actually, they have been influenced by the white culture; they deny it, insisting that they stick to traditional American

Indian culture. Therefore, it can be said that the older generation has struggled in their inner mind.

The title character Weebjob inWeebjobis a pious Apache, 48 years old, very stubborn; he lives in his own world, sitting in his squash patch doing the “meditation”. He is not willing to face the changed reality. But he has been affected by the white culture because he usually writes sentences from theBibleto make signs, hanging them on his squash-patch fence.

Ⅳ. Trying to Live as the White: just for living

Sweet Potato is the daughter of Weebjob. She has a mind of her own. She is unhappy with her life because she doesn’t know where she belongs. She complains to her mother that she does not do a good job in school as her eldest brother William and isn’t lucky to get an opportunity in hunting a job as her another brother James. She feels bitter: “I’ve looked and seen things I’ve wanted, but I could never have them. There’s never been any place for me, Mother. I don’t want to go to school.” (56). Sweet Potato just tries to live on in the white world. She lives hardly.

Unlike the playwrights in American Indian Renaissance who highly praise and promote traditional American Indian culture, Diane Glancy presents contemporary American Indians’ cultural dilemma truthfully inWarCries. She captures that contemporary American Indians, surviving between American Indian traditions and the dominant White culture, are full of pain in this cultural crevice and in looking for their identity. With these cries, she lays out the real living situations of American Indians nowadays and forces American Indians to face the cruel reality.

[1]Glancy, Diane. 1997. War Cries: Plays by Diane Glancy[M].Minnesota: Holy Cow! Press.

本文系江苏师范大学研究生科研创新计划重点项目(2013YZD003)的阶段性成果。

徐国婷，江苏师范大学外国语学院硕士研究生。

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印第安裔剧作家格兰丝戏剧作品中印第安人精神生存状态初探

徐国婷

(江苏师范大学 外国语学院，江苏 徐州 221116)

作为当代印第安戏剧的代表人物之一，格兰丝的戏剧作品值得被研究。本文通过对印第安女作家格兰丝在她的戏剧集《战争的哭喊》中所表现的印第安人的精神挣扎状态做深入研究，梳理出此剧作家在这本戏剧集中所刻画的当代印第安人的几种生存类型。通过揭示印第安部落中的精神困境，格兰丝的作品迫使大众去面对当代混血印第安人这一窘境。

戴安娜·格兰丝； 战争的哭喊：格兰丝戏剧集； 精神生存状态