Simulation and Modulation: Emotional Narrative in Louise Erdrich’s The Round House

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

1 Ph.D. Candidate of English Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: The present study examines Louise Erdrich's novel The Round House in the light of Patrick Colm Hogan’s affect notions of narrative concerning the emotional experiences of the subjects. This paper attempts to trace the concepts of affect, emotional narrative, eliciting conditions, simulation, modulation and rationalization of emotion in Erdrich’s novel in order to explore how emotions are simulated, modulated and rationalized in the narrative, particularly, in what affects the narrative and the subjects in fiction. The present paper, specifically, demonstrates how Erdrich’s mentioned novel acts as an example for the affect study and narrative of emotion that vocalizes the suffering and violence against the women in the Native American population of the Ojibwa, and consequently the whole population, the ones which have not been divulged due to social and ontological factors. Erdrich's novel is an attempt to narrate the painful experiences of women, which of course embraces men and the entire population and history of the Indians.
Background of Study: Louise Erdrich’s fiction explicitly articulates conceptions that highlight the contemporary Native Americans’, specifically Ojibwas’, concerns primarily with the themes of history, land, love and hate, violence, injustice and survival. They illustrate the impacts of a devastating experience that disturbs the subject’s self and identity, a traumatic experience that has the capacity to remain overwhelmingly present. Her narrators range from the single to the multi-ones, reflecting the past through the present experiences and the affect on the subjects and their emotional concerns and obsessions. In order to survive, the subjects either surrender their emotions or endeavor to maintain their positions or ignore their emotions and flee their history, land and geography and real selves. The emotional narrative of events, such as the rape of the mother of the Indian family, along with the parallel elaborations of the violence against three other women in the community, is central in RH. The spirit and emotion of the Ojibwa are blended in her work, seeking the desire to alter the situation for the better.
Methodology: This study examines the ontological and epistemological paradigms in the life and history of Native Americans that have been silenced or rarely addressed due to social and ontological factors. The study thus investigates the ontological and epistemological paradigms in Native American life and history experienced by Ojibwa survivors. In addition, it argues how emotionalogy works for the minority subjects and how the notion of affect in terms of Hogan’s theory is traceable in Erdrich’s novel. In The Round House, the affected women and survivors are haunted with the emotional memory vocalized by the single adult narrator to reflect the past trauma in order to bring great changes for the women as well as the whole nation. Erdrich’s goal is to gain ontological and epistemological rights to the Native American community. The purpose of the present study is to read the impact of Hogan's emotion and emotion on Erdrich’s attempt to obtain ontological and epistemological improvements for Native American society.
Conclusion: Erdrich initially as a Native women and subsequently as an Indian author goes through a battle for portrayal of the women condition in the reservation. Such battle is Erdrich’s style of modulation for relieve the painful emotions elicited not only in the women spirit and body but the whole generation. Erdrich’s fiction is her tool to gain modulation in the present collective and improve the life condition for the next generation, the modulation that fosters the ontological and epistemological emotions and values.

Keywords

References

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Critical Language and Literary studies
Volume 19, Issue 29
March 2023
Pages 67-91

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