Ambivalence and Subaltern Voices: A Postcolonial Comparison of Michael Blake’s Dances with Wolves(1988) and Richard Wagamese’s Les étoiles s’éteignent à l’aube(2014)
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Date
2025
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Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
This research paper examines two novels, Blake’s Dances with Wolves(1988) and
Wagamese’s Les étoiles s’éteignent à l’aube(2014),originally Medicine Walk, translated in
2016 by Christine Raguet. The central focus of this work is to compare the two novels from
postcolonial perspectives through examining ambivalence and subalternity in both narratives.
To achieve this purpose, two postcolonial concepts, of the prominent postcolonial theorists
Homi K. Bhabha’s ambivalence and Gayatri Spivak’s subaltern voices, are used. To deepen
our research, we rely on related sub-concepts like Stereotypes, Mimicry, Hybridity, and the
representation of the Indians as subaltern. As a whole, the research aims at comparing a
white-authored novel that seeks to humanize the Indians while simultaneously maintaining the
stereotypes, with an Indian-authored novel that seeks the reconciliation with the past of the
Indians. The first chapter deals with Ambivalence of Stereotypes, Mimicry, and Hybridity. It
shows the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized and vice versa. The second
chapter seeks to discuss the subaltern voices and the representation of women and the white
man as savior. Throughout our investigation, we have found that the two authors evoke
similar images of colonial and postcolonial perspectives. Besides, both novels reflect the
ambivalence as an inevitable consequence of colonialism, and the complex relationship
between the Indians and the white men. They also reflect how the power structures operate to
silence the subaltern and make the colonized’s voice unheard and not understood.
Description
59p. ; (+CD-Rom)
Keywords
Subaltern, ambivalence, hybridity, mimicry, stereotypes
Citation
General and Comparative Literature