Abstract
Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes and Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit and Solar Storms forge a new borderland in literature, a fluid world where Native American traditions and Native American spirituality resonate, dynamically responding to the world in which the characters live. The borderland of these novels calls into question white culture’s perception of nature, society, economics and history. Silko’s and Hogan’s works clearly express the necessity to blur boundaries, which are diametrically opposed to the American Indian view of the Earth as a living entity with a spirit, and the necessity to create a pull toward a new society. Yet this society is neither an assimilation to white culture nor a return to traditional tribalism. It is a vision for a new world, undefinable by the structures that bind Anglo-American ideas and philosophy. This vision commands dissolution of the current economic and class system, sensitivity to and responsibility for the environment, and a respect for basic human rights. The vision encompasses an awareness of individual spirituality, a connection to community and an acknowledgement of the divinity of all life. Ecofeminist philosophy, the pull toward a union with the earth and equality for all living beings, unifies these novels and forms a basis for analyzing them in a literary and social context.
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