| Popis: |
This bachelor thesis analyses the themes of memory and storytelling in the work of the American Indian poet Joy Harjo and argues that memory and storytelling are portrayed as indispensable means of survival and perseverance. A great emphasis is put on the detrimental effect of losing connection to one's culture as it jeopardizes the prospect of preserving one's life and culture. A renewed link promises the hope of survival and provides a way of overcoming the negative consequences of the past, of affirming one's identity and of persevering. The importance of memory as well as the crucial role of storytelling in ensuring the continuation of one's culture and people are examined in poems from the 1980s and 1990s poetry collections She Had Some Horses (1983), In Mad Love and War (1990), The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994), and A Map to the Next World (2000). Memory and storytelling are introduced as key concepts in Harjo's poetry. Harjo's Creek (or Muskogee) heritage and her experience as an indigenous person in the United States influence her artistic relationship to memory. Memory includes ancestral knowledge and oral tradition; remembering becomes a way of reconnecting, of ensuring the continuance of the indigenous peoples and their cultures. Storytelling is examined as an essential traditional... |
