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Abstract

Opposing historical artifacts and revealing silences or gaps pertinent to the representation of history involves audacious steps of re-textualizing literary discourses. Postmodernism as a literary discourse imbibes foregrounding of the crisis in construction and representation of knowledge, history and cultural identities. Since the representation of knowledge or history has ever been from a dominant perspective, postmodernism takes the oppositional stance to deconstruct its domination and victimization if not altogether denunciation of the validity of the history. This study explores postmodernism and its application to Native-American Literature in general and Gerald Vizenor in particular. Native-American Literature, though, considered as the youngest offspring of literature in American literary history, has a distinctive literary tradition. Like any other minority literature in America, Native American literature has been marginalized and stereotyped on account of nationalism, tribal stories and traditional narratives. The voice of American Indian literary artists has long been silenced but in the wake of postmodernism it has emerged on the literary canvas. Postmodern Native American writers challenge the Euro-American perspective of history and stereotypical representations of Indians in the repertoire of white American grand narratives. Deconstruction of pervasive history and tribal identity is one of the fundamental characteristics of the Native writers; they are attempting to subvert the history told from the dominant white perspective and trying to reformulate it from their own perspective