Native American Representation in New Moon: History Repeating Itself
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2021-06-30
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en
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This thesis focusses on how Native Americans are represented in Stephenie Meyer’s novel New Moon. In the past, Native Americans were thought of as animal-like and portrayed as savages. Their “Indianness” was used as a branding device and reduced to stereotypes. Despite critique on these stereotypical portrayals, New Moon adheres to them to represent its Native characters, as can be seen when applying discourse analysis. The legends of an actual tribe are appropriated to put Native Americans back into the role of the savage and the symbolic “Other”. Theories of “Othering” practices by Homi K. Bhabha and Stuart Hall illustrate that the contrast created between the “Other” and the “Self” reflects the notion of the “savage” versus the “civilized”. New Moon draws on stereotypes from the colonial era to reinforce the idea of the Native American as the “Other”, which keeps the hegemonic power structures of knowledge production in place.
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