Strategies of Discourse: Native American Women Characters in Jackson's "Romona," Callahan's "Wynema," and Mourning Dove's "Cogewea"

Abstract

This article treats three novels that present Native American women title characters: Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, published in 1884; S. Alice Callahan's Wynema, a Childofthe Forest (1891); and Mourning Dove's Cogewea, the Half Blood (1927). Jackson is a White writer best known for her activism on behalf of Native peoples; nevertheless, she forges an identity for her lead character that is stereotypical and unrealistic as Ramona learns of her Indian heritage and suddenly becomes Indian in her values and speech. Callahan, a Muscogee Creek writer, creates a character who, however in tune with Muscogee ways in her youth, gradually transforms into a replica of her white, middle-class teacher. Both of these novels present characters who shift between two discreet ethnic identities. In contrast, Mourning Dove, an Okanogan writer, creates a character of both white and Indian heritage who refuses to compromise either identity and who becomes a multi-facted model of mixed blood subjectivity.