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This study of D'Arcy McNickle (1904-1977) focuses primarily on his literary work: his two novels, The Surrounded (1936) and Wind from an Enemy Sky (1978), the manuscript versions of the two novels, and his short fiction. McNickle regarded fiction as a vehicle to explore his own identity as an American Indian. Of mixed French-Cree-American ancestry McNickle grew up on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana. Cut off from the Reservation and its traditions by a rather unhappy childhood, he struggled throughout his life to reestablish the severed bonds to his roots. In addition to this personal involvement in his fiction, McNickle also considered fiction a proper medium for writing tribal history, one that could include such diverse materials as oral tradition, literature, history, anthropology, etc. The first three chapters of the dissertation provide some background information on the Flathead tribal history, as well as the problems and prejudices McNickle encountered while growing up as a "breed," which led to a rejection of his American Indian heritage. This section ends with a consideration of his pivotal years in New York City when he started to rethink his earlier experiences and took the first step on his journey back to his tribal roots. The middle section, chapter four, gives a brief summary of McNickle's activities during the years he was involved with federal Indian policy. Even though McNickle did not work on any new fiction during those years, he continued his journey in a more detached way through non-fiction and biography. The last two chapters of the dissertation, the final stage of his journey, analyzes McNickle's disassociation from the abstract policies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and how he turned to fiction once more in order to complete the painful but successful journey back to his tribal roots.

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Because of woman's peculiar relationship to language, and therefore to the means of comprehending and expressing her experience, female autobiographical writing is a problematic undertaking. An exploration of several premises about Western culture can help to illuminate the difficulties the female autobiographer encounters in creating her life/text. Among these premises are the following: (1) that the culture that provides the context for female experience is what feminist theorists call "patriarchal," that is, a culture dependent upon and reinforced by the supremacy of male interests, pursuits, and values. (2) that the habit of mind of this culture is essentially dichotomous, and that this bifurcation, although it serves very well to enable one person or group to gain power over another, fails to account for the sense of relatedness characteristic of female moral development as demonstrated by recent feminist psychologists. (3) that one lives through telling oneself the story of one's life (that is, that living itself is an essentially autobiographical act); that this narrative conforms to certain cultural conventions; and that these conventions present distinct problems to the narrator who is female. (4) that the human being constructs its self through language, and that the language of a patriarchal culture is problematic to female authenticity. In order to confront these theoretical problems in practice, twelve essays explore some experiences of a middle-aged, middle-class white American woman in the second half of the twentieth century. These include illness, both physical (multiple sclerosis) and emotional (depression, agoraphobia); suicide; relationships with men, strangers, and cats; motherhood; and above all, writing. They form a feminist project whose purpose is so to merge theory with praxis, nonfiction with fiction and poetry, scholarship with creation, that such distinctions become meaningless and the female writer can get on with the real business of making and contemplating her text. An annotated selected bibliography lists works in feminist theory and criticism, some of which inform the essays, thus providing a program for extensive feminist study, especially in literature, anthropology, and psychology.

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"But what of those who are just coming into the foreground, just now in the view of the public's eye? Should not their work be organized and presented in some usable and available form, so that one may more readily and more clearly see their development and growth as literary figures. The writer of this paper is attempting to present one young poet in this manner, trying in a cursory way to trace his development from a student-poet to a mature poet of full literary standing, and endeavoring in as complete a manner as possible to bring together an annotated listing of all his published works in such a way as to show his subjects, the forms of expression and the themes that he employs in his writings. The paper itself is not meant to be a conclusive study of the man and his works, but instead is meant to be a beginning guide for those who someday will want to make such a study"--Introduction. / Carbon copy of typescript. / "August, 1952." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Robert G. Clapp, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).