Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-294). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1997. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-78).

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This research examines the relationship between the attitudes of fictional writers and those of society toward American Indians from colonial America to the present. A content analysis was used to validate the hypothesis. In order to show changing attitudes and different schools of thought, this research was arranged into four time periods: "The Ethnocentric Conquerors," "The Ethnocentric Romantics," "The Ethnocentric Acculturationists," and "The Revisionists." The findings demonstrate that there is a close correlation between the attitudes of fictional authors and those of society during a given time period,

The "demise" of Native American cultures and the possibility of their "renascence" is the subject of the literary work analyzed in this thesis. The German popular novelist Karl May (1842-1912) aspired to write the epic drama of the American Indians. Using randomly selected anthropological and linguistic information, he described particularly Apache and Comanche Indian cultures with regard to leadership, warfare, women, and intermarriage. May viewed the Indians' assimilation as necessary and arrogantly recommended the "benign" influence brought by Germans to the New World. The Indians would be able to withstand the lure of "Yankee" materialism and pursue the path of righteousness. As this thesis points out, there is a correlation between Karl May's biography and his compassion for a wronged people such as the Native Americans. This study analyzes Karl May's thoughts on the "Indian question" and his emphasis on the role of change.

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This thesis observes the various representations of the Amerindian in Quebec literature between 1855 and 1875. Those twenty years are set as a sample both sufficiently rich and narrowly delimited as to permit a synchronic analysis. / The analysis itself is a close inspection of a large quantity of poetry and fiction read in search of pan-textual recurrences. Constant features found as such are presented in a quasi-index of characteristics and quasi-characters-like figures, both seen as cliche, or topoi, and both linked to various imaginary constructs about cruelty, fear and security, forestry, religion, womanhood, alcoholism, etc. The poetics constraints in which those figures take place are considered: for example, what role may or may not play an Amerindian character in a narrative? Also analysed are underlying micro-narratives, particularly those linked to progress and decay. / The whole is not a unified system which would account for every possibility; it may instead be conceptualized as series of trends which may or may not combine or clash. / Those cliches are read as signs of larger and collective questionings, most notably about Quebec's self-image.

Karl May is considered Germany's most published author of popular literature. His influence on generations of German youth cannot be overlooked. Winnetou is one of his major works and depicts the adventures of Old Shatterhand, the German immigrant, and his Blood Brother, the Apache Winnetou. Generations of children grew up reading their adventures and escaping in their imaginations to battle unsavoury Yankees as well as hostile tribes. / May's descriptions of the First Nations of North America have aided in skewing the perception of the North American First Nations in Germany. This thesis aims to work with some of these misperceptions and explain how they came to be. Through the use of Edward Said's theory, Orientalism, which will be applied to Winnetou I-III, this thesis attempts to interpret the role of the European and the non-European, or the Other, within the context of the story. The power structure between the European and the non-European will be one of the main focuses. May's use of the Bible as the perceived 'right' way of dealing with situations and people in comparison to the Apache or Yankee way is an obvious exertion of European thought and control over the non-European way of life. / Winnetou is situated in a unique role in the power struggle between the European and the non-European. He is often seen as having mentalities and beliefs that come across as more European than non-European, and therefore places him in a unique situation, that of a Noble Savage, not a 'red devil'. It is exactly this perception of North American First Nations, that has survived many generations and still lends credit to Winnetou being called an 'apple Indian', red on the outside, white on the inside.

The commitment to community shared by Native American authors such as N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, and Louise Erdrich is partially evinced by each author's readiness to inscribe in novel form the values and traditions of the tribal community or communities with which he/she is closely associated. Many students of the novel will attest to its pliant, sometimes transmutable nature; nevertheless, as this study attempts to make clear, there are some reasons why Native American authors should reconsider using the novel as a means to express their tribal communities' values and traditions. Unambivalent prescriptions, however, seem more suited to the requirements of law or medicine; and so this study also examines some of the reasons why Native American authors should continue to embrace this relatively "new" art form persistently termed the novel.