A dialogic quest for identity: Coming to terms with the present through the past in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac Of The Dead and Gardens In The Dunes.

This study investigates Native Americans' quest for identity in two of Leslie Marmon Silko's novels, Almanac of the Dead (1991) and Gardens in the Dunes (1999). The cultural coexistence of white Americans and Native Americans leads to an awareness that the world is not the same in which Native Americans used to live. The changing world which is depicted as a consequence of the appearance of white Americans in both novels constructs one of the central themes of Almanac and Gardens. With the appearance of white Americans, Native Americans try to adjust to the changing world, in other words, the co-existence of the two cultures brings the question of identity. This thesis provides a comparative examination of the two novels in which the protagonists try to come to terms with their present through the past, since the past plays a significant role in the life of Native Americans who endeavor to adjust to the changing world. The analysis will be conducted in the light of M. M. Bakhtin's theory of dialogism, which is based on the discourse in novels. Bakhtin's theory defines the system of languages to point out the ideological centre in a novel, and the aim of this study is to underline the difference between the two cultures through their utterances.