Rachelq Harman ENGL 484: American Indian Literature Jan Johnson Comparing Existential Elements in "The Stranger" to "Winter

in the Blood:" Absurdism as a Coping Mechanism for Historical Trauma Since Christopher Columbus alleged discovery of America in 1492, American Indians have been subjugated primarily through their incessant relocation across a landscape that quickly devolved from respected and accessible to overrun by strangers oblivious to tradition and unwilling to cooperate. In the half a century that followed, Native Peoples throughout the Americas had their land, culture, and very lives taken by a foreign culture as white settlers gradually took over sacred lands, outlawing traditional customs and uprooting Native tribes from their ancestral homelands. Indians have coped with this trauma through poetry, prose, and performance, utilizing not only anger and outrage but humor as well; however, in his 1974 novel Winter in the Blood, celebrated author James Welch took a drastically different approach. Following in the footsteps of absurdist French author Albert Camus, Welch created a narrative equally compelling and absurd that addresses both personal anguish and historical trauma by expanding Camus methods and creating character full not only with existential anguish at his place in the world, but with a rational backstory and a hopeful, rather than apathetic, catharsis. Albert Camus 1946 novel The Stranger has become a textbook example of existential literature and absurdist philosophy. The narrator, a Monsieur Meursault, lives a seemingly ordinary life from which he feels extremely disconnected. From the first page, when the reader and narrator simultaneously learn of his mothers death, it is

apparent that Meursault feels no real attachment to any aspect of his life and in fact states all that was pretty futile (52). He enters into a relationship and later an engagement with a girl whom he does not love, and eventually ends up shooting an Arab on the beach for no discernable reason other than his own personal (and temporary) discomfort. As he sits in jail, Meursault tells his lawyer that of recent years, Id rather lost the habit of noting my feelings (80) and is eventually condemned to death; however, he finds comfort in the idea that its common knowledge that life isnt worth living anyway (142). As the text progresses, the narrator becomes increasingly removed, both physically and mentally, from the real world yet finds comfort in this solitude when he is able to release his feelings through a great rush of anger [which] washed me clean, emptied me of hope and enables him to[lay] my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe (154). In an early analysis of Camus text, Victor Brombert writes "the stranger then, is man facing the world, man realizing the gap between the eternal nature of the universe and his own finite nature, and perceiving how much his worries are out of proportion with the futility of all his efforts. Even worse, man is not only a stranger facing the world, but a stranger also in relation to himself (120). This evaluation is a decidedly simplified take on Meursaults condition and eventual revelation; even though he is forced to come to terms with his relative insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe, he is able to accept it and asserts that a crowd to acknowledge his execution is all he requires to verify his existence and thereby obtain happiness. Meursaults ability to come to terms with his predicament fits perfectly with Robert C. Solomons assertion that existentialism is not a philosophy that allows us to

feel sorry for ourselves in the midst of our malaise. It is a philosophy with which we can come to grips with these terrible times and actually change them. Similarly, Welchs unnamed narrator must face the same journey to find meaning in Winter in the Blood. The story is told from the perspective of a man lacking both in personal identity and ties to the real world. However, while the tone, style, and emotional outlook of the writing and the narration are incredibly similar in both works, the eventual catharses are vastly different. Unlike Camus, Welch makes the root of his narrators isolation and helplessness exceedingly clear, and works for, rather than against growth, leading to an escape from the narrators overwhelmingly existential mindset. Causality differentiates the basic philosophies of The Stranger and Winter in the Blood. While almost no rationale is given for Meursaults actions or reactions in his story, Welchs narrator has a rich background,. Both narrators are filled with apathy and existential angst because of their absurd lives; however, no matter how similar their methods of handling their situations may be, they end up in completely different mindsets. Meursault starts out a free man with a good life and is only able to find peace when he accepts his own insignificance as an incarcerated murderer. Conversely, Welchs narrator begins the novel at a personal low, hungover in a ditch, and grows toward personal peace as he starts making the effort to find value in himself and his heritage. From the first chapter on, the narrator is very blunt in his assertion that for no reason, I felt no hatred, no love, no guilt, no conscience, nothing but a distance that had grown throughout the years (2). This disconnect is emphasized and magnified as the story progresses. As he travels from town to town in search of the Cree Indian woman his

family believes to be his bride, he is looking not for the unnamed woman but for his possessions. This apathetic disinterest, coupled with his multiple sexual encounters with strange women, comparable to Meursaults unenthusiastic engagement to Marie, shows the lack of value he assigns to personal relationships. After one particularly unsatisfying and unfulfilling assignation, he remarks I was staring at the sobbing woman with the same lack of emotion, the same curiosity, as though I were watching a bug floating motionless down an irrigation ditch, not dead but having decided on death (99). The narrators in both stories display a clear disconnect from their families and acquaintances. However, Welchs narrators distance from other humans is not merely a reflection of his personality. As a Native American growing up on a reservation devoid of fish and Blackfoot culture, raised by a mother who passed over Indian religion for Catholicism and drank with the priest (4), It becomes clear that the narrators separation can be attributed to a disconnect from his heritage so closely tied to a land no longer used traditionally or respectfully. As Sean Teuton argues in his article Placing the Ancestors, Welch attaches the narrator's alienation from his maternal line to his alienation from the land itself, land that is both milky and thus fertile yet somehow burnt and inert. The narrator blames the land itself for the distance among his people and within himself: a cruel and unforgiving land has forced its people to be like it. For the majority of the novel, the narrator does not know his lineage, and loses both his brother and his father to horrific accidents. Because of this, he feels uncertain of his position in the world, leading the to same sense of existential horror demonstrated so candidly by Camus Meursault.

As Andrew Horton discusses in his essay The Bitter Humor of Winter in the Blood, the narrator is a man trapped in the middle of two worlds, unsuccessfully trying to reconcile them. Because of this, he must pay the psychological and spiritual price for existing between extremes. He is his own man discontent with his present, haunted by his past (the death of his brother in particular), and uncertain of his future (132). The narrators attempts to resolve the absolutes he is surrounded by, defined by Horton as life and death, past and present, winter and summer, Indian and white cultures, the nature of men and women, sex and love, self and others, leave him feeling not only confused but isolated. It is this isolation that leads the narrator to an existential mindset, defined by Solomon as a realization of the meaninglessness of human life, and the anxiety [it] provokes. The reader sees this mindset manifest itself in a dull acceptance of otherwise remarkable tragedies like the loss of his possessions, the sudden death of a fellow diner at a caf, or the multiple altercations he enters into at various bars. Still, as Solomon argues, it is in the face of such anxiety that one needs the courage to make meanings, to be oneself, and eventually the narrator, like Meursault, is able to find purpose in his actions. However, unlike Meursault, Welchs narrator is able to come to a hopeful, rather than simply indifferent, conclusion. After discovering the true identity of his grandfather and absolving his elderly horse of the burden placed upon him by the white men who broke him decades ago, the narrator is able to start the process of reconnecting with his roots. His life, both on the Reservation and in the surrounding towns, has become so far removed from any Blackfoot traditions that he no longer feels like he has a purpose. The series of revelations he achieves in the final chapters, culminating with his placement of his grandmothers tobacco pouch in her grave,

represent his choice not to simply accept his fate as an insignificant being in the universe, as Meursault does in The Stranger, but to move beyond his role as mediator of between extremes. It is this deliberate step toward personal growth, coupled with his decision to next time do it right. Buy her a couple of crmes de menthes, maybe offer to marry her on the spot (138) for the girl who stole his possessions, that sets Welchs narrator apart from the existential anti-hero of Camus narrative. The search for purpose and meaning in ones actions is a driving force in individuals from any number of cultural and material backgrounds, and the narrators of both Winter in the Blood and The Stranger both seek to find the same assurance of courageous worth below the surfaces of two vastly different lives. However, where Camus simply paints a picture of a man struggling with internal crisis, Welch shows his readers not only the results of, but also the reasons for his narrators troubles. Historical trauma has been and will remain an overwhelming issue in Native American culture, but through the story of an unnamed man from Montana, James Welch offers both a potential reaction and a possible solution. Because of his choice to utilize elements of existential and absurdist theory, Winter in the Blood adds depth and explanation, resulting in a powerful narrative not only about the bizarre insignificance of human life, but about how to combat it.

Works Cited Brombert, Victor. "Camus and the Novel of the "Absurd"." Yale French Studies. Vol. 1, Existentialism (1948): 119-23. Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1955. Horton, Andrew. The Bitter Humor of "Winter in the Blood."American Indian Quarterly , Vol. 4, No. 2, A Special Symposium Issue on James Welch's "Winter in the Blood" (May, 1978):131-139 Solomon, Robert C. "Pessimism Vs. Existentialism." Chronicle Of Higher Education 53.21 (2007): B5. Religion and Philosophy Collection. Teuton, Sean. "Placing The Ancestors: Postmodernism, 'Realism' And American Identity In James Welch's Winter In The Blood." American Indian Quarterly 25.4 (2001): 626-650.MLA International Bibliography. Welch, James. Winter in the Blood. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2008.