『大草原の小さな家』におけるネイティブ・アメリカン表象

Abstract

The representation of Native Americans in Little House on the Prairie is far from simplistic. While reactions of characters in the novel to Native Americans have a wide diversity from strong hatred to empathy, images of Native Americana are also varied, from wild men to noble savages. Many of the disputes on the evaluation of this novel seem to result from this complexity, each building their discussion on different aspects of images represented in the work. In this article, we will re-examine the representation of Native Americans in this novel and try to trace back its complexity to the author's mixture of intentions as well as the complexity in the minds of frontier women at the time of the drama of Little House on the Prairie.