Trickster Lives

Culture and Myth in American Fiction

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Edited by Jeanne Campbell Reesman

University of Georgia Press

Due/Published February 2001, 272 pages, paper

ISBN 0820322776

A shaping force in American literature, the trickster has appeared in such characters as Huckleberry Finn, Rinehart, Sula, and Nanapush. Usually a figure both culturally specific and transcendent, trickster leads the way to the unconscious, the concealed, and the seemingly unattainable. Trickster Lives offers thirteen new and challenging interpretations of trickster in American writing, including essays on works by African American, Native American, Pacific Rim, and Latino writers, as well as an examination of trickster politics.

Contents

Introduction
Native American Tricksters: Literary Figuras of Community Transformers--William G. Doty
Kamapua'a: A Hawaiian Trickster--Nancy Alpert Mower
Brer Rabbit and His Cherokee Cousin: Moving Beyond Appropriation--Sandra K. Baringer
Deadpan Trickster: The American Humor of Huckleberry Finn--Sacvan Bercovitch
The Trickster God in "Roughing It"--Lawrence I. Berkove
John, Brer Rabbit, and Babo: The Trickster and Cultural Power in Melville and Joel Chandler Harris--R. Bruce Bickley Jr.
Tricksters and Shamans in Jack London's Short Stories--Gail Jones
Daring the Free Fall: Sula as Lilith--Debbie Lopez
The Trickster Metaphysics of Thylias Moss--Jay Winston
"Stop Making Sense": Trickster Variations in the Fiction of Louise Erdrich--Claudia Gutwirth
Turning Tricks: Trafficking in the Figure of the Latino--Maria DeGuzman
Where Are the Women Tricksters?--Lewis Hyde
Constitutional Allegory and Affirmative Action Babies: Stephen Carter's Talk of "Dissent"--Houston A. Baker Jr.
Selected Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index