Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Ojibwe Mimesis in Louise Erdrich’s “The Stone” : Indigenizing the “Unnatural” in Narratology, Normalizing the “Natural” in Indigenous Narrative

Published inEuropean journal of American studies, vol. 21, no. 1, no. Indigenizing the Normal, Normalizing the Indigenous : Native American Literature, Art, and Activism
First online date2026-04-07
Abstract

Theorizing of “unnatural” narrative is a recent development in narratology that betrays significant Euro-American cultural bias. Narratives that are categorized as “unnatural” violate the physical, logical, and cognitive principles (both what “is” and what is “possible”) that define narratives promoting anthropocentric perceptions of the “real” world. This world, reproduced in “natural” narratives, is based on conceptions of personhood and characterization, time, space, and narration that are contradicted by Ojibwe understandings of nature and the decentralized role of humans within it. Louise Erdrich’s short story “The Stone” exemplifies the differences between Ojibwe and non-Indigenous approaches to literary worldbuilding or mimesis. In this essay, I argue that Erdrich uses “unnatural” elements of Indigenous and specifically Ojibwe narratives that violate the defining norms of non-Indigenous understandings of “the natural.” Through the attribution of sentience to the eponymous stone and the construction of it as an other-than-human narrative focalizer, grounded in Anishinaabe origin myths, Erdrich’s story works to normalize Ojibwe conceptions of the natural while presenting an opportunity to rethink the project of unnatural narratology through an indigenizing lens.

Keywords
  • Narratology
  • Narrative theory
  • Mimesis
  • Anishinaabe
  • Ojibwe
  • Decolonization
  • Louise Erdrich
  • Onto-epistemology
Citation (ISO format)
MADSEN, Deborah Lea. Ojibwe Mimesis in Louise Erdrich’s “The Stone” : Indigenizing the “Unnatural” in Narratology, Normalizing the “Natural” in Indigenous Narrative. In: European journal of American studies, 2026, vol. 21, n° 1. doi: 10.4000/166g4
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
Identifiers
Additional URL for this publicationhttps://journals.openedition.org/ejas/25869
Journal ISSN1991-9336
6views
7downloads

Technical informations

Creation06/05/2026 18:01:27
First validation12/05/2026 06:35:21
Update12/05/2026 06:35:21
Status update12/05/2026 06:35:21
Last indexation12/05/2026 06:35:22
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack