Liminality, border zones, and fractured identities: a postcolonial study of N. Scott Momaday’s Three Plays

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research work scrutinises the liminality, borders, and the concept of frontier in the lives of Native American dislocated people, the deterioration of their culture in the process of the westward expansion of America, and the ruthless experience of their detachment from roots through N. Scott Momaday’s Three Plays (2007). The study uses the postcolonial lens of liminality and Communitas given by Van Gennep and expanded by Victor Turner, and it is further facilitated by Mary Louise Pratt’s study of contact zones, what Anderson calls imagined communities, and Louis Owens’ concept of frontier, which he defines as multicultural space, but becomes a static space in terms of Natives, and what Homi K. Bhabha recalls as third space in spatial terms and hybrid in terms of identity. The ever-changing construction of ‘Others’ in Harriet Bradley’s words is called polarised or fractured identities, the concepts which were used to define and redefine Native people. This research unfolds Native Americans’ social and communal setup where cultural memories of the past are faded away. Finally, it concludes that by providing marginalised spaces through liminality and border zones, Native Americans’ identities are shattered, and they are limited to non-human objects.