The Healing Promise of Adoptions: Revisiting a Foundational American Myth through News of the World

Authors : Elizabeth Joan ABELE

Pages : 3-26

View : 8 | Download : 5

Publication Date : 2021-05-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The 2020 release of News of the World, adapted by Paul Greengrass, returns to the American cultural trope of white-Indian adoption to the big screen. These adoption narratives, in film and literature, offer the promise of healing, though the adoption more often benefits the white community and adoptive parents over the Indian community and child. While these texts may acknowledge the decline of a particular Indian tribe, they generally celebrate how the individuals and the community may be stronger by remembering what has been lost, through the new family connections. This essay examines this recent film in the context of this Hollywood and literary tradition – looking particularly at the novels The Bean Trees insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(1988); and Pigs in Heaven insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(1993); by Barbara Kingsolver and Indian Killer insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(1996); and Flight insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(2007); by Sherman Alexie.
Keywords : adoption, American Indian, trauma, film, contemporary literature