Living in colliding worlds: Exploring cultural tensions in "Three Day Road" and "Monkey Beach".

The most dramatic effect of the colonization process is that the colonized are forced to occupy multiple conflicting spaces. Since Aboriginal peoples are caught between traditional viewpoints and mainstream European thought, they struggle to find a space where they can negotiate their identity. Both Three Day Road and Monkey Beach depict the windigo and sasquatch / b'gwus living in what Homi K. Bhabha refers to as a liminal space' ..., and illustrate how both the windigo and sasquatch / b'gwus are caught between the cultural understandings of both European descendants and Aboriginal peoples. By illuminating the roles of windigo and sasquatch/b'gwus in both contemporary literature by Aboriginal writers and Aboriginal oral tradition, my thesis reflects my struggles with the tensions between Eurocentric concepts of knowledge, culture, and values of spirituality and diverse Aboriginal worldviews. --P. iii.