Counter-History: Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise and Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard

Abstract

As early as the start of creation, humans began to express their presence in history by painting their symbols on cave walls, scratching their marks into clay, and composing epics. Native Americans and African Americans find themselves out of context, out of history, and cut off from their cultural roots and traditions. Counter-history enables marginalised origins to narrate their own history, as opposed to the past recorded by others. This is the first study that combines Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise and Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard under the general umbrella of postcolonialism. The current paper investigates counter-history in Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise and Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard in light of Michel Foucault. The study applies the counter-history to the poems mentioned above. In addition, it is essential to the first application of counter-history to the chosen texts. The examination’s methodological tools consist of a textual analysis of the chosen texts supported by Foucault’s conceptual framework’s assumptions. The paper concluded that each of the two poets created a counter-history in their aforementioned poems. In contrast to what is presented in the history recorded by outsiders about their people, both poets highlighted the attractive qualities of their people.